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I want to follow up on one thing that Holly said---" Maybe in addition to these “scripts” we’ve been submitting, we should also submit some artwork? " And I think that is exactly what we should try on top of any written scripts as an aid to brainstorming. In addition , by making a rough scene image or images even if its only a shot....folks get a feel for the look ----and the detail one was shooting for.
plus it always might be a way to guage some talent. As in bob's image had not so good characters but damm those environments looked great ---etc
The Carrara Project 2112
Overlord ( on Carrara world )- What news
Tech 1 - Zim 6 is ready
Hunters are live
Tech 2 - overlord - we have found a world with prey - they call it earth
Overlord - excellent - How long to finish Zim 6
Tech 2 - 8 Revolution
Overlord - Commence
Tech 1 - we are sending the collectors now overlord
Zim 6 -
Dude, that's awesome !!!
That script pretty much writes itself.
Although, you might want to reconsider the whole "Zim" thing, and the destroying Earth. I think it's been done before. Wasn't there, like, an "Invader Zim" or something on Nickelodeon? And the guy tried to destroy Earth? Folks tend to get a little cranky when you use their ideas like that. Probably not illegal, just.....well....a little too close. And as I recall, when it aired everyone thought it sucked and they cancelled it real quick....
But otherwise that's an awesome idea.
Overlord
Dude, that's awesome !!!
That script pretty much writes itself.
Although, you might want to reconsider the whole "Zim" thing, and the destroying Earth. I think it's been done before. Wasn't there, like, an "Invader Zim" or something on Nickelodeon? And the guy tried to destroy Earth? Folks tend to get a little cranky when you use their ideas like that. Probably not illegal, just.....well....a little too close. And as I recall, when it aired everyone thought it sucked and they cancelled it real quick....
But otherwise that's an awesome idea.
You are reading it wrong .
Collectors are going to earth to get prey for Zim 6 .
Not going to destroy earth .
Tech
Ahhh....okay.
Well that changes everything.
Well, here we are coming up on almost a week since Mr. Carter proposed the idea for this project. And while we have a bunch of ideas about a bunch of stuff, there really haven't been any decisions made.
And after seeing many such "community" efforts like this whither and die, I thought it might be helpful to re-focus a bit on what this is really all about.
If people really want to engage in a community effort, let's keep in mind what a real community is:
It's a bunch of people coming together for the common good. They leave behind their personal agendas and desires, and instead take an attitude of "how can I help?" It's not a bunch of people who's only interest is their own personal likes and dislikes, and if they don't get what they want they pack up in a huff and go home.
And as many, many professionals who are hired to work on commercial projects can tell you, it can be great fun working on making someone else's ideas become awesome.
So let me suggest that everyone actually gather together as a community of people interested in the common good, and, for those who have the time and desire, offer to help no matter what the format, or whether the project uses robots or dragons, or whether it has rules or a Director, or whether you were chosen for your favorite part, etc.
Try to take the attitude, "No matter what we do, I'll help to make it better". Because that's what a REAL community effort is.
And in an effort to get the ball rolling on this, we're all going to vote right now to install a Producer for this project. Ready?
All in favor of Mr. Rashad Carter to be the Producer of this effort, say AYE. All who oppose, say NAY.
They AYE's have it. (Trust me, I counted).
Congratulations to the new Producer, Mr. Rashad Carter !!!
Now, let's look at his original guiding vision for this project, and see how and if we can participate to make it happen, and make it awesome:
"We as a Carrara userbase, we have the tools to do amazing things. What’s missing around here are the examples of the amazing things. So lets coordinate an effort. I truly believe that if we put our minds to it, we could produce a short 10 minute engaging and entertaining animation of Carrara at its best."
Yeah,
what Joe said.
Also:
R Carter, congrats! I always considered that to be the case, anyways.
Love the drive and the passion.
Bigh, really, Really cool stuff, man. Those guys rigged? Love it!
All,
are you ready to RENDER?!!!!
RaSHAD! RaSHAD!!
Ha ha! Well, I must admit I am incredibly flattered by the support you are showing me. Thanks so much! I am not as convinced but that's no reason not to soldier on anyhow.
Bigh,
I love the look of the items you've designed so far. I like the look of the metallic surfaces, and it seems like with the bots at least there is not much indirect light which should speed rendering. The landscape image is also beautiful, strikes a nice fantasy balance with enough realistic clues to ground the visuals nicely. It's probably not a bad idea to submit sample renders at a minimum resolution of 1280x720 with a render time report as well, so we can get an idea of how well optimized the render settings are for the still
frames. You've got some great ideas in many areas so I would love to employ you in any capacity you are willing to contribute. The storyline of the visitation to Earth fits in nicely with the space ship break away visiting many areas of the planet theme.
I am thinking that by Jan 10 we will determine the final story idea. Once we know that, we can start polls about community participation. Until we know the project goals, many people will be unable to decide with certainty their level of involvement.
As I said before, I am not very experienced with Carrara. This means I have a lot to learn so please don't hesitate to set me straight if I start thinking too far outside the Carrara box. I feel very good about this. Very good indeed.
So far, Daz has been silent. Not sure of that is a good sign or a bad one. No worries, we will be fine either way.
Thanks for doing this! I'd forgotten some, never saw others — neato.
Onya Rashad :) Keep in mind our conversation though.
My tuppence - for the story ideas keep the first draft suggestions simple and in point form.
One idea is to work around the skeleton of a 30 page children's picture book .
Not that the story needs to be for kids - .
The pages would equate to scenes.
A typical example from myth and modern story.
Protagonist wants something badly. (1pages)
Something minor stands in his way. (2pages etc)
He solves the problem and in doing so makes a friend - who presents him with a gift (maybe of friendship, maybe something more tangable) I("x" no of pages)
Only to be given a bigger hurdle.
He solves this problem (and makes another friend etc) only to be presented with a really tough hurdle
Whcih appears to be insurmountable.
Using the gifts he has been given along his quest he overcomes this hurdle in a suprising but "just right:" way.
Everybody gets their just rewards.
the end
Once you have a simple structure like this then you can flesh it out with details. Eg what does he want, what stands in his/her's way etc.
Having Rashad as producer is a fine idea and there is a need for a face of the project to Daz as it were as well as the community and he is well know from his Bryce excursions. That said -- Rashad -----I think allowing more time to flesh out a story would be better than a hard jan 10 deadline which is two days from now.. If there are some folks working on a story with some images they well maybe working on these and not finished and or just thinking up stories. I know I have been just thinking of a story the last few days myself.
And not unlike building a house ---the good solid foundation (story) holds the thing together and gives you a chance to make something special.
I think there are some polls that can be done without a story . There are questions to be answered of what render size full hd or 720p , fps, content use or not, mixed content use or not, all original carrara content, any plugins use ? other software programs use (bryce, daz studio , hex or even others ?), length of movie, participation or not, post production thoughts, etc.
I know some folks are itching to get going and enthusiasm is awesome .......but good planning and organization early will avoid many many errors and headaches later on. And really we still have not had that many folks even comment about this idea and we really need to get the word out even to those folks who have maybe drifted away somewhat. (The way 8.5 has dragged on its not such a surprise )and maybe this project could get some back if they somehow get wind of it.
And before I forget--we need to get some posting on carraracafe site as well......plus some kind of submission in the next CARRARA 3D EXPO MAGAZINE as well if that is still being worked on.
Since I'm not a writer or an animator, I'm not sure how much relevance my opinion has. But I was just remembering the old Rocky and Bullwinkle show. It had a segment called "Fractured Fairy Tales" where the writers would take a common fairy tail, and retell it in a twisted humorous way. They must have done dozens of them.
Here's an example:
http://youtu.be/ReuOvKqGjAE
They were about five minutes long, and included narration to help move the story along (anyone remember Edward Everett Horton?)
Something along this line might be doable.
It would still take a talented writer to do something like this, but there's lots of material to use as starting points.
As far as style goes, I think a toon style like "The Incredibles" or "Despicable Me" would be fun. Not sure if there are any pre-made characters available that would be flexible enough to pull it off though.
Please check the youtube link in my signature. Someone (Eva Vomhoff) did this with THE FROG PRINCE and it is GREAT! It's the first video in the list...
Yes, it's still being worked on. Real life has just pushed things back a bit. I hope the next issue will be coming out as soon as I get the last interview done. Sorry for the wait.
I love all those videos in the link. My favorite is the Frog Prince. Excellent and I even like the look. Thanks Holly!
The fractured fairy tales are indeed a great source for story lines. Wonderful!
no troubles Booksbydavid---- I fully understand that rl game. Take as much time as you need --I was just making a note out here that would be good to get some ink in that magazine for the project.
Rashad-- im not sure we will get any help or comments from Daz and I would plan on none. We just have to craft some polls per the forum rules and keep the project moving along as we get more interest and determine some important factors.
We might get some support at carrarcafe with and article etc to help get more interest. Maybe we should post on renderosity as well......It would be good to get more folks involved, interested and participating.
Despite Daz ---Carrara is great. The tool in either 8.112 version which is solid or 8.5 latest beta is very decent as well......so even if Daz makes our head spin 360 how they operate with Carrara -------Its still very capable indeed with or with any support from them.
Loved that Age of armor's posted about taking stories and moving them into other time periods. was surprised that the stuff in the link bellow was mentioned since Star Wars was.
http://www.moongadget.com/origins/kurosawa.html
Plot wise as was pointed out in several other posts only a small umber of base plots exist. At a panel I was at back in the early 90s several authors broke it down to 5 basic plots in all of fiction.
Lester Dent had a specific plot formula he used for all of his writing.
http://web.archive.org/web/20100413025337/http://altuspress.com/lesterdentproperties/the-master-fiction-plot/
Some series and specific genres have a specific formula of how a plot unfolds too.
Also, what you see on TV or in movies may not be good writing or would not have been except-able for writing in that series.
Example, John Nathan-Turner at the Panopticon that was in New Orleans many years ago was talking about writing for Doctor Who and things that would get a script rejected. One thing was using the sonic screwdriver as a way to get out of any jam how it became a crutch for the writers. It got so bad that Turner had in one episode the sonic screw driver destroyed, so writers would be forced to come up with other ways of resolving situations in episodes of the show instead of using it.
On the newer Doctor Who series the excessive use of the sonic screw driver as seen in Doctor Who episodes and how it is can do just about anything, would not have been acceptable in the past.
One resource to help with coming up with a story is the use of random story generator programs. I've also seen cards to help generate random stories and used to have several of them for specific genres years ago.
They have several random generator that are worth checking out at this site.
http://www.rpginspiration.com/
This is a freeware program
http://www.nbos.com/products/ipad/ipad.htm
Online Adventure Generator for a Victorian to 1930s adventures
http://www.nagssociety.com/resources/TI_Adventure_Starter.htm
For rendering one option I didn't see mentioned was using cloud computing to make a render farm for the project as needed.
Also, if anyone is using writers guide books to get technical details for dialog, etc., do note that many of them contain technical errors and are not good books to use contrary to what some professional writers say and some reviews.
Example #1: One book on firearms for a writer had over 20 major technical error in the first 40 pages. Yet the book was recommended by numerous authors and had good reviews recommending it, but anyone familiar with the subject would rate the book as being junk filled with incorrect information.
Example #2: One book had a chapter on the medical uses of plants and recommended several books and references for further information. Unfortunately most of the were pseudo-science one and similar bad references. Several very good references dis exist that the author could have mentioned that had good science, but instead chose to give New Age garbage instead.
Had some other stuff I wanted to pot that I can't recall at the moment. The pain killers for the dental surgery I had and am recovering from are turning my brain to mush.
thanks for the post Jay--despite your drug induced mind mushing. Lots of good stuff here to browse through and check out.
Long post, but worth it if you have the time
The issue of how to write a good story transcends a Carrara specific discussion. A good story is a good story regardless of the application used to tell the story. This is why at this point the story really is what matters most.
My goal with this project, is to tell an actually good story, and to do so using Carrara as much as possible. To me the story comes first. This is essential, because my goal with the movie is to move it into circles that will not be watching it solely for the rendering tricks. I want non cg people to still take away something poignant. Story matters most.
The scary thing for many people is realizing that there are formulas that can aid us in how we write. I am in a fortunate position due to my education and day job. Since I am a trained actor, director and playwright, I have had a lot of time to think about story lines.
At CMU (Carnegie Mellon University) where I went to school for Acting and Musical theatre, we had a class called the Fundamentals of Drama. There are several concepts of drama discovered by the Ancient Greeks and their amazing Greek Tragedies. One of them relates to what Jay was talking about with that strange drive machine the writers used to solve all the episode's problems in Doctor Who. There is a technical name for that type of plot device which is called "deus ex machina." Translation: God from the machine.
Deus ex machina is kind of like this. A story with a major problem progresses to a point where the writers dont know what to do to resolve it. So they basically allow a God or some other improbable being or entity to come in at the last minute and suddenly "fix" everything. That's essentially what that drive engine did in Doctor Who episodes. Even the Greeks knew this was a bad idea. But back then just as now, it happens all the time.
There is an aspect of this discussion that is truly fascinating. And that is, how easy is it to manipulate the thoughts and feelings of a viewer? Is there a "formula" for telling a good story?
Answer: Yes.
For every rule, there is the exception. no doubt. So what I am going to discuss isnt set in stone, but it does help explain things.
For example, for a television advertisement to work on viewers certain things need to happen First, you must create a need on the part of the viewer so they will buy your product. If your product is Depends undergarments, you first need to present a situation in which a person needed an undergarment but was without it. So you set the commercial at a class reunion and you allow the main character to develop a wet spot while dancing in front of old friends. Suddenly the main character is embarrassed. This is when we are presented with the solution...Depends undergarments...fits perfectly under your outfit, no matter how form fitting...Next we see a shot of another dance party, but this one the lead character stays dry...because he's wearing his depends.
All commercials work this way.
From now on after reading this discussion, when you watch commercials, you will see how they "set up" the viewer to feel the "need" to purchase a given product. Advertisers create ridiculous situations in commercials just to show how a remote need could become an urgent one in a heartbeat so you'd better be prepared and buy my product!
The CCMP is not a commercial. Still, it has to engage its audience.
One thing I've learned is that if a story is set around a central character, there are certain things you could do. The first issue is, how do I get the audience (viewers) to CARE about what happens to this lead character?
One very powerful way, is to have the main character lose something essential early in the story development. Audiences have no choice but to root for the main character after such a loss is suffered. Examples:
Well, I can think of two examples off the top of my head.. Bambi and Sintel
Bambi: In the story of Bambi, the little fawn loses his mother to hunters early in the movie. So sad, he's just a baby. No matter what happens to Bambi after this, the fact is that he lost his mother we as viewers are hoping he can in some way regain some of what he lost, this maintains our interest so we dont get bored.
In the Blender film Sintel, Sintel meets an injured baby dragon. While some would say the story begins with Sintel gaining a friend, they would be wrong. The real story does not begin until the mama dragon carries the baby dragon away from Sintel. Now, we have a story. Sintel suffers a huge loss when the baby dragon is carried away, and spends the remainder of the film trying to re-gain what she has lost. Thus it is the loss of the dragon, not the initial meeting that drives the story and furthers the plot of the film. At the end Sintel seeks her dragon to the ends of the Earth. but alas times change and before she knows it she has destroyed that which she was trying so hard to save....so sad...more losses, it makes us care deeply for Sintel, a merely digital character, as if she were a real human.
All this to say, story line is essential. I have seen the "early loss for the main character" theorem work extremely well in many situations, in fact it never fails. I think our film should feature some sort of early loss for the main character, so that the audience takes the lead character's side early on and stays with him/her throughout the length of the movie. Not to say I have any concrete ideas, just expressing some thoughts so far.
Fascinating discussion, at least for me.
Wow. This Rashad guy is good. Dude, I'm, like, all impressed and everything. :gulp:
Wow. This Rashad guy is good. Dude, I'm, like, all impressed and everything. :gulp:
Thanks, Joe. I see the effectiveness of the underlying rules of visual art form to be part of what unites us as human beings. We are united by our appreciation of color, form, movement, beauty.
Yeah, I shouldn't have said it. In fact I'm going to un-say it.
It'll just start off another diversionary battle.
I'm done with this - the bull has started .
I do not care where you went to school .
I would say more - but it doesn't matter .
Buy Bonds
I certainly did not mean to offend. I only give my background in that story lines and story telling are a regular part of what I do and what I love. I'm not sure why it bothers you as it does but please accept my apologies. At this time I feel we are still open to story ideas so I don't see any need to jump ship. I'd be nice if you would reconsider.
Edit: Everyone has a background, but it is not up to me to ask them to share it. In sharing my own background I considered myself being transparent with the community and making somewhat of an introduction of who I am and what my thinking is about the project so far. I'm sure there are people with a wide range of backgrounds in this community, many of them book writers and other things, who also deal with story lines regularly have opinions as valid as my own. Those individuals may agree or disagree with any part of what I wrote in the post. All roads lead to the same place. If the only offensive thing in my post was the mention of my education then I will remove it. Not because I feel bad about it, but because I don't want others having similar reactions to yours. Is that the only issue with the post? Thanks Bigh for your help in any way you can provide it.