|
|
The Truespace Commercial!!!
About Truespace Archives
These pages are a copy of the official truespace forums prior to their removal somewhere around 2011.
They are retained here for archive purposes only.
The Truespace Commercial!!! // Roundtable
Post by tamtam // Jul 10, 2008, 7:47pm
|
tamtam
Total Posts: 213
|
This is a post just about making the TS commercial. If you want to help, post short clips of your best animations here. You can also help by posting videos of your screen captures of you working on something in Truespace (trying to show the best of Truespace). You can post your best image renders here too.
When we have enough media to put together, I will get it all together on my PC, and add trasitions, music, and text with special effects. Next, I will post the finished animation (commercial) in a zip file, and everyone can view it, and ask questions about it, comment on it, disagree on parts, etc.. I will try my best to change it accordingly to users' replies. |
Post by transient // Jul 10, 2008, 8:12pm
|
transient
Total Posts: 977
|
While this isn't a bad idea, I think that for any commercial to have real value it needs to be centered around a common theme, if not have an explicit narrative. It also doesn't need to be that long - twenty to thirty seconds is enough time to hit the mark. Or even less if the core idea has enough impact.
This could be a cool community challenge, especially for the real-time fans as practically nobody knows about this side of truespace. |
Post by TomG // Jul 11, 2008, 2:53am
|
TomG
Total Posts: 3397
|
What would be cool would be to pick an actual or fictitious-but-believable product to advertise (one that is not tS), and then make a TV ad for it. That would be fun, but would of course require a lot of co-ordination - all the modeling, rendering etc would need to be produced specifically for it.
I think that's what folks had in mind when they mentioned making a commercial (rather than making a commerical for tS). Of course both could be tackled, but I think making an actual TV commercial (in the same way as the Blender community make actual movies) would give a very impressive end product. But community projects are tough to do and co-ordinate :)
Tom |
Post by Jack Edwards // Jul 11, 2008, 3:46am
|
Jack Edwards
Total Posts: 4062
|
I think what TamTam meant is something more like the community demo reals that other 3D apps have on their websites.
I think it's a good idea. :) |
Post by tamtam // Jul 12, 2008, 1:36am
|
tamtam
Total Posts: 213
|
Here's what I think the TS 7.51 commercial should look like (I made all the
3d graphics in TS 7.51, except for the transitions between clips)
Take a look, it's a .zip file with the .wmv file in it. |
Post by Breech Block // Jul 13, 2008, 5:49am
|
Breech Block
Total Posts: 844
|
This is a post just about making the TS commercial. If you want to help, post short clips of your best animations here.
Do you have a preferred resolution in mind for the animations? |
Post by splinters // Jul 13, 2008, 6:18am
|
splinters
Total Posts: 4148
|
Alas Tam, you don't have an option in your poll for 'I would love to help but don't have the time'...:o |
Post by Breech Block // Jul 13, 2008, 6:53am
|
Breech Block
Total Posts: 844
|
Well, here is my animation contribution. Please feel free to include or discard as you see fit. |
Post by Burnart // Jul 13, 2008, 1:54pm
|
Burnart
Total Posts: 839
|
I think this isn't a bad idea but if we are going to do it then it should be done right. I recognise that many of us (including me ;) ) are amateurs but an amateur looking thing won't do trueSpace any favours. It would need to be done to professional specifications - 16:9 aspect ratio, full HD - the kind of thing you might show at Siggraph. Personally I'm too much of an amateur to know precisely what the specs are but I'm sure someone around here knows.
I also believe a theme is a good starting point but it certainly seems possible that a clever promo might set-up certain expectations about the themes direction and portrayal only to subvert them. Is it a continuous promo "story" or is it a fragmented montage? Does it start looking like a continuous story only to lurch into a different line? Eg. imagine you are demonstrating some architectural uses beginning with high quality but traditional renders then showing an image which turns out to be a realtime architectural environment. (When people realise its not just another render it knocks their socks off!)
If a bunch of people sign up to such a project then the first thing should be a discussion about what to present and how to present it. Ideas. Themes. Stories. etc Just sending avi and image attachments to this thread seems a bit too much like a scatter gun approach to produce something interesting and useful. If its just going to be a montage then we might as well use the galleries as the source material.
I am interested in working on a well thought out project. |
Post by tamtam // Jul 14, 2008, 1:37am
|
tamtam
Total Posts: 213
|
Oh my gosh, Breech Block, I watched your animation clip... the reflections, the people (especially the hair, how did you make it?)Think you are the Piccasso of 3d! How did you come up with this in such little time? I mean your animation clip almost looks like some of the screenshots I saw for The Sims 3!
Also, how did you make the clothing on the models? Mine is always blocky, and unrealistic, even with subdivisions! Those people look fit for a game and a mini movie! Great job!
I am definitly going to add that to the new and improved, Truespace commercial! I will take most of my art out because it's too simplistic looking.
Is it okay with everyone if I have to scale the animations (if they are too big or too small), and add my own music I made?
Preferably, I want the animations, and images sized at 640 by 480. There doesn't need to be a theme/story, just some animations and images that show the best works in TS 7.5. Keep the animations short though, because this is just going to be a commercial, and not a whole movie. |
Post by Breech Block // Jul 14, 2008, 4:37am
|
Breech Block
Total Posts: 844
|
How did you come up with this in such little time?
Thanks for all the kind comments tamtam. The scene is actually quite old and is just one clip from my "The Last Tomorrow" animation which won the Caligari animation contest way back in Jan 2007. All I simply did was update it, incorperating a few tips I have picked up from Wizard, and re-rendered it (over 10 Hours on a 3.1 Ghz - 4 GB RAM machine) to give it a more modern, fresh look.
Follow the link below for the whole movie.
http://www.caligari.com/Gallery/Animations/2007/jan/default.asp?Cate=GAnimations |
Post by Nez // Jul 14, 2008, 6:00am
|
Nez
Total Posts: 1102
|
I think I'm with Burnart on this - there's nothing wrong with a 'multi-author demo reel' which is what you seem to be aiming for - but you could just take all the good gallery submission animations (or all those that the authors give permission for) and edit them together.
If you want to do something that is real 'advert' for tS abilities then it needs to be better planned and not just a chopping together of good bits by a bunch of different people. It would need some decent planning of concept and intent, what tools/tricks you might want to showcase for example, and a really good 'story-board' or similar approach to work out what's going to be covered. You also need to think about who's contributing what - rather than have disparate sections produced by different collaborators, you might be better getting people to contribute objects/models/scenes according to a list of requirements (and a pre-determined visual style) for one person to texture, one person to animate etc to ensure visual consistency...
This could be a huge undertaking - and probably should be if done properly and may not be easy to co-ordinate. It's a cool sounding idea, and could be a great example for collaboration but sounds pretty time consuming which would count quite a few of us out. As I'm only on tS5, at best I could only practically contribute object models - if there's a good plan in place I'd consider doing that but I think that's some way off at present... but good luck! |
Post by splinters // Jul 14, 2008, 6:46am
|
splinters
Total Posts: 4148
|
I have reservations about this and agree more with Burnart. Your heart seems like it is in the right place tamtam, but the animation you submitted as being your 'vision' for the commercial was not of good quality really. tS is capable of amazing results and, if Caligari had the time to do it themselves, would no doubt be using the work of Oliver Rohe, Parva and Madmouse to name only a few.
How do I know this? Well, look at their product pages where these guys figure prominently and you can see why they have been used. There are many more for tS7.6 I don't doubt it.
Why not start by getting a good range of animations and skills from a range of tS users; ones that really show off the program and will make jaws drop; then piece them into a showreel Caligari would be proud of. Email or PM the creators about specific pieces rather than waiting for contributions and see how you get on. You might also be better in the WIP forum. If I were a visitor, saw your commercial with the comment' here is what I think the tS7.5 commercial should look like' I might just turn away.
Little steps, best quality work and see where it goes...:D
Edit: Sorry if I repeated your words Nez, I didn't read your comments carefully. I also wonder if this would be better as a 'real time' showreel/advert. Would definitely be easier for collaboration and seems more like the direction Caligari and tS is going! |
Post by Jack Edwards // Jul 14, 2008, 6:58am
|
Jack Edwards
Total Posts: 4062
|
I agree with Nez, Burnart, and Splinters. Clips need to be professional quality before being included. An overall theme would help as well.
If you look at the demo reals for the other apps it's always cinema quality models and renders. If you want to get people excited about TrueSpace, that's the quality we have to produce.
Stills should be this quality:
http://forums1.caligari.com/truespace/showthread.php?t=2132
http://forums1.caligari.com/truespace/showthread.php?t=5326
http://forums1.caligari.com/truespace/showthread.php?t=4496
http://forums1.caligari.com/truespace/showthread.php?t=4250
http://forums1.caligari.com/truespace/showthread.php?t=4551
http://forums1.caligari.com/truespace/showthread.php?t=5211
http://forums1.caligari.com/truespace/showthread.php?t=4534
http://forums1.caligari.com/truespace/showthread.php?t=4401
http://forums1.caligari.com/truespace/showthread.php?t=93
http://forums1.caligari.com/truespace/showthread.php?t=3273
http://forums1.caligari.com/truespace/showthread.php?t=3050
http://forums1.caligari.com/truespace/showthread.php?t=2371
Animations like these would maybe be ok, but really aren't even good enough:
http://www.caligari.com/Gallery/Animations/2007/Aug/anim/3267.avi
http://www.caligari.com/Gallery/Animations/2007/sep/anim/3305.wmv
But better would be something along the lines of Spencer Britton's big break winner:
http://www.caligari.com/Store/Special/anim_contest/big_break_results4.html
(Link doesn't work probably because of the server crash. :() |
Post by splinters // Jul 14, 2008, 7:33am
|
splinters
Total Posts: 4148
|
Good list Jack, I am sure we could all add more. My own stuff is very cartoon like but I am willing to put forward any stills to balance the photorealstic stuff...:D
A commercial should also focus on key/new features so look for the best examples of HDRI, Vray, SSS, Caustics, SDS modelling, mechanical stuff, product design, character design etc. Not forgetting realtime...:D
Perhaps there will be some nice new stuff after 7.6 release...;) |
Post by Jack Edwards // Jul 14, 2008, 8:08am
|
Jack Edwards
Total Posts: 4062
|
Hmm... I think you're right I did pick photo-real stuff... lol. I think the Pepe posters would be good. I didn't pick you're stylized cartoon characters because it might seem too kiddy for a "cool' "edgy" demo. And like-wise for Wizard, he produces good stuff, but before the monitor upgrades the images were a washed out and in many his characters look a bit stiff. (Sorry Wiz! :o)
I think for animation, though your clean and friendly characters could work. Just depends on the direction the reel is going. But for maximum wow/awesome factor cartoon stylizations probably wouldn't have as much visual impact as mechanical, cyborg, dark and metal kind of stuff.
Of course that gives me visions of Pepe riding a conveyor belt into a Wallace and Grommit type pig slaughter machine with whiring rusty blades and... lol :D
And I have to admit that Wizard's amazingly detailed scenes would make awesome stage and scene setting.
All that aside, character modeling and animation is likely TrueSpace's strong point so first step would probably be to come up with some character designs and then pass them off to the modellers. Then texturing. Come up with a story and hand off to the animators, etc.
Or we could each do our own little demo vids and splice the best ones into a longer one. Probably the simplest approach at first. Then do a more cooperative one later.
I'm game either way and would be happy to handle modeling one of the characters. |
Post by marcel // Jul 14, 2008, 9:13am
|
marcel
Total Posts: 569
|
3 years ago, i do a long cg movie with Truespace (100%).
It was a hard work with about 600 animations for 80 minutes long.
I have modelised 150 rooms for the castle In the movie. You can see the Atlantid, stonehenge, medieval villlage, jurassik period with dinosaurs, under sea land and old planets in other system. It is a SF movie with musical ambiance and specials effects (volcan, rain, snow, fire, lasers..).
See the preview attached (inside the zip, you have a link for more infos). |
Post by jamesmc // Jul 14, 2008, 9:22am
|
jamesmc
Total Posts: 2566
|
Absolutely awesome Marcel!
This should be featured in trueSpace with some extracts of video from your production.
I think I even saw a crop circle in there! :) |
Post by marcel // Jul 14, 2008, 10:03am
|
marcel
Total Posts: 569
|
Hi, you can see some samples of the movie on Caligari:
http://www.caligari.com/news/news_june2006/cpcp2.html
See the link at the bottom of the page.
It is low definition and not the final animation but you can have an idea.
The final movie have comments (voice in french).
Ps: the robot have 30 years old (i have do this during the time of the first stars war).
It was the beginning of my story:
http://www.caligari.com/news/news_june2006/cpcp2_robot.html. |
Post by v3rd3 // Jul 14, 2008, 11:18am
|
v3rd3
Total Posts: 388
|
The subject of one, or a few, community projects to advertise or promote TS and the family of affiliated products has been nibbled on in a couple of other threads and this thread is clearly an effort to get something going and I do appreciate it.
I agree that the community can be a driving force in popularizing TS and am willing to add what I can.
I do however wish to clarify our objectives within themselves and hope that we can establish somewhat structured goals.
The concept of a truespace commercial is terrific. If we assemble a commercial and distribute it via Youtube and other like services we could conceivably create the beginning of a viral marketing campaign.
What has been discussed so far here is the creation of a show reel.
Both of these activities add value but they do serve different purposes.
To my mind a commercial is the eye catcher that brings eyeballs to the Caligari web site and the show reels.
Are we trying to produce commercials? If so, the commercial(s) would show both the impressive product created by the top talent here as well as something of how the product was created. In other words, we need to showcase TS. For example, opening scene 5-10 seconds of an animated character moving through a scene followed by 3 or 4 10 -15 second clips showing modelling, texturing, some form of animation movement and then a repeat of the final render. The objective of this kind of commercial would be to show the tools and the results. This kind of commercial would most likely be undertaken by individual artists. The next step would be to target these types of commercials to the market segments where the product will be promoted. For example, a game content creation commercial (showing a TS created object in a game), a product illustrator commercial (diamonds come to mind), a children's book illustrator commercial (youknowwho), a shader genius commercial, a landscape/set design artist commercial. And I dare not forget the motion capture genius commercial as well.
If you think of the task as selling a tool, then think of the advertising that sells tools requiring skills. In the early days of the internet, access provider commercials showed the smiling user merrily mousing away, drinking coffee, talking to their spouse and then followed that with the screenshot of their interface. Now that the internet is widely accepted access providers compete on price and up time, not much else. Their advertising reflects that.
If there are artists willing to add a clip of their smiling faces while they are working, or smiling with joy at the completion of their work the effectiveness of the commercial would be greatly improved. We need to find a way to project the way we feel when we are working with TS. Sizzle with the steak.
Also, creating the content is one issue, distributing it and realizing the goal is another.
Video distribution channels is one thing, getting eyeballs there is another.
One way to draw further attention to TS is to look at the trade publications that can be used to help further the cause.
3Dworld does not have anyone specifcally looking at TS at the moment (at least as far as I can see). Perhaps those of the forum that do sci-fi and fantasy art could start submitting images to their sister publication ImagineFX. The more our talented members submit to competitions etc the bigger the buzz.
Once the commercials are created and the showreel(s) are assembled we then need members of these forums to start broadcasting to the other cg/art forums we are part of.
Finally, a community based animation project has been bantered about as well. The potential benefit of this is huge. TS, to my limited knowledge, is not considered part of a production pipeline for the creation of large commercial projects, whether delivery is an animated work for film or television, or as part of a real time collaborative environment. The major issue is that we are unable to assemble a large group to develop such a project. Major projects these days are occupying the time of groups of studios. Until we can start to show that a critical mass of TS artists and designers can assemble and produce a project TS will continue to emphasize the P in PC. That being "personal".
I think one of the objectives we have to embrace is making an effort to demonstrate that TS is a studio level tool that can be part of a production pipeline. It has to move beyond the perception of being a "hobbyist/solo artist" environment. We have a scripting team that seems to work well together. Beta testers work together. Now we need the equivalent on the production side.
TamTam, for what it is worth I do not have anything I have produced that I would submit for the show reel at present and I am stuck for time for the next few weeks.
I will get something to you when my other commitments are in hand.
Thanks for taking this on. |
Post by splinters // Jul 14, 2008, 11:26am
|
splinters
Total Posts: 4148
|
Wow Marcel, I am blown away by the storyboards there. It looks amazing and hard to believe it is tS, especially all those years ago. Was the DVD ever released or is that just a mockup? I would love to see it...:D |
Post by Jack Edwards // Jul 14, 2008, 11:33am
|
Jack Edwards
Total Posts: 4062
|
Good post v3rd3! Lot of good points in there!
And I agree with Splinters, HOLY #%$# Marcel that's a lot of work!! :cool: |
Post by Burnart // Jul 14, 2008, 1:29pm
|
Burnart
Total Posts: 839
|
This is an interesting thread! Good on you tamtam. :banana:
I haven't looked at your stuff yet Marcel - I will next time I'm at the internet cafe. I am very much looking forward to it. I'll also check out all the links Jack indicated. v3rd3 makes some very good points.
A 30 sec or 1 min promo commercial could be a really good way of establishing a method for co-ordinating a larger group project. A first step towards a Blender type "Elephant's Dream" project (- only one with a much better storyline Elephan'ts Dream is too long for the minimal plot and is boring to watch IMO!)
A commercial should, I believe, emphasise the new 7.5 (7.6?) product but perhaps it could start with an encapsulated history of trueSpace and it's capabilities. This would certainly allow for users of 3, 4 and 5 to be involved as well as long term users to reutilise older projects and models if relevant to whatever thematic needs we agree to. A 1 minute commercial might have the first half roughly about the history of the product and the second half about the current product - realtime, V-Ray, dribble (I know its on the legacy side, its still a "new" option for tS users), physics, dx9, animation tools etc.
A thematic progression through the images/animation..... any ideas anyone? |
Post by v3rd3 // Jul 14, 2008, 6:13pm
|
v3rd3
Total Posts: 388
|
Marcel, I just got through looking at your boards and can only imagine the effort you put into your film.
I congratulate you on your accomplishment and I am glad that you are part of these forums. |
Post by W!ZARD // Jul 14, 2008, 11:27pm
|
W!ZARD
Total Posts: 2603
|
Think of the cleverest, catchiest most memorable ad you've ever seen.Unless you can create something equal or better than that - which will have been produced by full time paid professional copywriters, directors etc - you run a very real risk of doing a disservice to our favourite software.
Anyone who may see this ad will certainly have been subjected to hundreds of thousands of professional quality adverts which they will use as a benchmark when viewing any other ad.
Can a group of non-professionals and hobbiest users working part-time and spread all over the world make a worthwhile ad that can compete in the overcrowded advertising jungle? Yes, but they need a defining vision of what is being created and it's not going to be easy.
I don't want to be discouraging at all but you will need to be prepared to work very hard to make something truly useful as an advertisement for trueSpace.
Good luck with it.:D |
Post by Steinie // Jul 15, 2008, 4:55am
|
Steinie
Total Posts: 3667
|
THIS is at Renderosity as an example of TS artwork....
http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=1703430
this is what people see as examples of trueSpace. Why not post YOUR good stuff around. That is better then a Commercial that Caligari didn't authorize (or pay for).
Jack Edwards quote "Hmm... I think you're right I did pick photo-real stuff... lol."
Steinie reply: I'll take my boobs elsewhere...:D |
Post by v3rd3 // Jul 15, 2008, 7:48am
|
v3rd3
Total Posts: 388
|
Think of the cleverest, catchiest most memorable ad you've ever seen.Unless you can create something equal or better than that - which will have been produced by full time paid professional copywriters, directors etc - you run a very real risk of doing a disservice to our favourite software.
Anyone who may see this ad will certainly have been subjected to hundreds of thousands of professional quality adverts which they will use as a benchmark when viewing any other ad.
Can a group of non-professionals and hobbiest users working part-time and spread all over the world make a worthwhile ad that can compete in the overcrowded advertising jungle? Yes, but they need a defining vision of what is being created and it's not going to be easy.
I don't want to be discouraging at all but you will need to be prepared to work very hard to make something truly useful as an advertisement for trueSpace.
Good luck with it.:D
You do make a very good point in that there needs to be a structure to the team that work on this type of project. Someone will have to take on the role of director etc. I have yet to see a project with 23 chiefs create more than paperwork. ( I used to work in banking and have seen this type of project before ;0) The fewer committees the better, individuals taking on specific roles and responsibilities will work the best, and the fastest usually. |
Post by Burnart // Jul 15, 2008, 1:09pm
|
Burnart
Total Posts: 839
|
I dunno W!zard your opinions seem to be kind of inconsistent! ;) I was just reading this thread:
http://forums1.caligari.com/truespace/showthread.php?t=5750&page=11
Where you seem to be arguing that we can expand our capabilities by learning new strategies and here you appear to be saying we haven't got the skills and simply aren't good enough. I'm confused. :confused:
Seriously though it seems to me that the following are true:
1) When tamtam started this thread he seemed to be wanting to gather together a group of interested people - are you (anyone reading this) as an individual "in" or "out"? I'm happy to stick up my hand and say ok I'll get involved.
2) Building a working structure is a first stage of the project. That's a given. But we need to know who wants to be involved. (See point 1!)
3) If the project falls over due to an incapacity to get organised then so be it.
4) If it creates a commercial how the end result is ultimately used is to a large extent dependant on the quality of the outcome.
5) I am sure there are plenty of people working professionally associated with this forum who would contribute advice even if they are not willing to commit to hours of service.
6) I am also sure an organised and enthusiastic core group would be in a position to approach Caligari for certain kinds of advice and support.
More points could definitely be added but go back to point 1) Who's in? Indicating you are interested at this stage is not a commitment to 100s of hours work. It's simply admitting you're willing to discuss the idea seriously. Who wants to do that?
Ultimately there should be some initial organisational body of a handful of people who could nut out some ideas outside the forums - they could be the "Director" at least in the initial stages. They might formulate some ideas - do some boards and then come back to the forums with some of this work and request people with particular skills to assist. etc
I'm certainly happy to nominate tamtam to be on the directorial board as he started this thread. |
Post by splinters // Jul 15, 2008, 1:16pm
|
splinters
Total Posts: 4148
|
I have a lot of work on but, looking at the work so far, and the conjecture in the pricing thread, I am gonna say I'm out. The only vision that would work here is Roman's or someone else at Team Caligari. Who will be director, will everyone agree etc. etc. too many complications and it would be a nightmare to organise.
Finally, will the outcome do the program justice? Good luck guys but this is not for me. If you want any of my work for a showreel then just ask, but as a project it just looks like a potential ego clash...:o |
Post by Burnart // Jul 15, 2008, 1:58pm
|
Burnart
Total Posts: 839
|
.. but as a project it just looks like a potential ego clash...:o
That's not a given fact at all - simply an opinion. Your talking down the idea before its even started. |
|
