3 days enough for a cinematic?

#1

Hi,

I’m new to the forum, and look forward to joining the community, and possibly take part in some challenges. But in the mean while, I have a question to ask, is 3 days long enough to create a fully rendered cinematic from scratch? (Models, textures, lighting)

If so what is an efficient way to model, unwrap, texture, light, rig, animate, and then finally compile into a single file?

I have a technical test coming up and was wondering if 3 days is enough to complete such a task.

My strength lies in rigging mainly, I’m a bit slow at modeling, unwrapping, and texturing.

Any suggestions?

Edit: Not sure why my second post isn’t showing up so I guess I have to edit my first post.

First off, I actually already underwent the test before posting this thread, I was trying to gauge if it was possible to do a scene in 3 days because the test duration was 3 days, and as such, I was not able to finish.

I was planning on adding as much detail as I could, but I should have known better that it would not have been enough time for me to do such, I guess this is where experience comes in.

Anyway thank you for the replies, they were helpful and will help me in the future.

If anything it was a good learning experience for me.

/Edit

#2

Sounds way too short to me.

#3

Yes if cinematic is on the level of lets say Lego Star Wars.

#4

Without even knowing how long it will be and how many people will work on it. I’d say 3 days is pretty damn short.

#5

I’d say
you’re screwed! :twisted:

Any suggestions?

Come up with a good – REALLY good! – excuse for not having finished the task in time? :shrug:

SCNR!

#6

No.

I should clarify: You have given no information regarding the complexity of your scene. How many models? How long is the sequence? How many sets? Character modeling? Lip-sync? Cloth, fx, or fluids? Sound & editing?

Your question is like asking “Can I build a rocket in 3 days?” Well, you probably could, but it would be very simple. Same here. A ball rolling around a surface? Sure. Human characters on horseback jousting in front of a castle? Not so much.

#7

Short answer, no. It’s not enough time.

Say you make something simple. One character, one setting. 10 sec of animation. The way to plan it, is to do it backwards.

Lets estimate the render time.

24 fps minimum. So for ten seconds, 240 frames. Count on rendering it maybe three times to allow for render errors, animation mistakes, frames that take a little longer than expected. So around 720 frames. Lets aim for some quick renders. 5 min a frame or 12 frames an hour on one computer. That is already close to 60 hours. Lets say you’ve got ten computers at your, or you 've managed to get the render times lower, so it’s more like 6-12 hours. Plus some comping and color correction. That is one whole intense day.

Lighting, shading, props and setting. Lets assume the lighting is just a simple fill, direct and rim light setup. Lets say your character is in a simple room, the objects and backround props are simple too. That is at least one day. And in one day it’s not going to be great.

Animating your character. Assming it’s been nicely rigged and weights are painted properly. Decent quality animation will require 8-9 hours for a pretty skilled animator to get 5 seconds final quality. That is ambitious. For a student, double that. So for ten seconds 4 days.

Youd really need to do a rough animatic first. Including storyboards, a rough edit, 10 seconds would yield probably 4-5 shots, with nice camera angles or moves for each. At least a day to set this up properly.

Rigging. At least a day.

Texturing and uv mapping, half a day if you are good, double for a student. So one day.

Modeling, depending on complexity, lets aim for simple humanoid. A day.

Character design and script, a day.

So we are at ten days for one person to make a really simple really rushed and ambitious 10 sec animatic. If it were 3 skilled generalists, i would say it could be done in no less than 5 days.

Not trying to be harsh, but this is how you have to plan a project bid, work backwards and include as much buffer time as you can allow for, in order to get it done, and on time.

Hope it helps.

  • chris
#8

LEGO Star Wars on the original Gameboy that is.

#9

:smiley:
Well my xbox version is not so demanding either.

#10

Thanks for the reply everyone, so I wasn’t the only one who thought that it was an unreasonable request.

Actually I already underwent the test and needless to say, failed. I was just gauging if 3 days really was long enough. I’m glad that even a really skilled 3D generalist would need more time. Given that it was a technical test I figured I’d try to get it to look as good as possible since there were most likely other candidates. In the 3 days time, I only got to modeling, unwrapping, and texturing the environment. On the 3rd day, at about 8am in the morning, I realized I would not be able to finish, and just sent the studio renders of my scene.

At the end of the test I was wondering if they were setting me up to fail, or they didn’t know any better because it seemed like their standard technical test.

Anyway thanks for the advice csmallfield, I will take this into account for the next test I do.

#11

Yes it is possible in three Days but only if it is done by the SPARTANS.

Cheers

#12

Realistically you’ll have a few months, as I do believe exam / assignment resits aren’t scheduled until the summer.

#13

3 days enough for a cinematic?

ummm… NO!

Ive been working on a music video in my spare time, been a year and im still not done. Im working on a 30 sec game cinematic, and it’s taken us 1.5 months with a crew of around 20. And we all have a far amount of experiance.

#14

The answer in every possible scenario is NO.

#15

You now have only 2 days left…

#16

Is it possible to create a cinematic CG trailer in three days, well yes, sure it is. But as others have said this answer highly depends on the requirements of the trailer.

#17

I think it is if you make it really simple so you can demonstrate you know each part, a bouncing beach ball or a tire or something would be ideal, logo animation, maybe a very simple Rube Goldberg machine. Reuse the models and you can add visual complexity. You can do rigging in the squash and stretch, animation, shading, lighting, rendering and texture painting. I would aim to have most of it done in the first day leaving two days to do animation and make sure it renders FAST on a GPU or something, if you never did those before good luck it will be very difficult to learn and get it done at the same time (follow a tutorial)

#18

Going along those lines… Something like “Luxo, Jr.” with a length of 60 seconds can be done today in 60 minutes.

Faster if you do not use Ray Tracing.

#19

Would be a fun challenge :smiley:

#20

You should get those NMA guys who do the insane korean news animations, I think they could do something amazing with that kind of schedule, in their style of course. :wink: