Kirt where are you? It can be a good thing to have a schedule or a template for the way the production should go…So we will have some directions!
Need your input! Like I said in the Alien 2 post. I still on for the music and the vocals. PM me if you like. I eager to talk to you about that!:bounce:
Hey guys,
I think Kirt’s taken time out to bring up his baby, but i’m sure the project is still on, its just been put on hold for a bit.
Cheers, Phil
hey guys, i just started browsing the collaborative projects section the other day and came across this project. if you guys need/want any help, i’ll give what time i have. pretty busy with work but i could probably get a decent model out each week. i’m probably best at modeling (since thats what i do at work all day) but could try my hand at animation as well. i use maya 5 and max 5/6. i have maya 4.5 but have long since uninstalled it. i’m up for just about anything actually. i can do dynamics, texturing, modeling, animation and i could try my hand at rigging. but modeling is probably my strongest point followed by animation. even if ya just need me to help with rendering, lemme know 
most of my stuff tends to be on the realistic side so this could be good practice for me as well.
Hello there, thank you for your precious offer to help this, we all are waiting for more ‘what to do’ stuff from boss ‘Kirt Stanke’ haha
He is always busy doing ‘Non Alienz related stuff’ 
Are all the characters rigged for animation already? Someone could be doing that while you’re waiting on me. Looks like I won’t be picking up a copy of Maya anytime soon. Just spent my savings building a new computer (old one was 600Mhz :argh: ). So, I won’t be able to help with the 3D stuff for awhile.
I’ll be concentrating on just the 2D work and direction of course. Just need to organize my time better so I can get back to this project. IT IS NOT DEAD … just on a little hiatus.
I told Ila another month or two … hopefully it won’t be much longer.
Are all the characters rigged for animation already?
I’m afraid some meshes are not even finished yet! 
Anyway, I’m going to pick everything available and transform them to OBJ format. after the trip (that I’m in!)
Hiya all Great project you’re doing… i’d love to help but I can’t do anything 3d at a professional level, yet…
Think i might tag along anyway, maybe use some of this stuff to try and teach myself modeling. Gogo moral support! If you ever need 2d still stuff like image processing for a website or whatever… i can help w/ that.
props to everyone, i’m cheerin for ya :bounce: 
I’ve had a look through most of the threads, and I’m wondering how you’re all set for webspace? I run a webhost that’s online 24/7. I can provide webspace on a pretty-much-no-bandwidth-limit.
Lemme know.
No posts on here for quite awhile. I’d like to know whats going on, sounds like a cool project but all the links to concept art and screenies are now broken. I’d like to get involved if this thing ever gets kickstarted again. I’m an intermediate/newb Max user but there are many elements of this project that I’m sure I could be of some use.
Officially, I asked Leo to archive this forum. It’s taking up space on CGTalk and I just don’t have the time to give to this project at the moment (if ever). Having an open and specific forum for my project was nice but I feel that it’s greatly unfair for the other people who are also trying to do collaboration projects here.
So, I’m officially killing the project … until further notice. Sorry. 
I would like to say however, that everyone who worked with me on this is owed my greatest level of respect and appreciation. I feel horrible that the project is come to this and really wish things could be different.
Hopefully, noone will harbor any ill will against me for this … I really want to see a Collab project start, go strong and be completed. I just don’t see that it’s going to be this particular one.
Maybe, it was too great of a project for a first time effort. Maybe it’ll be back in the collab forum later (after a lot of things are done on my end - storyboards, concepts, layouts, color studies, etc.). Or maybe I’ll have something new and ‘simplified’ to offer later. I don’t know.
Best I can offer at this point is my thanks to all who supported the project when it was active, my apologies for ending it all and my sincerest hope that something may yet come from this at a future date.
Expect this sub-forum to dissappear anytime now …
Bah!
[darth vader voice on]
“I’ve been expecting you Obi Kirt!”
[/darth vader voice off]
Anyway, I knew this would happen sooner or later. [sigh] It was so much fun, so much learn, so many friends. this project made my short started and etc. thank you Kirt, for all things.
(and I have a little bastard alien in my pocket too!)
ah, btw, when is the funeral?!
Its a shame we never got around to finishing it, I had a great time making my alien and would’ve loved to see a finished short, but i personally know how difficult it is to keep running on something when there are so many other things going on in life.
Its been a pleasure and best of luck.
Cheers, Phil.
Maybe it’s an idea to give larger projects a bit more space like this project? And maybe even some (limited) moderator functions for the project leaders?
So that there can be multiple threads, without it getting confusing. I’m pretty sure that the Minas Tirith project, or the Shirow project could use it.
It will also give a positive effect to the amount of succesful collaborative projects on this forum, because project won’t have to move to a private forum once they grow.
I’m not going to deny that this is a good idea in regards to managing your projects. It worked very well with the AlienZ project. However, CGTalk is not in the business of hosting forums for everyone’s collab projects.
The sub-forum here was created a long time ago (and I’ll add here that it wasn’t by me or even suggested by me … it was a gift from an Admin, at the time), when membership on CGTalk was considerably lower and at the time there wasn’t much going on in the collab section other than AlienZ and a few offers for game mods. There is much more going on here now than what was happening when I first volunteered to Mod this section of CGTalk.
Which is one reason why I asked Leo to remove the AlienZ sub-forum (any day now). The formula just doesn’t work anymore. [ul][li]A forum mod would have to be appointed for each sub-forum which isn’t the way Leo or Leigh would want to grant Mod status to anyone. A Mod is not a Mod just because they start a project on CGTalk’s Collab section. They’re much more selective about who they want representing CGTalk, CGNetworks, and Ballistic Publishing.[]Numerous sub-forums contribute to the messy and unorganized structure of the entire CGTalk site. They have made an effort to reduce the number of redundant sub-forums within the past year. Last thing they’d want now is more clutter.[]How and who would you choose to decide which projects deserve a sub-forum of their own? I certainly don’t like getting the PM requests for new sub-forums here. I’m sure Leo or Leigh don’t have the time to make that decision either. Yeah, that’s hypocritical because I have a sub-forum for my project, but again … I didn’t ask for it and now I wish I had declined the offer. It’s not worth the hassle.[/ul]
[/li]I could sit here and try to argue these points all day … I hope that anyone reading this doesn’t try to push the issue. Because I can tell you now … it’s just not going to happen.
What you can do though … is manage your project more effectively with in the main Collab forum. You can have multiple threads for your project posted there and you can manage the project in much the same way that I did here without a sub-forum. How?
Use CGTalk to your advantage. There are several features of this forum that can help you manage your project. Thread titles, searching, and subscribed threads.[ul][li]Thread titles for your project are controlled by the people working with you. Have a main thread and layout your guidelines immediately. A new thread can be started, but have all threads relating to your project start with the same format (for example “AlienZ: Main Discussion”, “AlienZ: Concept Art”, “AlienZ: Modelling”, “AlienZ: Rigging”, etc.). Notice that each thread title starts with the same 7 character string “AlienZ:” which will make each of your threads easily identified within the main Collab forum section and …[]Searching the forum for your thread titles is a rather easy and painless process. It doesn’t take much more time than your standard point click navigation process used to get to CGTalk and your project’s main thread. You can even save your search results in your browser setting’s Favorites list so that you can quickly and easily find all threads related to your project. This isolates your project into a search result that looks much like a sub-forum listing.[]Subscibed threads can also be used for each of your threads in the Collab section to notify you immediately by e-mail if there are any updates to your project. Or you can set the notify option to give you a once a week summary of all activity.[/ul]
[/li]Again, I’m sorry but sub-forums for new projects on CGTalk is not going to happen. There’s just too much at stake in regards to CGTalk’s reputation and business. The best way to manage your projects here are to take advantage of what is available right now.
Sadly, this whole AlienZ project is not a great example of success in collaboration. We had some good progress, excellent team work among those involved, inspirational work created by the artists but fell short on the whole “completion” thing. It’s the curse of Collab projects … it’s discouraging and heartbreaking. I know from experience … I’ve seen it happen to others and now, it’s happened to me.
The suckiest of all sucky feelings you’ll ever experience. Hopefully you won’t ever have to experience this.
im sorry this failed kirt… its been a great idea and great concepts … im sorry cause i disapeared for a long time … i think somehow its my fault too…
you did a good job afaik kirt!
Anyway,
AlienZ was and is one of the best project I ever seen/take part.
:applause: :buttrock: 
I won’t argue with this all, but I want to say that I’m quite disappointed with CGTalk’s attitude towards collaborative projects. I mean, CGTalk is the leading forum on pretty much every facet of 2d/3d art, so why won’t collaborative projects fit in this?
I find the argument that ‘there’s too much at stake for CGTalk’s reputation’ a bit weak to be honest. It basically says ‘we don’t want to put any energy in it to make it all work and produce cool things’. And yes, when you don’t spend any time or energy to this section of the forum, there won’t happen any ‘bad’ things, but on the other side, cool things won’t happen too.
But let’s not argue about this anymore, we know now what CGTalk can offer for collaborative projects and what kind of cooperation we can expect: not a lot.
Sadly, this whole AlienZ project is not a great example of success in collaboration. We had some good progress, excellent team work among those involved, inspirational work created by the artists but fell short on the whole “completion” thing. It’s the curse of Collab projects … it’s discouraging and heartbreaking. I know from experience … I’ve seen it happen to others and now, it’s happened to me.
The suckiest of all sucky feelings you’ll ever experience. Hopefully you won’t ever have to experience this.
I know man, I experienced it on the Minas Tirith project a lot too. People who just stop, without letting you know anything, or start of on their own, all that kind of things. It even happens with CGTalk Award winners and professionals, people from who you wouldn’t directly expect such behavior…
For instance, on our project more than 75% of those who joined never produced anything at all…
But on the other hand it’s quite a logical thing to happen. You don’t have any real contact with people over the internet, you can’t call or meet them to ask them what they are doing.
So the fact that projects are managed over the internet totally makes it much easier for someone to drop out without feeling ‘guilty’ or something.
[Ranting to come … don’t read if you’re just going to entice me more. This may very well be my last post here in the AlienZ sub-forum]
Please don’t take one sentence out of context of my statements to generalize into a distorted viewpoint of CGTalk. You’re statement here is in another realm from what I was saying.
CGTalk will not provide individual sub-forums and appoint Moderation status to members strictly on the basis of the creation of a thread in the Collab section. The Mods or “Forum Leaders” are not arbitrarily appointed in such a manner and never will be.
CGTalk does not put the energy into making any particular artist’s image or project a success. The work that you see featured on CGTalk is provided by the members and not the administrative staff here. To “produce cool things” is not a goal of CGTalk, we’re here to promote cool things.
Rubbish … (the polite way of saying that) … you know if anyone were to actually sit back and come up with a good suggestion to help promote the Collab section instead of bitching about what is not happening with their own particular project here I would be extremely impressed and shocked. In the past I’ve attempted several times to get artists to work together on projects and (with the exception of “AlienZ”) it’s always failed to attract any attention. I put a lot of time and effort into the last collab contest here (Evolution) and there were very few participants.
I worked my ass off getting the AlienZ project going when there was nothing here. My motivation wasn’t to make something “cool”, get front page status on CGTalk (which it never did) or to recieve a special sub-forum to keep it organized (again … not my idea). My motivation was to try and show, by example, how a short film project could be organized and managed via a forum with talented artists from all over the globe participating.
Even though the project did not get completed, I think it was a success by that definition. In it’s height of activity, things were being accomplished and the talent of many different artists showed in a cohesive quality and style. Ila, Kai, Steve, Kenn, Jason, John and other modellers took the concepts to a level of quality that I doubted was possible via the internet.
After all of this, after the frequency of viewers has improved on the Collab section, after the number of Collab projects has improved … I get a little dissappointed everytime someone says to me that CGTalk doesn’t do anything for the Collab section. Never … not once … (let me emphasize this) f*cking never did I hear a complaint from someone on the AlienZ team that CGTalk wasn’t promoting the project. Honestly, I don’t think anyone really cared. We were doing it because it was fun and we were learning something.
I guess this isn’t enough for everyone. Some don’t enjoy the spirit of working together with other artists and are more interested in the fame and notoriety … I suppose. :shrug:
Well, if that’s what you want … really. I’m open to your best suggestions (that are not self-serving “plug my thread” requests). Post your suggestions here. What do you think CGTalk should be doing for Collab projects. What do you think would really do it for the community and Collaborators who want to be a part of the next great project?
[Sorry for the rant … I’m already in a bad mood for having to kill this project. I shouldn’t be posting in this state of mind.]