Sintel on 3D World’s October issue!
on September 7th, 2010, by Pablo VazquezHoi! (now you know how to wave in Dutch!)
Sintel Cover
So! exciting times here at the Blender Institute, today is our very-really-thistimeforsure last rendering day, next to some color grade we need to do still, but then is time to grab those big .EXR files and convert them into friendly DPX’s for the guys at Cineco to do magic with it and turn them into 21312 stills of 35mm chemical glory.
That means we’re getting close to our (real!) Premiere, so in order to help us make some noise, 3D World is widely covering Blender topics on October’s issue, Sintel will be on cover + interview time with Ton (Producer), Colin (Director), and William (Animator), and even BBB got a column in “A list of the all the Best CG shorts out there” 🙂
About the cover image:
Pose by Lee
Sintel and Scale’s were posed by Lee, but I ended up changing Scale’s face expression ( 😀 !) and moved around the arms to fit better the magazine layout.
I had the honor to light the picture used on cover, which I’m sharing with you here, this is a scaled down version of the original in 6k, wich you can find on the DVD (I even tried 12k just for fun and Blender survived! 🙂 ).
Lighting consisted on 4 Area lamps with raytraced shadows + Raytraced Indirect Lighting (1 bounce, Irradiance Cache 8 samples) + AO (multiply), (yeah I’m getting spoiled on this super computers), but still the Render Branch is doing a great job on this, sometimes is actually faster to calculate than Shadow Buffers at the beginning (mostly due to multithreading, this computer is 8 cores HT, so 16 threads).
Render time was only 38 minutes for 6k!, using about 6 Gb RAM on its peak (only Sintel though, the background was rendered separately but only took 8min or so).
At the end, a bit of paint-over was done by David, mostly fixing things like a weird specular on Sintel’s eyelid, fix hair intersections and stuff you only see on still images when you get very close to them 🙂
Thats pretty much it!, hope you like it, I saved this blend file on our SVN so it will be on the DVDs, same as the hi-res version of the characters on PNG with alpha.
Gotta get back to work, sorry for the lack of updates, we’re busy believe me 😀
Hasta luego!
Pablo
September 7th, 2010 at 12:45 pm
Sintel look really cool! now i have new wallpaper !!!
September 7th, 2010 at 12:52 pm
I love the poster.. Awesomeee!!!
September 7th, 2010 at 12:56 pm
BTW, this is not *the* movie poster!, is just a fancy pose that works for the magazine, I’m working on the poster as soon as we finish the actual movie 😀
Cheers!
September 7th, 2010 at 1:17 pm
Looks great 😀
So after this, the movie is officially finished? 🙂
September 7th, 2010 at 1:18 pm
omg! sintel is soooo cooool!
September 7th, 2010 at 1:21 pm
Looks really cool! (and Scales is so cute, I almost want him to be in my backyard :P)
But isn’t this picture a bit too high? For the cover of a magazine you’ve got to crop quite a lot.
My best wishes, hopefully we get an update tomorrow that everything went very well!
September 7th, 2010 at 1:24 pm
Awesome! Congratulations to you all! Can’t wait for my copy…
September 7th, 2010 at 1:29 pm
@ kram1032: hell yeah! 😀
@ J: Of course 🙂 , but we don’t, they’ll crop it, we already saw a mockup (we can’t spread it yet for obvious reasons) on how the cover looks, they just chop the legs and staff a bit, looks pretty nice on the magazine I must say.
September 7th, 2010 at 1:30 pm
I am definitely going to buy that issue. lol. hep hep hooray blender!
September 7th, 2010 at 1:50 pm
Seriously this is superb.
Sintel looks sweet,and Scale’s looks cute.
September 7th, 2010 at 2:05 pm
That looks amazing! Just had to create a wallpaper out of it 🙂
http://studio.jumpers-inn.de/wp-content/gallery/misc/sintelwallpaper.png
September 7th, 2010 at 2:05 pm
is very beautiful, congratulation
September 7th, 2010 at 2:14 pm
Awesome stuff! Scales got a pervy face. >_<
Awesome, awesome, awesome…! 😀
September 7th, 2010 at 2:38 pm
Aaaaw MAN! My 3Dworld subscription just ended! Looks like I’m gonna buy this one, anyway. (But.. I want want with the subscription cover! Baaaah)
September 7th, 2010 at 3:18 pm
awesome, definitely gonna buy that issue 😀
and congraturlations on almost finishing it 🙂
September 7th, 2010 at 3:28 pm
I love Sintel :P.
September 7th, 2010 at 4:40 pm
Dudes Awsome Render!!!
September 7th, 2010 at 4:55 pm
wow, very awesome! 😀
and congratulations to everyone on the magazine! 😀 DURIAN FTW!!!
September 7th, 2010 at 5:13 pm
Super cool.
Buying it now for sure.
September 7th, 2010 at 5:13 pm
Se ve suuuupeeerrrr bien, les quedo genial. Felicitaciones y saludos Pablo. Desde Ecuador
September 7th, 2010 at 5:40 pm
Awesome. This must be the new splash screen. 🙂
http://www.imagedisk.net/images/s13lr7sbj8iwk83oavn.jpg
September 7th, 2010 at 6:03 pm
such friggin’ sweet CG!
September 7th, 2010 at 7:05 pm
Purely awesome!
I love it. I got a new motivation boost for the Sintel presentation I make for school 😉 Thanks
September 7th, 2010 at 7:09 pm
WOW, amazing guys!
How long are plan to stay in Holland, Pablo? Do you like it here?
September 7th, 2010 at 7:59 pm
Does this mean the 4k version will start rendering soon? All I can say is the 4k stills released earlier look AMAZING on a 4k display, really looking forward to seeing it in motion.
September 7th, 2010 at 8:22 pm
One of the best and most beautifull renders I’ve ever seen. Perfect. 😀
September 7th, 2010 at 8:30 pm
wow. nice one
isnt the movie even finished yet?
September 7th, 2010 at 8:39 pm
she really looks nice in that render, i cant wait to see the movie, just 20 more days!!!
again and again and again GREAT work!
September 7th, 2010 at 9:01 pm
thank you so much for you comments, so inspiring!
This afternoon we spent 5 hours here doing color grading together with Ton and Soenke, its a pretty detailed and hard task!, took us a while but the magic of EXR made everything worth it, I know its obvious but still: 32bit is just awesome, specially when used to work with only 8bit PNG or JPGs..
@ D@nny: I’m staying until Blender Conference at least 🙂 then maybe November.. or December.. who knows! there are plenty of Conferences and Festivals I might attend to, giving talks o Blender courses, but I’ll definitely be at home for xmas and new years eve, then next year is another story 🙂
@ spacetug: finished is a pretty wide word! 😀 we’re re-rendering many shots all the time, with fixes from us render guys or the animators who want to really tweak their shots, so as long as we had farm power we were able to do it, but today is really the last day, since tomorrow we’ll sending everything to the lab.
Cheers and thanks again everyone!
September 7th, 2010 at 9:20 pm
Awesome news team, congrats! The render is fantastic!
September 7th, 2010 at 9:24 pm
Congratulations for the movie, it’s gonna be great and a milestone for Blender.
I never really liked Sintel’s design and don’t like it now, she has a robotic look very unpleasant to the eye and her gigantic hands don’t help either. I really dislike her, but I’m sure the movie is going to be amazing.
For me it will be like seen a great film starring Sarah Michelle Gellar…
But maybe when I’ll see it I’ll change my mind and fall in love with the robotic Sintel. I hope so.
September 7th, 2010 at 9:28 pm
PELICULA EN ESPAÑOL POR FAVOR
September 7th, 2010 at 9:46 pm
Did you use normal instead of displacement maps? The staff is a perfect cylinder at the edges – something only noticeable in stills probably 🙂 so no big deal…
September 7th, 2010 at 9:49 pm
@ Juan Romero: Yo también espero! 😀
@ española: No te hagas problema!, ya traduje los subtítulos al Castellano hace unos días, aunque no son muchos los dialogos después de todo, pero tenemos subtítulos en muchos idiomas, y como hablo Castellano nativamente no tuve problemas en traducirla 🙂
September 7th, 2010 at 10:04 pm
Actualy, how old is Sintel? First I read it was around 15, then that it was better not to mention it because the voice didn’t fit with her. now a friend of mine said that he just fell in love with Sintel, but i told him that she’s under age. so he want to know how old she is to be free of sin hahaha
September 7th, 2010 at 10:06 pm
y sobre los subtitulos en español. los del trailer no estaban correctos del todo. habian problemas de genero en ciertas palabras que deberian estar en femenino y la palabra “porteros” es mejor traducirla a “centinelas” o “guardianes”
September 7th, 2010 at 10:24 pm
@ wo262: Los subtítulos en Castellano del trailer los hizo la gente de DivX creo, y para mi opinión parecía hecho con Google Translate 😛 , los del corto los hice yo en Castellano neutro, les mostré a amigos para saber su opinión (no Argentinos también), y sin problemas.
September 7th, 2010 at 10:36 pm
And who made the Dutch subtitles?
September 8th, 2010 at 3:01 am
Pablo, we totally need a 16:10 version of that image so we can use it as a wallpaper! Please? 🙂
September 8th, 2010 at 3:07 am
Hoi! Good stuff indeed. Keep it coming, guys. *two thumbs up*
September 8th, 2010 at 3:56 am
Congrats on making it to 3D World! Looking forward to the issue.
Is the pose based of this (/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/sintel.jpg) concept at all, or is it just a coincidence?
There final model of Sintel isn’t actually very different from the early concepts at all! (a good think imho)
September 8th, 2010 at 7:44 am
Guys that image is perfection! So much life and detail in it, the lighting it amazing, one of those rare pictures I keep having an urge to look at, simply because its pure eye candy 😀
@Pablo, will you guys be posting a blogpost about the colour grading??? I think everyone (especially me) would love to see some before/after colour grading shots to have some insight into the world of colour grading and how you guys used it for Sintel.
Cant wait to finally see the movie 😀 Ive got a brand new (and very clear I might say) full HD computer monitor just in time it seems XD
September 8th, 2010 at 9:03 am
I can’t believe the premiere is almost here! I just can’t wait for it. Such a shame I can’t be there but I’ll have to wait for the online premiere (which hopefuly won’t take long after… right? o_o)
It’s funny, It’s about 2am here, I’m kind of ill and am about to sleep, saw an update on the Sintel feed and decided to look. the image loads and my eyes pop open in amazement! I just love it!!! O_O
And I second Ad-Edge, We want to see that XD
September 8th, 2010 at 10:23 am
Wow, awesome cover! I remember it was seeing Big Buck Bunny on the cover of 3D World that got me thinking about Blender again, and I’m sure the same thing will happen for other people with this cover.
September 8th, 2010 at 10:49 am
@jeff,
For now, I’ve made an unofficial 16:10 wallpaper! 😀 A cropped and slightly liquid rescaled version.
http://i54.tinypic.com/14v63nl.jpg
September 8th, 2010 at 11:11 am
androvsky: what, you have a 4k screen there?!? Contact me if you do 4k productions, maybe we can make some arrangements… (ton at blender org).
September 8th, 2010 at 11:27 am
Juan Romero who? such kind words…..
September 8th, 2010 at 11:56 am
Argh… not the dreamworks frown, not the dreamworks frown…
too late… darnit:
http://www.memedepot.com/uploads/500/568_pixar_vs_dreamworks.gif
Then again, can’t seem to think of any better way to do it… I’m not worthy!
That’s one edition of 3D World I’m going to have to get… Blender is preciousss… now if only I could find out what they put in my coffee this morning… or is this happiness-related from seeing good things come to fruition? This nagging feeling that it’s going to be great and the guilt of only buying the dvd’s and getting so much more out of it than a few disks with data.
Ok, pardon me, I’ll go ramble (and drool, get a mop) somewhere else.
September 8th, 2010 at 1:10 pm
@D: thanks, but I can do that too (I already did, for my netbook). However I’d like the full frame version, in high resolution. I want more details, not less 🙂
September 8th, 2010 at 1:19 pm
I have to say that the cover image looks really great! It inspired me so that I created a 1024×768 wallpaper of this here (cropped, and slightly enhanced):
http://tinypic.com/r/f0c9io/7
September 8th, 2010 at 2:23 pm
1024×768? In this decade? 😛
September 8th, 2010 at 2:34 pm
@J: Well, in my country, would you believe we still have 1024×768 screens? 😀
September 8th, 2010 at 2:48 pm
@ J: In my country we also have those screen resolutions, but still, iPad is also 1024×768, and its pretty much this decade 😉
@ Hoxolotl: this is only for the magazine! is supposed to be like that, really once you see it with the layout it’ll make sense 🙂 even Pixar movies does this kind of expressions:
http://www.kulturblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/rat_dvd.jpg
The actual poster of the movie will be completely different 😀
Thanks to everyone making wallpapers, I wish I had time to make some official ones right now, but I certainly will! once we get finished with this, is part of all the PR of making poster + web + DVDs and so on, so no worries!
September 8th, 2010 at 3:24 pm
No problem Pablo, I sometimes enjoy doing this as a stress-buster at work…
Just a last pic before I sign off… For 1440×900 screens 😉 – Enjoy
http://tinypic.com/r/in69vo/7
September 8th, 2010 at 3:32 pm
@Clint and Pablo:
Of course there are lot of computers in The Netherlands still using this resolution, but we as ”geeks” find it quite ”old skool” isn’t it? 😛
@Pablo:
Is the film already delivered at Cineco, or do you still have some computers rattling the last few things?
September 8th, 2010 at 3:33 pm
Clint, that last one went straight to my desktop.
Pablo, now its partly your fault I have to look at it dayly, so I will blame you too, and Lee of course…
… keep up the good work! 😀
September 8th, 2010 at 4:52 pm
Juan Romero, who? me.
I helped with a model of Lao Tseu, participated in the modeling sprint and I’d call myself a Blender “advanced user”.
I love Blender and have made compliments to the team on several ocassions for their work, but I have a clear opinion on the main character and feel like this is the right place for it, it’s just personal taste, can’t it be said? is better to say “aawwwwwwwesome” a thousand times?
I already said that I believe the movie is gonna be great, but I do have some critics, what’s wrong with it?is this a place for fanboys only?
September 8th, 2010 at 4:54 pm
I forgot, the above is a reply for “The Fatsnacker”
September 8th, 2010 at 5:25 pm
Juan Romero,
We heard of all your cristisims previously and you know what, cristisisms are fine, but this close to d-day an you wanna whine about what you dont like…..fine go knock youself out.
As for the use of ‘fanboy’, how can positive likeness for something be criticised for some thing that is generally down to personal taste. You use the term ‘fanboy’ as a derogatry monicker? I don’t think anyone on this site is so deserving of your stereotype…..
I bow down to your greatness and humbly ask that I may gaze upon you gallery!
September 8th, 2010 at 5:55 pm
The attention and coverage sintel receives is great and well deserved.
I received my october-issue of 3d world recently, but had not opened it yet. After reading Sintel would be featured in the october-issue along with an interview with Ton I rushed up-stairs to read it, but unfortunately no article on sintel or any interview with Ton. On the “next issue” page there’s also no mention of sintel.
It still could be in the november-issue, that’s due out on the 23rd of september, but I think it want be until the december-issue, which is shipped around the last week of october.
Just thought I’d mention this, for those eager to get this issue.
September 8th, 2010 at 7:21 pm
@Clint
That one went straight to my desktop. Just awesome!
September 8th, 2010 at 8:04 pm
The next issue is, according to the Ocober issue of 3DWorld is on sale 23rd September (Bottom left, page 6). I think there is a discrepency between magazine date, and actual release date.
The next one would seem to be released on 23rd September but labelled as November 2010? go figure…I suspect its some ingenoius marketing ploy, and that ‘Kadargo’ you should be in for a free copy for picking up on the mistake?
regards
TFS
September 8th, 2010 at 8:04 pm
Por favor Pablo, cuando tengas un minuto de descanso revisar el correo de tu sitio web venom’s lab. Ah por cierto magnifico render. Saludos!!!
September 8th, 2010 at 10:33 pm
@Hoxolotl, Omar_Ramirez
Glad you liked that one 🙂
September 8th, 2010 at 10:40 pm
Hi,
it’s so great.
Is anyone of the team at the IBC in Amsterdam???
regards
September 8th, 2010 at 10:43 pm
Re October issue. Yes, I also find it a bit weird. The way I heard it explained is that the date on the magazine is the ‘expiry’ date, meaning that the October issue (which came out end august and is the issue on sale through September) is removed from the magazine racks beginning of October. This may sound strange when you hear it for a monthly mag, but it kinda makes sense if you only have 3-4 issues per year. Of course I could be completely wrong.
On another note, Sintel is going to ROCK!!!
September 9th, 2010 at 1:06 am
How can I translate the subtitles to Brazilian Portuguese?
September 9th, 2010 at 8:09 am
I am with the others…. Definitely wallpaper awesomeness!
September 9th, 2010 at 10:59 am
Pablo, very nice that you reply to lots of comments!
The “Poster” looks really great, especially the detail of the sword!
September 9th, 2010 at 1:22 pm
This is so AWESOME! I’m going gaga over this, and I’m DEFINITELY buying that issue of 3DWORLD for sure!
September 9th, 2010 at 5:28 pm
I got to say I love the poster!
This project is a lot of steps ahead compared with previous projects.
This should be a huge flyer placed at the blender institute.
September 9th, 2010 at 7:37 pm
I like it,looks greats as background in my screen
September 9th, 2010 at 10:55 pm
Every time i see the Sintel render it moves something inside me, perhaps is the good natural expression, and the amazing lighting that makes her more alive and more real. She is so beautiful, sad to realize that we live in two worlds apart.
September 10th, 2010 at 12:01 am
Maybe she’s gonna become one of the top100 covergirls now too!!!
Must be one of the best coverdragons of all time already that hasn’t been published on a mag that deals about rpg games!
Thats one awesome still..love the looks!!!
But what does ‘hasta luego’ mean 😀
September 10th, 2010 at 12:27 am
This is great. I’d love it as a wallpaper.
September 10th, 2010 at 3:42 am
😀 I loved the render, i could not resist playing around with it. soooo cooool!
Heres a screencast of your render, and after i played with it. Had loads of fun. 😀
Hope you dont mind 🙂
http://screencast.com/t/ZDhjOWE5NTM
September 11th, 2010 at 7:04 am
Nails color look weird, same color as fingers.
September 12th, 2010 at 1:50 am
This wallpaper is just for fun (edited the poster around a lot!). 🙂 – I might say that it kinda renders a comedic note to the film 😉 – again guys, just putting some light moments here.
http://tinypic.com/r/2mzabr7/7
September 14th, 2010 at 9:58 pm
lol Clint,
I love this one. Great. Too sad almost noone will see it, as you posted it so late in here …
September 21st, 2010 at 10:36 am
Got the Mag last night, great review.
The only dissapointment was that the one Blender tutorial in the mag was not for Blender 2.5
September 22nd, 2010 at 12:27 am
Please make this in door size poster too! Would love to have this. And I haven’t seen the movie yet!
September 22nd, 2010 at 7:45 pm
I hate that I can’t get my hands on the magazine till a month after the movie comes out. The US is a month behind the release of the mag. I want it now, now I need to find someone to mail me one from Europe.
October 14th, 2010 at 11:28 am
I would still love to see a poster out of this. Are you willing to do so?