Community Sprint: Background Characters!
on March 25th, 2010, by Colin LevyHeeeeyyyy guys!
Welp, the modeling sprint we had last month was pretty awesome. Even well after the sprint had officially closed, models continued to flow into BlendSwap. There’s a total of 29 pages worth of models in the Durian category, and they’ve already been a great help!
During the last sprint we discussed briefly doing another, with a different focus. As it so happens, we need some help with character modeling and animation for our market scene. We need tons of background characters!
Here’s a stupid video we threw together talking about it a little bit:
So to recap in text, this will be a two-part sprint for modeling and animation. We will supply a few rigs to be animated. The actions that are animated will be able to be applied to a variety of characters. So if you animate Sintel like a weak old man, we can take the old man model that someone else makes and just give him that animation. 🙂
Before the Sprint we will post a document with more details about the actual *content* we’re looking for, with model sketches, a list of actions, models you can download, a few screenshots and a description of the scene. Also more details about how it’s gonna work.
Again, we will be meeting in the #blenderdurian IRC channel on the FreeNode network, on Saturday, March 27th, between 1-2:00pm GMT+1 (Amsterdam), 12:00-1:00pm GMT. (Refer to Getting Started in Blender IRC if you’re not familiar with irc.) We’ll be in and out of the chat all weekend.
Sorry this is a bit more last-minute, but hopefully we’ll still get a decent turnout! Looking forward to it.
–Colin
March 25th, 2010 at 12:59 pm
Private vid…
March 25th, 2010 at 1:00 pm
YouTube is taking some time to make it public, and for some reason seems down now, just give it a few minutes 🙂
March 25th, 2010 at 1:01 pm
Noticed yah… why not use Vimeo, never saw Vimeo being down.
March 25th, 2010 at 1:37 pm
you guys are too early for April fool yet. here is a good one- 260 blender will go commercial with NewTek LightWave.not funny uh?
March 25th, 2010 at 1:47 pm
too bad, I will be trying to manage the delivery of 6300 bags of mulch to 200+ people that day…
March 25th, 2010 at 1:49 pm
YAY !!! so there’s gonna be re-targeting animation indeed !! this is soo orgasmic ^_^
March 25th, 2010 at 1:52 pm
ha I knew something like this was going to happen, I remember asking about background characters and all. I wish there was more time for this I am not exactly the speediest modeler but am sure I could knock out a character.
March 25th, 2010 at 1:54 pm
An animation sprint? This sounds interesting! I might try to help out and learn a bit more about Blender. I’m used to handling graphs and characters, I hope I just need to learn the basic keyframing and manipulate controls and I should be right at home!
See you on IRC on Saturday!
March 25th, 2010 at 2:02 pm
At 9:10am -3GTM Youtube is still down, WORDLWIDE!
March 25th, 2010 at 2:03 pm
Wow, the entire youtube.com is down!
The site throws an error:
Http/1.1 Service Unavailable
March 25th, 2010 at 2:06 pm
Lol, quite some power behind us Blenderheads, to take out youtube even =)
March 25th, 2010 at 2:19 pm
Well, now it gives a message about “This is a private video, if you have been sent this video, please make sure you accept the sender’s friend request 😉
March 25th, 2010 at 2:20 pm
No, it must be a secret plot by the people at Dreamworks!
March 25th, 2010 at 2:20 pm
I hope this will be as successful as the first sprint.
Hi new team members! 😀
March 25th, 2010 at 2:35 pm
Should work now guys, looks like youtube is back up (I wonder if it was hacked??).
Let us know if there’s any more problems!
Lee
March 25th, 2010 at 2:39 pm
Yeah youtube seems to be down, what if everything has crashed beyond recovery!! And youtube will have to be recreated…so many videos will dissapear. Since every minute about 10 000 videos are being uploaded.
March 25th, 2010 at 2:45 pm
very friendly office
March 25th, 2010 at 3:00 pm
@Dykam Vimeio takes time to convert it 🙁 it has like a 45 minute wait time…
Thanks for the news!
March 25th, 2010 at 3:12 pm
I hope we don’t have only two days to make an animation or a character… In that time I could do nothing.
But waiting for further instructions, I am interested in the animation one.
March 25th, 2010 at 3:28 pm
Hah, someone freakishly read my mind! I was practicing animation and walks with Nathan’s biped a few days ago.
Would anyone consider posting a sprint-compatible rig and some setup instructions some time before the sprint starts? I managed to make an inept, kludging linking mess when trying to play with the last rigged Sintel posted (the facial rig post). I’d hate to tune in on Saturday only to spend sprint time trying to set up a scene file to work on.
Anyway, this looks great and I can’t wait to see what everyone comes up with. Cheers!
March 25th, 2010 at 3:38 pm
Great!
COLIN, what happened with the next Directorial Address? hope you can make some time for make it, community deserves it!
By the way, Great job!
March 25th, 2010 at 3:42 pm
Well, if you look at other things, like game company’s use repetitive background characters to fill in that empty scene with lower poly-count too speeds this up, sequences would have video playing in the background, with the polygonal characters composited on top.
Hooded figures are used a lot in games and movies this brings a lot of cultural and depth of people not wanting to be noticed an UWP, Unidentified animated person but also someone or some people who are seen just not important enough to remember, so there simplicity is the key and which keeps your main characters important.
Sorry I can not contribute as I’m busy busy busy .
Best of luck with the sprint.
March 25th, 2010 at 3:48 pm
So the new title is Sprintel ! great 😉
March 25th, 2010 at 3:56 pm
You would definitely need to ensure a consistency in the “style” of the new characters. Why not give us a basic “mesh”–that is–a fully formed and rigged human character that sprint-participants can adjust its facial features, hairs, and so on to give it a needed individuality. I believe it would save a lot of time.
March 25th, 2010 at 4:13 pm
bring out the ‘few rigs’ to be animated. I’m sue the community can move them. this is a great idea. love it. what time is 1pm amsterdam in Sydney Australia? (3am?)
March 25th, 2010 at 4:13 pm
youtube is up and running now. Hey ‘Angus’ that was a mini Directorial Address, I bet Lee’s mum and dad are ecstatic they they got a hello over in Australia. Another sprint great can’t wait to see the results.
March 25th, 2010 at 4:16 pm
What version of blender are we using – i’m getting lots or crashes with my latest….svn 27718
March 25th, 2010 at 4:16 pm
Aw you guys got a ball to play with! Do want. So much fun….
March 25th, 2010 at 4:44 pm
im in!!! =^.^=
March 25th, 2010 at 6:07 pm
I’ll bet lots of people can help because it lasts all weekend.
By the way, for those of us in the US, Noon in GMT (or 1PM in Amsterdam, GMT+1) =
Pacific Coast (california) = GMT-7 = 5AM
mountain = 6AM
central = 7AM
eastern = 8AM
March 25th, 2010 at 6:30 pm
It would be nice if you could post some references (saw some awesome ones in the video) or at least pictures of what style you’re aiming at.
March 25th, 2010 at 6:47 pm
What if I can’t make it to irc but I still want to animate?
March 25th, 2010 at 6:50 pm
Dolf was working in something we couldn’t see? Looks like the splash image of alpha 2….
March 25th, 2010 at 6:51 pm
Other question will we have another life stream???
March 25th, 2010 at 7:09 pm
Heys,
The environment is really cool i guess its really cool and fun to work in open movie projects.
Anyways all the best for the project and have fun.
March 25th, 2010 at 7:40 pm
Sounds great. This weekend is a bit busy for me, but if I submit some stuff on Monday or Tuesday, you’ll still be able to use it I hope.
March 25th, 2010 at 8:52 pm
Looks like you guys’ve been smoking a lot of devil’s weed out there. You’re having a lot of fun. Good luck with the animations!
March 25th, 2010 at 8:58 pm
Well! being only twelve, I won’t be doing really great rigs or anything, but it shoul be fun!
March 25th, 2010 at 8:59 pm
Please tell me that there will be a Proog / Emo cameo.
March 25th, 2010 at 9:00 pm
These videos are basically the only way we can contact the outside world these days, so we usually take a moment from our busy schedules to contribute a little 😉 see you at the sprint guys!!
March 25th, 2010 at 9:03 pm
I noticed Colin’s haircut. Nice! (He mentioned it on Twitter the other day)
I love how the video ends.
March 25th, 2010 at 9:21 pm
@Elephant’s Dream: 1+ vote! We need to put characters from other Blender projects hidden in the crowd! Or in the scenario far far away, like Big Buck back to a window or something… : ))
For me isn’t clear yet if this weekend will be entirely for animation or modeling or both… 😕
March 25th, 2010 at 9:38 pm
I hope they put some easter eggs in the movie!!!
March 25th, 2010 at 11:48 pm
Great!! i can’t wait to begin!
March 26th, 2010 at 12:09 am
Anyone want to have a go at modeling the giant snail? It would seem a bit boring to have only humans in the background at the market in a world that has dragons.
Good luck with the sprint everyone!
March 26th, 2010 at 12:33 am
Hahaha, the giant snail is a great idea, I remember that thing from the early concept artworks 🙂
March 26th, 2010 at 12:39 am
Thanks. i remember mentioning this to Lee on the IRC Chat. Can’t wait. the only problem is that it is at 9-10pm at night for me! ARHH! But I can’t wait. I hope I can get some good animations done, and some models done, for you guys to use in the final picture. Nice work so far!
And the video was good! It actually worked! It works now.
March 26th, 2010 at 2:43 am
+1 to the easter eggs! i think it would be fun to try and find all the things you could hide in the movie.
March 26th, 2010 at 4:54 am
Easter Eggs a definite must. No doubt. Putting in Proog & Emo should be no problem, and you could have the BBB rodents scurry across as well.
I love the idea of another sprint! I don’t have enough faith in my animating abilities to participate myself, but I might stop by the IRC and see how things turn out.
March 26th, 2010 at 5:03 am
@ W
imagine having big white bunny from BBB
in the snow scene walking around like sasquatch in the background 🙂
March 26th, 2010 at 5:39 am
Join the dark side, and be there by 6AM…
Awesome
March 26th, 2010 at 7:18 am
What level of detail are Team Durian looking for? Are we talking people walking about and thinking etc. or are we talking about the bryan and the merchant haggling (or not as the case may be) over a fake beard?
March 26th, 2010 at 10:47 am
One thing to remember is that if these are background characters they must NOT be distracting, but they should still move in such a way that they feel real and alive, I’d imagine going about their routines of haggling and trading in the marketplace.
Characters further away from camera don’t need to be as detailed in their animation but anything right up close, say immediately behind the main action, should be rather refined.
But not distracting! The last thing we need is for the audience’s eyes to wander away from the main action.
March 26th, 2010 at 11:26 am
Its a city of clones! the HORROR!
🙂
March 26th, 2010 at 11:27 am
Can you please upload everything early before the sprint like last time, so people in other parts of the world can have the weekend too? Because if you upload it at around 1-2pm your time, I will only have less then a day to do something, and I want to model something and make some animations! Because I didn’t have time to finish my steep rocky mountain ridge for the modeling sprint. but if you upload everything early like before, that would be great.
March 26th, 2010 at 11:51 am
Please, post as soon as you can everything we need for the sprint.
We just need to know “early” what do you aim at to be productives so give us concept sketches, styles, models, rigs and everything cuold be useful for visualize and organize our work.
Because the sprint asks a hard task this time and give us very little time to realize it. So please, be complete and exhaustives 😉
March 26th, 2010 at 1:35 pm
What would be really useful is quality criteria.
For instance, Body and Clothing separate meshes or all in one.
Maximum sculpt levels/ polygon limits. Hi res vs low res.
Given your going for a Bazaar/market cultural diversity is probably not an issue??
Full bodies or are just faces fine.
Any other limitations that need to be set to get what you want.
March 26th, 2010 at 8:08 pm
@kike sanz
Loved your idea!!!
March 26th, 2010 at 10:44 pm
Can Angela and Nathan make a quick tutorial about how to model and rig a back-ground character? It would also help us to have an idea of detail level and realism…
March 27th, 2010 at 12:22 am
Paulo Bardes: If you don’t know how to model and rig a character, you shouldn’t be trying to do that for the sprint. They won’t have time to, because they are working to make durian better, and to make a tutorial, takes a while. It would be really long. Plus, that is the type of stuff they include on the dvd, when that comes out. Not now.
March 27th, 2010 at 1:32 am
@Jayden
Yes, I know that is impossible to teach how to make good models and/or rigs in one short video, but the idea is just to give quick tips and tricks… Even when you think you know all you need, you can learn something more… ^^
March 27th, 2010 at 2:04 am
Paulo Bardes: Go over to blendercookie.com. They have lots of free turoails on rigging and modelling in blender 2.5. Go check i tout!
March 27th, 2010 at 6:53 am
Are you going to have any Dogs or Cats or birds etc hanging around too. Walking through a market there’s always a lanky dog and a yappy little ankle biter hanging about the stalls. Seagulls hang around nagging for food also….. Just a thought.