Dolf spent the last two weeks here on a wonderful film credits, based on David’s concept art, which added another few minutes to the film! Pablo and Soenke keep trying to make shots even more awesome, but that also has to stop soon now. The next week we can still do last re-renders, spend time on a final color grade session, and then at sept 7 deliver the final files to the film lab. The final Dolby master then has been scheduled on the 9th, with the first film print – for the premiere on NFF – ready tuesday 14th.
Film stats:
- Film itself: 12:24
- Credits: 2:24
Total length: 14 minutes 48 seconds, or 888 seconds!
Who could have imagined! We started with a target of of “6-8 minutes” you know. And even after the finals screening, Colin and Beorn managed to add 4 seconds to the film!
Next on the todo: get the DVD mastering started up, we already have a menu loop for it, a quad-split-screen version with storyboard-layout-opengl-final and will add a number of fun deleted scenes! Ali has the documentary finished (60 minutes). Oh, and we didn’t forget the tutorials, our loyal team members are working from home on it now.
-Ton-
(BTW: I’ve updated the About pages with proper history info and added the missing artist’s mugshots, this in preparation of press releases and for magazines etc.)
(BTW2: the date for the actual online release has to be pinned down still. Aim is to do this within a week after the premiere. Also depends on how fast we can get the DVDs done. News on this will follow)
With a pre-screening copy we are already submitting to festivals, the first approval now is in, for Siggraph! Here’s a snippet of their email:
We are very pleased to inform you that your submission “Sintel” has been accepted to Animation Theater of the SIGGRAPH Asia 2010 Computer Animation Festival.
Our International jury, a diverse group of leading animation experts, selected your piece from among the hundreds of entries for the festival due to its high quality, interest, and impact on the SIGGRAPH Asia Community. Congratulations!
Siggraph Asia will be in Seoul, South Korea, from 14-18 december. I probably will have to go then!
We’ve delivered 2 minutes of dpx files, straight from Blender sequencer, to the film lab Cineco here in Amsterdam. The first digital projection in their grading room looked brilliant! (Gigantic new Barco projector). It’s now being moved to the Arri Laser to make 35 mm film, anamorphic 2.35:1 aspect. In a few days we’ll get a screening. Exciting!
Thanks to Blender’s linear workflow now, we should be able to give them perfect linear DPX files, for them to convert to wonderful film colors. However, it’s never as simple as it seems!
Here’s how we did it now:
- Files rendered in 2048 wide, 872 pixels high. This matches the standard for film, so no scaling is needed.
- DPX files (3 x 16 bits color) saved as linear – default in Blender with linear workflow enabled – but with a gamma 2.2 applied (code not committed yet). That is the thing that confuses me most… but according the Arri operator at Cineco it is “the standard”. Their LUT conversion (lookup table) assumes this to go to film color.
- At first we made the mistake to test DPX files saved from 3×8 bits sources, but these are not linear! So DPX ended up in the color space of the 3×8 bits graphics.
I also had to fix the header in DPX files to not denote a gamma anymore, for some reason that gamma value doesn’t denote what the data is, but what the files should be corrected for in displays (confusing!).
People with DPX and film pipeline experience are welcome to feedback here. A dpx file and the corresponding jpg can be downloaded below.
(BTW: the graphic looks a bit dark, but was in the screening room totally brilliant! Dark tones survive much better in projection than on screens. Do we have to make a special graded version for LCD and TVs)?
Based on all feedback sent to the shop at blender.org address, the credit list has been updated. Please visit the page to check if this has been correctly handled. The list for people who bought the DVD after sept 15 last year will be posted here mid september.
I also need everyone’s help to get the credit for modelers corrected. We are not going to add nicknames in the film credit, only real ones. Below is the complete list of people we’ve used props from, mostly modeled during the modeling sprint. I’ve asked the blendswap.com maintainer to help as well
Post remarks about this below, or mail me (ton at blender org).
Pablo Lizardo
Jarred de Beer
Thomas Kole
Robert Udvardy
Eugène Fritz
Gustav Göransson
Emil Krantz
Julio Iglesias
Daniel Salazar
Guillermo Chan
Kevin Hays
Andrew Wall
Dmitry Kalinin voxelbunny
Shawn Zilbert 3dommi75 Brendan Gallagher
Maren März
Stian Grindvoll
Joseph C. Lee
Matjaž Lamut
Manuel Quiñones
Sean Olson
Alastair Low spacetug Owen Egan
The DVD production has also started (slowly!), we plan to have this ready for print at the festival. I’m uncertain if we can have the DVDs available then already though… we’ll do our best!
In order to prevent crappy bootlegs to be posted, we’ll release the film a few days after the premiere as well, with sufficient mirrors for everyone to enjoy with us this milestone in Blender history!
Since my job on Project Durian is over, I am now seeking work. Specifically I am looking for freelance, consulting, and teaching work. So if anyone has money they would like to throw at me in exchange for me doing stuff, please get in touch with me at nathanvegdahl@gmail.com
I currently live in Seattle, WA. I am happy to work remotely, and I am more than happy to travel.
My primary skills are rigging and animation, but I am skilled in most other aspects of 3d production as well. And although my professional experience thus far has been in film production, I am interested in branching out to other applications of my talents, especially visualization work.
I have a new demo reel for 2010, but unfortunately I cannot make it publicly available at this time because it contains work from as-of-yet unreleased productions. But I am happy to provide it upon request.
Dolf spent the last two weeks here on a wonderful film credits, based on David’s concept art, which added another few minutes to the film! Pablo and Soenke keep trying to make shots even more awesome, but that also has to stop soon now. The next week we can still do last re-renders, spend time on a final color grade session, and then at sept 7 deliver the final files to the film lab. The final Dolby master then has been scheduled on the 9th, with the first film print – for the premiere on NFF – ready tuesday 14th.
And even after the finals screening, Colin and Beorn managed to add 4 seconds to the film!
