Terrence walker : Anime genesis video podcast.

[Flog]

dude, I was going to post this one.

LOL.

Take a look guys. This is for you who say a CG movie can't be done. This guy did his CG 20 minute movie in 1 1/2 month.

Now he is going to be showing you how.

[ParamountCell]

dude, I was going to post this one.

LOL.

Take a look guys. This is for you who say a CG movie can't be done. This guy did his CG 20 minute movie in 1 1/2 month.

Now he is going to be showing you how.

The anime concept to reality was a great tool, visiting terrences blog also helped me out allot!

[Dennik]

Art takes time.
1 guy + Short production time = Bad quality.
I still admire what he is doing, and he sure is talented. I'm just not as impressed.

[ParamountCell]

Art takes time.
1 guy + Short production time = Bad quality.
I still admire what he is doing, and he sure is talented. I'm just not as impressed.

Well one thing I can say about T is this, the man knows his stuff, Whilst art can sometimes take time, he always seems to find a way to produce work efficiently, Understanding Chaos, and Shadowskin have been such an inspiration to me. In my opinion as the images below show, his work is far from bad quality.

http://studioartfx.com/webpage6/Gallery%20Mind_files/MindAnime02.jpg
http://studioartfx.com/webpage6/Gallery%20Mind_files/MindReset01.jpg

[Flog]

Art takes time.
1 guy + Short production time = Bad quality.
I still admire what he is doing, and he sure is talented. I'm just not as impressed.

Not necessarily, some of the greatest songs were made in a matter of minutes.
Some of the greatest stories unfolded in hours and weeks.
Terrence did a great job on his animation, now had he had taken longer it may have been better looking but he also probably would not have even finished it. It was good quality, not up to Pixar level but it did match many anime series.


Speed is important as well. That is why you don't see many CG artists actually finish anything other than a still picture.

I think Terrence really wants to tell stories and actually finish telling the story. That is an art in itself.

Perfectionism in art only gets you a ton of incomplete works. Never finishing anything. That's why you see very few CG shorts but then you go to Flash cartoons where people are just having fun telling stories and you get a ton of great works out there. They may not be as beautiful but they sure are fun.

Terrence may not be going strictly for arts sake, but to have fun and tell stories.

For what he is doing his art is sufficient and fun to watch.

Art should not take so long because then you lose the focus over a period of time. I mean if you want to work on 1 peice forever thats cool, my thing is to have fun.

[Nemoid]

Terrence work is very good !

Its also interesting that he uses that Nomad + mirage pro tablet PC for part of his work. do anyone used this ? i never heard about it before, but i admit my lack of infos about tablet PCs.

[Flog]

bumpin and grinding

I think this should be posted on youtube as well.

[cresshead]

excellent find..thank's for sharing!

[My Fault]

Great post. Terrence is a true workhorse! Kudos to him for the amazing amount of work he has produced and that he is so willing to share how he went about it.

[robcat2075]

I like the look of his stuff. The pacing makes it hard to sit through though.

[Flog]

Here is what is cool about Terrence's work

He created 2 short movies both around 20 minutes long. He finished both of them. Yes finished 2 20 minute shorts, and it took him about 1 1/2 months for the first one and about 3 months I believe on the other one.

That's a feat in itself with so many artists making a 12 minute cg film and working years on it. We love them doing it and can't wait to see it, but Terrence does show it is possible to make a film of good quality and it doesn't take 4 years to do it. Making it a feasible task to make your movie.

Another thing is that he marketted, got a distributor and got it into the stores such as Best Buy, Fry's and other video stores, now being sold off Amazon.com.

He made some extra cash doing this.

Now this goes to show what is possible for us. So keep an eye on his sight. He breaks many of the rules in way of time spent and he is somewhat accomplished, including a job in CG.

Please keep an eye on his sight :)

[Dennik]

Well personally i'm more inspired by artists who spend more time with their art and films, like for example

Weihua (http://forums.cgsociety.org/member.php?u=39861)
Sormann3D (http://forums.cgsociety.org/member.php?u=2664)
and Andy Murdock (http://www.lotsofrobots.com/)

to name a few. But thats just me.

[Flog]

No doubt. I really appreciate that as well. It's some really good artwork that is inspiring.

The differance I see Terrence and maybe this artist is TV broadcast vs Theatre Viewing.

I appreciate, enjoy and love films that took time and effort to make such as Incredibles, Toy Story, Finding Nemo etc. They are inspiring, fun and beautiful.

In the same token though I appreciate and love my television series Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, Samurai Jack, Dexter's Lab, Naruto, Teen Titan's, etc which were done in 1/100th of the time.

Yes the quality is differant but each inspiring in it's own way. Not to also say the quality is bad on the TV shows either. I rather enjoy Foster's quality and Samurai Jack had an awesome art style.

Just differant goals for each, one for ticket sales the other has to come out weekly.

Problem is if it took that long to make a tv series we'd never have anything new on TV either.

So I appreciate both and can take inspiration from both.

[CourtJester]

Not necessarily, some of the greatest songs were made in a matter of minutes.
Some of the greatest stories unfolded in hours and weeks.
Terrence did a great job on his animation, now had he had taken longer it may have been better looking but he also probably would not have even finished it. It was good quality, not up to Pixar level but it did match many anime series.

Absolutely. Not all artistic ends require "Pixar-level" means.

Does anybody remember the Fisher-Price video cam (http://www.deadmedia.org/notes/35/357.html)? A paragon of high-definition, that wasn't...

[ArtisticVisions]

I highly admire Terrence and his work: he was one of the individuals responsible for getting me interested in CG and he has accomplished what I can only dream of (for the time being, that is... ;) ).
Having said that, there are times when I truly wish that he would stick to one project and finishing it from start to end. Since 2001 he has produced 2 short films and one graphic novel, all the while coming up with many other projects, but never seeing them to completion - I counted 5 or 6 various concepts/projects/ideas over the last 2 years and the last major project he intended to finish, Danial: Visions and Dreams, has not been completed (to my knowledge, anyways).

Still, I look forward in anticipation to watching this new series of Terrence's; it looks like it should be very interesting.

He created 2 short movies both around 20 minutes long. He finished both of them. Yes finished 2 20 minute shorts, and it took him about 1 1/2 months for the first one and about 3 months I believe on the other one.
Actually, Understanding Chaos was about 8 minutes long, not 20 minutes (although Shadowskin was about 20-25 minutes long)

Another thing is that he marketted, got a distributor and got it into the stores such as Best Buy, Fry's and other video stores, now being sold off Amazon.com.

He made some extra cash doing this.
Honestly, I think it's Tokyopop (the distributor who bought the rights to his short films and to World of Hartz, his graphic novel) who are the ones who are making money; he might've made some money at the beginning by selling the rights of those preperties to them, but I highly doubt he's still getting paid for them.

[cresshead]

i've just placed an order for his dvd on amazon...should be here in a week or so [from usa]

as for making money...if he's on a simlar contract to my boss who writes books [ i illustrate them in 3d]
he get a upfront payment to do a book and also a percentage on those sold once it's in print.

[ParamountCell]

he has a new episode online if you are interested.

http://studioartfx.com/webpage6/ANIGEN/D203092E-04DB-415A-AC9D-85BA043B3100.html

[switchblade327]

The music comparison isn't accurate because most REAL songs (not overproduced, formulaic pop crap) are written by 1-2 people. It's not the time invested but the talent of their creators. Songwriting is ONE skill. Film/tv animation on the other hand, is done by bigger teams with individuals of MANY, varied skills.

[QUOTE=Flog]Here is what is cool about Terrence's work

He created 2 short movies both around 20 minutes long. He finished both of them. Yes finished 2 20 minute shorts, and it took him about 1 1/2 months for the first one and about 3 months I believe on the other one./QUOTE]

I totally agree here and for that, he's incredibly inspiring and has managed to do what few here could; actually finish projects of this scope in a reasonable amount of time. But it raises the question: other then bragging rights, why would you want to?

He's clearly very talented and more importantly, extremely self-motivated. But just like the also talented Tim Albee, his work proves that no man is an island; nobody (or very few anybodies) is going to be great or even all that good at *every* aspect of film production.

As a result, one or more aspects, be it lighting/rendering/animation, modeling, storytelling, cinematography, etc ALWAYS suffers in projects like these. Maybe I could animate a whole short in handcuffs while starving myself and that would be a great "making of" story but the short probably wouldn't be so great when finished. It's inspiring to us in interested in CG prodcution but to the general, media-consuming public, the means do not justify the ends. Quality is quality.

What I find most exciting is that this gives more hope not to individuals, but to small teams of specialists. If Terrance and Tim can do this quality of work on their own, imagine what it would look like from a team of 6-10 individuals who each kick ass at *one* discipline of CG production.

[Flog]

Here is the thing though as I like their approach.

Sometimes seeking perfection and Pixar quality leads to doing actually nothing. Nothing finished or abandone projects.

What would be great is a team of 6-8 folks getting together for a commercial project but very few people are willing to invest in those collabs, leaving a lot of one man for themselves type approach. It's easier to start a music band than to get a collaber on a project.

Why would Terrence want to make it so fast? To get it done and work on other stories, at the same time be able to tell stories. Or even make a commercial series.

I think that is where the heart of the matter is. Wanting to tell his stories, he probably has a lot of them. I'm a storyteller at heart, not a modeller, animator, lighter or rigger, but a story teller. My main goal is to tell a story, but if I take to long on Pixar quality, I will never get around to telling that story, which again is the most important thing I want to do.

Again it would be nice to see a team do all these tricks together and at a steady speed like these guys did.

I've seen teams do things like this quickly, but then there are those who take 6 months to model a head to perfection.

What would really be cool is get a maste in each category who aslo has the speed and pace of Timothy Albee and Terrence.

That would be awesome.

[P_T]

He's smart in choosing toon format. That probably shaved quite a few hours from setting up shaders and making textures and other shortcuts. Plus the could be recycled for future projects.

...and He speaks good Japanese as well!! :applause:

[ParamountCell]

One thing I admire about terrence is the time management, I remember him saying that he worked on some of his projects on evenings and weekends, and managed to complete them withing a month. Now, I can see that the ability to look at a situation and make decisions on what needs to be done to reach a deadline is pretty handy dicipline.

[KenyattaNiles]

I was searching video podcasts and I came upon this thread.

From a business/commercial standpoint (and I'm don't have an MBA) I think what Terrance is doing is great. He was able to get his projects completed really quick. When I think of what Terrance is doing I think of the comparison between a major studio putting up millions behind production, A-list actors, marketing and world wide distribution to the the porn industry producing x-amount of films within a month. The Hollywood movie system is worrying if they're going to break even while the porn movie industry is dealing with strictly profit. Ok, I don't have stats and figures to quote.
Another parallel would be the comic book industry. The U.S market pales in comparison to the Asian market overseas. Between Marvel and D.C they're conjuring up ways to reinvent Spiderman, Superman, Batman and the X-Men while manga flourishes in so many genres. I do appreciate when some one takes the time to creat one beautiful panel or maybe even two, but deadlines must be met. Imagine if a title like BattleChasers were finished. A lot of the Toyko Pop, Manga books are in black and white AND still aesthetically interesting and pleasing. Well I see a bunch of kids in the Barnes and Nobles book stores reading manga titles. The drawings are some times crude-assembly line art but so what, kids appear to appreciate it. I think they push their stories in their manga books as opposed to highly detailed drawings.

I also agree with the fact that some work that is not necessarily delicately manicured can still be fun to watch. Yeah, Once Upon A Time in Mexico was lacking a story worthy of being published in the New Yorker magazine, but it was great escapism. Bad example, that movie was not that good but I think I've made the point.

There's nothing more satisfying than completing a project. Yeah you appreciate the journey just as any artisan does but your audience will probably never know, appreciate or care about the nuances in lighting, composition, textures, etc., etc., blah, blah, yadda, yadda, yadda. South Park gets straight to the story. One episode of that can take a month with a crew of 1,2-10 people with modern technology. You know, cheap video camera, paper, scissors and maybe a dual-processor 64-bit AMD workstation with 3GB of ram.

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