I think we need to use the KISS method big time here. How about this for a story idea. Taron mention the air.
Synopsis: Man jumps from plane. View is from below with perhaps limited shots of ground. Man just wants to enjoy the speed and gymnastics of the freefall. Unfortunately the various birds, bugs, etc won’t allow him. Not to mention is chute won’t open…what will happen. The whole thing done in a TOON style. Since I think that provides the most chance for character.
This sounds intriquing. I’m a bit preoccupied with a Cgworkshop class for a few weeks. But, I would love to help out. I’m a bit of a generalist - my strengths are more on the render portion of messiah.
If this story is take place near water, and to have somewhat of a biblical angle, then perhaps “Leviathan” would be a nice working title. Just a thought. 
EDIT: I believe there are more viewers here lately because of the recent debacle with MB Standard. There are quite a few disgruntled MB Standard users that are looking for an animation alternative, not necessarily another renderer.
Gary:
Glad to see you here… I really appreciated your tuts and hope you will be able to contribute when you can…
Brings up another point… This should be a minimal stress situation… as Taron suggested… if anyone stresses it will be me, trying to keep this going… no one else…
This is for learning and showcasing the power of this incredible little app… The aim is to see it continue to advance by doing more with it than kicking the tires… scratching the surface… With the help of those already interested, we can all help make others aware of its power and learn a bunch in the process!!
We will Also make that learning available to others, via DVD or Web… depending on complexity.
Nichod:
Interesting story idea!!..I like it!!
Well not to burst anyone’s bubble as you all are entitled to your own beliefs (or what have you) but the entire premise of mossiach (translated into greek as the word “messiah” which simply means “annointed”) is part of judiasm. Its the king of the jewish nation as decended from King David. Its fairly meaningful part of judiasm and i would see that we not make fun of it. I would rather stray the biblical angle,as to not do any disrespect and try to go for something original and of our own creation. I like simplicity and I think taking one taron’s concepts or having him generate a concept would be great. This way we can all take part in the execution of it all.
Crossbones…Understood… I have no intention of offending anyone or their beliefs…
My thinking is that we don’t burden Taron too much by making him come up with everything… He has already agreed to help bigtime… we have to be willing to step up and get it started… story first… character design and look… and so on…
Actually, I meant having a forum specifically for the artists to discuss matters regarding the film eg. fleshing out a story. This forum would be closed to the general public and then someone would then report back to the big forums such as cgtalk.
I really like the robot idea, would be really simple (but i always think that the limitations placed on artists always bring out more creativity). It reminds me of aardmans ¨the deadline¨ which i thought was a great little short. not sure what we could have them doing, but there´s a start…
I see your point… Have to think about that… Goal is to keep it as open as possible… but too many cooks… you know!..
The “Robot” idea came out of Kursad’s post, and evolved from there by Taron… credit where credit is due! Using Kushad’s idea as i understand it would be like the chronicleing the struggles of an upstart like Messiah against the Big established 3D machines… lots we could do there… and so true!
Thanks!
HAHA, that would be something…my first character animation attempt ever was just moving a guy around as if in freefall…the result of it really got me excited about it all and was in a way responsible for a very early confidence that helped through things that usually suffer from uncertainty when people animate. In other words…this kind of animation tells you so much about how a motion becomes alive without contraints that usually help to sell an animation (gravity, collision…step on ground, these type of things). A freefall animation really reveals subtleties in a motion that otherwise would loose the amount of its necessity with every step on the floor. Not sure if it’s really clear what I mean, but one thing’s for sure:
I do really like that idea…could be a quick one, too!
Babysteps are a good concept.
First of all, we can have artists come up with nonsense that would pass by the main character on his/her way down…(I’m for a male in this case for some reason).
Second of all, these items could be solid forms, other characters or things that would spill stuff as well…(particle stuff that could be really entertaining).
Clouds are neat and simple!
Ground that would come closer with increasing amount of detail. Could think of a bunch of gimiks there, too!
Well, all in all a whole lot of freedom! I’m all for this one as a first go!
AS for the bigger idea with the little “package mockery”, I thought it would be hillarious to come up with characters, who could represent them, but not necessarily for only negative reasons, but really to illustrate what the represent as a whole. Because there’s a truth in this, which could be used to make some really funny visuals and illustrate certain points that could turn it into a geeky type of animated/illustrated stand-up-comedy routine…so to say…
Example:
Maya…big girl that has everything in and on her…gadgets to make coffee, mow the lawn, plant trees, move mountains, launch rockets, view microbes, lazercut steel…but it’s so heavy that it can’t quite move forward that fast…it might even trip a little to the side every once in a while, or stuff just hangs for a moment to come forward after digging through everything to get to a specific device!
Houdini…a whole science-lab and stuff strapped around it with tubes, torches, microscope, blackboard, calculators of all sort, amazing mathematical forms floating around it and everyone has to focus real, real hard to understand a single word it says or to even know how to ask it for anything!
3dsMax…crippled little Frankenstein at it’s core and glorious devices like parasites attached to it from all sides, doing all record-breaking things, almost ignoring the poor little critter they are attached to. If you ask it for anything, at least two or three of the parasites answer at the same time with different attempts to tell you the same thing, highly efficient, but somehow morbid.
Lightwave3d…proud guy, kind of overweight, patches all over the place, some ingrown parasites that don’t speak anymore for themselves, limping, one eye closed, the other one frantically looking around. It does occasional bursts to immediately respond to what it’s asked to do but totally takes of in the other direction once it comes close to where it was supposed to go.
Blender…I somehow feel that it should simply be a canadian. I know it’s not, but…from a US standpoint, I think canadian, yeah…that’s all…it’s not big either, but I’d love to see it in the mix.
XSI…cold robot, who does look shiny and clean, but you can’t help but recognize these obvious similarities with some of the devices the Maya character was running around with. It destainfully but correctly answers to questions it wants to answer. It has shiningly clean sockets for parasites to hook on to…it moves, but only when it wants to, even if it does it quickly then, unless it is asked to do something it doesn’t want to do.
messiah3d…a little workbench with a few rusty tools and trophies and some shiny fresh muscles here and there. It can run like the devil, is curious about everything but not always clever enough to get it all, but what it knows, it knows very well and totally digs to answer. It’s kind of lurking in the shadows most of the time and has a little side-kick “mini-me” that still acts like a parasite and hooks into the big guys when it is asked to. It knows a few things that the big guys can’t quite handle, but nobody quite realizes it yet…right next to this secret is a feeding tube or a coin-slot (hahaha)…but as long as the secret is hidden, nobody knows where to throw in the coins to make it stronger. Hehe…yeah. So there are some lights glowing inside of it, too, woozzing around and filling it up and overtime you can see how new things show up on the outside…hehe…eh…I’m totally getting carried away, arn’t I?!
Anyway…oh MAN, what the…I spend half an hour writing that nonsense…bizarre…but fun!
Yeah…that would be a cool big one to do…ha…I think. To be continued…
Count me in. I’d love to help out where I can. (Time to dig out some of my old storyboards)
In the back of mind Taron, I’ve always thought of a 3d app parody would be funny - but I was imagining the different packages as cars/vehicles - the shiny-new XSI sports car versus, the patched-up but capable LW with bolted on spoilers and air dams (the NOS - Nitrous Oxide System would be Worley’s addition to it’s occasional but short-lived bursts of speed), the huge crew needed to keep the high-maintenance Maya going (as in TD’s running around), etc… very similar to your idiosynchrosies of each 3d app. This was of course before Pixar’s Cars came out.
List of things to think about:
(Very simplified plan overview)
Ok… open season again… Deciding on workflow for this project is part of the process… documenting how this will be accomplished is a valuable lesson for users of all 3D apps…
Your input at this stage is very important…please tear this apart if needed and come up with a comprehensive plan that meets the goals of this idea… Create a project where those involved learn a tremendous amount about creating quality animation… which gets documented to expose others to animating in Messiah, generating interest in the product, helping drive development, and having a blast in the process!!
Ready… go!
Just thought I would take a look at who has been replying to this thread to start to get an Idea who is interested… no worries… your not committed or anything… (although we should all be…committed)…lol
Thanks to all who have stepped up so far… If you would all put next to your name what you might be interested in doing… we can start to plan a little, anyway. Not pinning anyone down…
User Name Posts
lanosrep1
crossbones
Taron333
kursad_pileksuz
stooch
Nichod
jamesvanderbeek
chikega
Bugpoo
Lino Grandi
Parsec3d
Paul_Newman
colour
Bill_nuts
Suricate
MMcKenzie
Bostaff
maddav99
Labuzz
K… shut eye time…PST
One final thought.
In the interest of keeping interest going, what would hold us back from starting more than one (small) project… A leader for each story idea. Those interested in story A, sign up to help there. Story B, there… More than two would get crazy i think… but…
What do you think?
So far, the Skydiver idea seems like it has generated interest and is one of the easiest to get started on. Other ideas might be out there… I don’t want to risk people losing interest because the story idea does not appeal.
Feedback appreciated… Sleep… first. for me…
Yeah, taron, your elaboration on the free fall thing made it sound a little more inspiring, would be something really simple but possibly quite clever. I got the image of something a little charlie chaplin-esque, maybe he/she/it could be flying down with all this junk beside him (maybe he could be looking for his parachute amongst all his dirty laundry that´s floating around) and whilst this is happening, there would be room for all sorts of comedic occurances, maybe a wedding cake attached to a helium balloon could fly up in his face and then he brushes himself off (you know how he does) blah blah blah… just some thoughts anyway.
we could have a list online(updated daily) with who´s doing what, estimated completion date(so that something can be done when that date is passed) and so on.
could be a bit of a communal process, could decide on a kind of blueprint for all character rigs to be based on so that everyone will feel comfortable animating with the rig.
just a thought, maybe the animation process could be shared, like the more amateur of us could do the blocking out of the animation and once approved, can be passed on to more experienced animators to do the final pass or two
how ´bout we all put say $10 in or whatever you can afford and set up some web space? Do people think we a message board for the artists to communicate by?(if so a server that supports php & mysql would be ideal) or could we make do with irc and continue to communicate here?
Given the way things are looking(starting off with something very simple and maybe doing a more complex animation later), I think free distribution over the web would be most suited along with all the assets for people to experiment and learn from.
as far as multiple animations goes, hmm, i think doing things sequentially would be best. i´m not sure if there would be enough people for multiple projects, of course once the first one is finished, we could always do another
lanosrep1: You guy really have a hard time reading, don’t you? Please take me out of that list.
im confident that i can pull the water off with realflow… i have gotten quite profficient at wrangling that particular piece of software. although it might take the focus away from messiah, since its an external app…
we should get the webspace asap, i can set it up as well. im a big fan of lunar pages, alot of bandwidth and awesome management software, setup forums in there and a gallery, that should be enough. or should this be more aligned with pmg website?
that would be great if you could set up the page stooch(lunar pages look good), if you need a hand with anything let me know, i might be able to help out with something. and what about a name?
also, you should give some details so that we can contribute to the payment of the site
i don’t think it really needs to be aligned to pmg, they can link to it in their resources section though.