I hope it comes to pass.

E.O. Stinson yostinso@wpi.edu
AIM: Eostinso ICQ: 3513296
Admin: http://www.wedgerats.net
Yostinso <-- crazy fanboy

*sniff*

What about me?

I can't do anything 'artsy' - but I'm good with mechanical drawing, drafting, architecture, etc. I almost went into architecture as a career back when I was deciding what to pursue for college. Won some award or another for a design I did in high school...

But I can't draw freehand, and forget being able to draw anything non-mechanical so that it is at all convincing.

Maybe someday I'll actually draw the plans for the house in WL...

>Animation approaches impossibility for many reasons, not least of
>which is that it essentially involves twenty-four pieces of
>very-carefully-painted fanart per second. :)

Well, very few anime are made with 24 unique sells per second. Probably more like 8 for a lot of them. (Reshoot the same cell multiple times.)

The lower the rate, the less smooth of course. But not many titles have the budget to shoot full rate.

-MegaZone, megazone@megazone.org
Personal Homepage http://www.megazone.org/
Eyrie Productions FanFic http://www.eyrie-productions.com/

>>As do we... only one of the Eyrie staffers that I can think of has any
>>recognizable artistic ability (R-Type), and he doesn't have any
>>discernible free time. Truss is a whiz with graphic design but has no
>>freehand drawing ability, so he can do logos until the cows come home
>>but no character material.
>
>*sniff*
>
>What about me?
>

What about you? You can't draw character material either, and that's what we have the big drought of.

>Maybe someday I'll actually draw the plans for the house in WL...

Complete with the underground complex that's bigger than the visible house is? :)

You ought to do a diagram of the old Wedge, too; it'd be inaccurate because from memory, but would give people a decent idea of what it was laid out like, anyway. (Ah, the things we thought were impossible in the days before the Web gave us graphics to go with text... )

(I fixed your spello for you.)
>Well, very few anime are made with 24 unique cels per second.

But the ones that are look really good. (Oddly, most of them are really stupidly written, but they look really good... )

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor in Chief, Netadmin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/

All the budget was spent on pretty picture, not on writing <just like Hollywood;)>

-={(Astynax)}=-
"Darkness beyond Twilight"

I hate the trend I've been seeing lately to slowly pan through a large static image to take up time. It ruined the Sol Bianca TV series for me. I couldn't watch more than an episode of it because it seemed that was all they did. Sure its cheap, but it looks cheap too.

--------------------------------------
Whoa! What IS it?!

Lately? ISTR that was an outstandingly common technique 30 years ago. Take a look at old eps of Grendizer or Golion sometime and see how much of the time is taken up by still pans. And back then they were often two-color stills, some ridiculous bright color and black, for some sort of bizarre dramatic purpose, no doubt...

Even cheap-ass animation today usually looks better than the general run of things 20-30 years ago...

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor in Chief, Netadmin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/

You have a point there, and I will admit that this can look better than the image you describe, but I'm still opposed to that technique which seems to be resurfacing. It can be used to some effect I suppose, particularly if the image is of decent quality. In the case of Sol Bianca TV, the image looked crappy. Other TV shows like Fushigi Yuugi, Cowboy Beebop, and even Marmalade Boy cut corners to save on production cost but still look better than what became of my poor beloved Sol Bianca.

Maybe I'm just bitter cause I loved the OAVs so much.

--------------------------------------
Whoa! What IS it?!

See, now, the thing that bugged me about the Sol Bianca TV show was the silly-ass weapon design. Cheezy CG effects I can handle, but not when they've been designed to look that doofy. The giant bow thing, in particular... that's just... wrong.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor in Chief, Netadmin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/

Oh God! I had supressed the memory of that particular travesty.

--------------------------------------
Whoa! What IS it?!

You're welcome. :)

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor in Chief, Netadmin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/

Redfield replied in horror on 10-apr:
>Oh God! I had supressed the memory of that particular travesty.

Are we talking about the 6 eps of "Sol Bianca: The Legacy"? --which I saw at Katsucon. (I keep mentioning K-007 because it's my first dedicated anime con.)

I rather liked the revised Italianate/marble interior design of the _SB_, G's new rose-trellis GUI, and even the mile-tall bow effect. (The instant-replicator-repair in #6 was a bit much.) It all reinforces the wealth and tech-competence of the civilization that built the ship. It's the sort of thing Frank Herbert's "Dune" Imperium would do.

What *did* annoy me were the repeatedly-dropped ancient-hints that weren't consummated when they finally reached lost-Earth.

I got to paint a cel at Katsucon 007 this year, in Steve Bennett's (Studio Ironcat) workshop. For future reference: when shading from light green to dark green, the intermediate color is *not* brown. :) (We mixed our own colors from black-white-red-yellow-blue acrylics.)

Megazone replied on apr-09:
>Well, very few anime are made with 24 unique sells per second.
>Probably more like 8 for a lot of them.

Also at Katuscon, Scott Frazier (anime industry vet and contributor to the RETAS 2D digital animation package) commented that, although a 22-minute ep at "two-up" (12 fps) is ~15000 frames, "Dragonball Z" runs ~1500 (lots of reuse), and the all-time economy-winner was "Evangelion" #26 at ~65. I haven't seen the latter half of NGE to confirm, but after "Death & Rebirth" I believe it.

Effort is proportional to technology used and desired quality. Consider how many frames of a typical anime involve pans across detailed backgrounds, or slides/zooms/rotates of "sprites" (to use an old term from 2D computer animation). Consider the compact vector animations of Macromedia Flash.

There *are* amateur anime-style producers out there, e.g. "Shawn the Touched" of White Radish.

A popular version of this which gets tossed around all the time in visual effects (and elsewhere, I'm sure) goes something like, "You have three choices: Good, Fast, and Cheap. Pick two."

---------------------------
"I think we used too much."
---------------------------
Chad Collier
Digital Bitch
J. Random VFX Company

I think this saying gets tossed around with just about any commodity.

--------------------------------------
Whoa! What IS it?!

For several years I've been keeping an idle eye out for programs
that do tweening or even the entire process of animation. (I'm
looking to eventually do something set in Warriors' World, the
V&V campaign that inspired both my fanfic series Drunkard's
Walk and my 1991 book from Steve Jackson Games.) I haven't seen
anything I like yet, but it's only a matter of time, in my
opinion. Once something decent comes out, it will just be a
matter of finding an artist to do key cells -- and, of course,
casting voice actors.

-- Bob

I heartfully agree with that. With a 'couple friends
here in France we started working on a plot that
could basically be declined as a film, a comic book,
a novel, whatever. We have written 120 pages of scenario
so far and countless sketches, half of them bad as sh$*%,
mind you, but who cares?

France is an area where filmmakers have to lick
politicians' boots in order to get descent funding.
Most would-be directors sail toward other horizons.
A recent example was Luc Besson (Fifth element,
the Professionnal), of course, but you could probably
add Christopher Gans (Crying Freeman, Wolfs'pact)
and a couple others to that list.

I personaly think this is about to change.

Reason #1 -
Shooting and cuting movies is not a very expensive
process anymore if, as long as a director
is familiar enough with simple computer-aided
editing tools.

On a brasstacks level, hiring staff and
planing is not very different from planing a
software project (I personaly can't see how it
could be worse, at least you KNOW you resources
before the project starts, and the requirements
CAN be expressed precisely). As for hiring human
material, well... do as Georges Lucas did...
hire the woodsmith.

Digital camcorders are bringing hi-fi quality
back in the streets. It is just a matter of
years before we see the first amateur fics
come out with professionnal looking results.
--

Reason #2 -
I can go further than that. So, Gryphon, you are
uneasy with handdrawing? I bet you're quite apt
with CGI modelers and stuff, and you've proven
to be a quite remarkable scene writer. Know that
Lightwave 3D offers a very intersting plugin
named CelShade with which you can project a 3D
model as if it were a 2D cell drawing. It would
then be a matter of modeling a 3D DJ and
"rock the music". I bet you would be surprised
at the result.

For our own project, we are going to do it the
easy way. We are planing a comic, but are
_believe it or not_ quite lazy when it comes
to complicated architecture. So we did the
exact opposite: we modeled the buildings and
drew the caracters! ;).
--

So, I say, if you want to bring DJ on screen,
there is no real impossibility. It's just a
matter of starting the whole thing. After all,
NXE by itself is quite a HUGH achievement
(both in time and magnitude), so I guess you
guys know how to start something big. If it's
just a matter of being convinced you can do
it...

Well... Believe me. You can.

Alex Betis

Actually, I've never used one. What you describe, though, is something I've felt some interest in from time to time, but like so many other things, haven't found the time/energy for.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor in Chief, Netadmin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/

Most 3D programs (3DSMax, RayDreamStudio, Softimage, etc.) have such a rendering plugin now. I tried Softimage's in 1998, and it was easily confused by my polygonal geometry, shading in odd ways. NURBS geometry might've fared better. (RPI's 3D animation course made the poor decision of using Softimage; powerful, but far too complex for an intro package, and too expensive for students to get their own copy for homework.) .../Sigh/ I really wish I hadn't accidentally rm'd the IGES exports of all my models from that course. I put *way* too much effort into those articulated TSS spacecraft (not that the IK skeletons would export, but)...

> would then be a matter of modeling a 3D DJ and
> "rock the music". I bet you would be surprised
> at the result.

Humans are *extremely* difficult to do as 3D CGI: the complex geometry to get a passable face or hand, the many controls needed to manipulate them, skin shading. A *lot* of effort went into "Toy Story", "Voltron The Third Dimension", "Roughnecks: Starship Troopers Chronicles", "Action Man", etc. Realistic fabric movement (for clothes) is even more difficult, which is why the characters in the above are usually wearing armor or tight-fitting jumpsuits.

This is why "Titan A.E." mapped cel-animated characters into CGI backgrounds; easier to get the facial and posture expressiveness.

Many of these objections would also apply to the EVAs, less facial expression and clothing (Unit 02's shipping tarp/cape nothwithstanding :-).

> we are _believe it or not_ quite lazy when it comes
> to complicated architecture. So we did the
> exact opposite: we modeled the buildings and
> drew the caracters! ;).

Essentially the same approach (architecture and ships) is used by White Radish, "Titan A.E.", "Flash Gordon" (1996), "Spider Man" (FoxKids c.1995), "Futurama", etc. -- with varying degrees of success.

Yup. Noticed that too.

>Humans are *extremely* difficult to do as 3D CGI: the complex geometry
>to get a passable face or hand, the many controls needed to manipulate
>them, skin shading. A *lot* of effort went into "Toy Story", "Voltron
>The Third Dimension", "Roughnecks: Starship Troopers Chronicles",
>"Action Man", etc. Realistic fabric movement (for clothes) is even
>more difficult, which is why the characters in the above are usually
>wearing armor or tight-fitting jumpsuits. /snip/

I think we are not looking at "realistic" rendering here,
especially for textures, skins and the sort. We cannot hope to
achieve a rendering that is worth the one in Toy Story, or even
in Evangelion. I'd even say that doing so would be a mistake.

After all, why assume photo-realistic rendering?

If we could render NXE the "Sin City" way, I wouldn't spit on
it, on the contrary (Okay, I cheat. There is a movie goin' on
doing exactly that).

If we do typical "Manga" rendering (flat colors), then a lot of
the details necessary for a toy story or a 3D realistic model
go through the window. I am not even convinced the model we need
here has to be THAT elaborated.

We might find advantages at adopting mixed approaches,
oft-times completing CGI results with hand-made drawings.
We would heavily resort on sliding cells over frenetic
Akira-style gestures.

Plus, I am very good at drawing hands, :O).

We are not pros. Our main focus is on getting something clean
(as opposed to the err... sketch I can see later in the thread),
efficient, and convincing. I say black + white, clean black
inklining, no textures for a start. Focus on what we're good at:
situations, speech, storytelling.

>
>This is why "Titan A.E." mapped cel-animated characters into CGI
>backgrounds; easier to get the facial and posture expressiveness.
>
>Many of these objections would also apply to the EVAs, less facial
>expression and clothing (Unit 02's shipping tarp/cape nothwithstanding
>:-).
>
>Essentially the same approach (architecture and ships) is used by
>White Radish, "Titan A.E.", "Flash Gordon" (1996), "Spider Man"
>(FoxKids c.1995), "Futurama", etc. -- with varying degrees of success.

Yup. 100% agree.

Alex a.k.a. "Crocal"

That's pretty much what I'm looking for when it comes to the Warriors' World project. I don't want photoreal CGI -- I want a package that lets me create something that looks like traditional animation at a fraction of the time and effort.

-- Bob

Of course, if you don't have a reasonably talented artist, you tend to end up with...

...pain.

It's been considered a couple of times - once, Zoner and I borrowed a video camera from WPI's media center and taped a number of things from around campus to give an Australian fan who had expressed some interest in doing a UF manga some idea of what things looked like...

... say! I'll have to dig that tape up, it probably has footage of the pre-lawn-furniture Wedge!

I know it's got a sighting of the late Derek Bacon...

Anyway, we did that tape, but lost touch with the guy, never got it converted to PAL, and never did anything with it.

The key problems are that I don't personally know anybody with the level of artistic talent I'd be comfortable with and the amount of free time necessary to devote to such a project, and I wouldn't be comfortable handing it off to somebody outside the group - I have a very visual imagination, which is a big problem when you have no artistic talent, and so I tend to be kind of a control freak as to the way I think things ought to look. Such a project would involve a lot of coordination and oversight, and I have neither the time nor the inclination to put some poor volunteer artist through that kind of experience. :)

So, for now, it remains on the "wouldn't it be nifty" list, alongside the once-proposed NXE "books on mp3" project (which I nixed primarily because I don't want to spend that much time sitting in my room reading my own work into a minidisc recorder :).

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor in Chief, Netadmin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/

Just had the mental image of 'NXE Radio Theater', with multiple people doing the dialog, sound effects and such. Hrmmm. Guess that falls into 'If there was time' catagory as well. Neat thought though.

---------------------------
"I think we used too much."
---------------------------
Chad Collier
Digital Bitch
J. Random VFX Company

I'd love to give 'special brownie' points to the person who read my mind.

Eyrie-big-special-people, if you ever feel like opening a radio play, I'm sure there are hundreds of people who would be willing to audition for various parts, sending in their 5 MB wave files by the dozens to help the cause.

Then again...that doesn't sound too encouraging, does it? :/

Forgive me for this
I know I babble too much
Pardon my strangeness

- Sabishii

MP3's my friend, MP3's...

>Forgive me for this
>I know I babble too much
>Pardon my strangeness
>

This is almost as funny as the Windows Error Haiku:)

-={(Astynax)}=-
"Darkness beyond Twilight"

*nod* And Rich Parker doing his best to avoid the lens.

>I know it's got a sighting of the late Derek Bacon...

*nod* Basement lab of Fuller I think.

-MegaZone, megazone@megazone.org
Personal Homepage http://www.megazone.org/
Eyrie Productions FanFic http://www.eyrie-productions.com/

Agreed. The external quicktime VR virtual tour of WPI just isn't quite enough, especially when you're trying to imagine a bunch of wedge rats with M16s defending against hordes of the Knights of the STRAIGHT and Narrow Path...

--
Merlin the Happy Pig

Hell, I've got summer coming up, and so do most students... Jobs are time consuming, but not _all_ the time.

-Craig
Need something to read?
http://www.wpi.edu/~perko

That may be, but I haven't got the time or the energy to oversee another project, especially one as complex and involving as many people as that. At least the "fics on tape" idea only involved my own time (well, OK, and some Truss time for engineering)...

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor in Chief, Netadmin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/

http://www.andgor.com/Personalized_Figures/personalized_figures.html

Go for it. Move ahead. Get straight.

--
Geoff Depew - Mephron
"I think I sprained my anterior lobe just thinking about it."

Damn... sounds like a cool idea.

Hmm. Possibly for the best actually, just in case there are any rabid fans who listen to it and think they've heard the voice of god... ;-)

--
Merlin the Happy Pig

-Michael, and yes, the cycle of work-a-month, have a day off may have dirven me slightly mad.
Napalm. It sticks to ignorance. ^W constipated executive chefs.

I'd settle for a resin model based on "An Encounter at Shamrock House"; Gryph in an overstuffed chair, Croft beside him, filking Queen.

Here's a question: if you were an action figure, what special feature would YOU have? I'd have to have kung-fu grip. Kung-fu grip rules the world.

-- Sean --

"Imagination is more important than knowledge." -- Albert Einstein

"It's not easy being green." -- Kermit the Frog

Sounds like one of those porcelain statue things that go for 400 bucks in comic shops. Creepy.

>Here's a question: if you were an action figure, what special feature
>would YOU have? I'd have to have kung-fu grip. Kung-fu grip rules
>the world.

I'd like one of those neat pass-through things that make my eyes glow if you shine a light on the back of my head. And a spring-loaded grappling hook launcher with a little winch to reel me back in with.

Oh, electronic interaction with available playsets would be cool.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor in Chief, Netadmin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/

On par with that, the look-through-the-back-of-the-head robot vision, a-la the old 6 Million Dollar Man doll, or the Zorg figure from Toy Story 2. I've always wanted Terminator Vision.

An old school non-childproofed spring loaded missle launcher as well.

---------------------------
"I think we used too much."
---------------------------
Chad Collier
Digital Bitch
J. Random VFX Company

I'd put it in the same location as the original Shockwave toy (which I still have), but I'd like other people to be able to use it without committing sexual harrassment.

Ard Sumhenner
Ronin Research, Silicon Valley, CA

I have no use for special features... it's all about the accessories. I want three outfits (civilian clothes w/ the infamous purple pants, The Moving Target's costume w/ helmet, and my formal JVS outfit from UF/FI) and my very own Imperial Shuttle (painted bright blue) complete with motorized wing joints.

--truss.
And a lightsaber that extends out of my otherwise useless right arm.

An extendable tongue-lash like Toad in the X-Men movie. (I had someone at the Helldesk where I work - I'm somewhere between 2nd and 3rd level support - tell another person, "God forgives. Geoff does not.") To represent the fact that I can, in fact, flay someone with just words if need be.

Hm. And dual-arm over-head throwing action. Put another action figure on my hands when the arms are above the head, pull the trigger, and throw. (that's more a fantasy about some of the Helldeskers, me, and a set of staircases...)

--
Geoff Depew - Mephron
"I think I sprained my anterior lobe just thinking about it."

Ah, someone else in the trenches. Tell me, do you have people with PhD's calling asking how to format a floppy?:)

-={(Astynax)}=-
"Make the hurting stop, Joel"

Personally I just had to deal with "web designers" with no concept of FTP or the Unix file privilege system.

--
Merlin the "Very Happy Not To Work In Customer Support Any More" Pig

The PhD's are worse, IMHO, but that is bad... hell, I have next to null experience on UNIX systems <the sys admin at my college loves MS stuff, don't ask, we don't know why> and I know about those. Tell me, did these 'designers' have degrees/certificates, or were they just resume padding liars?

-={(Astynax)}=-
"Darkness beyond Twilight"

I'm just grateful that my department worships at the shrine of the Great God Torvalds.

>Tell me,
>did these 'designers' have degrees/certificates, or were they just
>resume padding liars?

Heh... I'd probably go for #2. ;-)

I doesn't help when someone wants read/write access to the files of every user on the system from one account, when we can't give him root access. It took a while to get that concept through his head.

--
Merlin the Happy Pig

I don't quite see why one user would possibly have a legitmate reason to get that anyway except the sys admin <and IMHO, even s/he shouldn't have access to personal, non executable files, call it a privacy thing;) >

-={(Astynax)}=-
"Darkness beyond Twilight"

I'm thinking that literacy is a dying art. Which of course is sort of obvious from our federal government at this time, especially the block at the top of it.

--
Geoff Depew - Mephron
"I think I sprained my anterior lobe just thinking about it."

>I'm thinking that literacy is a dying art. Which of course is sort of
>obvious from our federal government at this time, especially the block
>at the top of it.

Well, we all know what literacy is really about. And, I don't know about you, but I'm confident that my children is learning.

-- Sean --

"Imagination is more important than knowledge." -- Albert Einstein

"It's not easy being green." -- Kermit the Frog

Those who can, code, those who cannot, manage.

>I'm thinking that literacy is a dying art. Which of course is sort of
>obvious from our federal government at this time, especially the block
>at the top of it.
>

Well, you know how outraged parents react to anything with 'racy' in it. Bombs in the garage and shotguns in the back pack is OK, but anything containing 'racy' bits has to be squashed quickly;)

-={(Astynax)}=-
"Yes, it was a bad pun. I know already, you don't need to tell me"

Well, just for accuracy's sake, I'd have a degauss button. All the limbs would jerk for a second (like when you wake up too fast), and then go back to normal.

-Michael
Napalm. It sticks to ignorance.

I would have expandable limbs.

--------
Valkyries I saw, coming from afar,
Eagerly riding to aid the Goths

But they got all stomped by the mighty foot of Monty Python.

Sanity is an overrated concept.