Pre-Production Workshop Review
Posted in Production by Ton
Time keeps flying, and then it’s suddenly thursday… and still no workshop overview post! Of course I blame this to Andy and Bassam, who are distracting me in the offices while working on recording their training video (dvd) project. You don’t want to know how difficult it is get video/audio recorded and edited in Open Source… but that’s for another time to complain!
The workshop week has resulted in a lot of useful material. I’ve got many pages of notes here to work out still… about the script, Blender features, the studio pipeline and the production planning. All of this will become separate pages (and blog posts here) during the next few days.
A couple of real news items I do want to discuss right now though.
Team change!
Last monday, two days after the workshop, Lyubomir told us he was unable to give the final commitment to Peach due to family reasons… this was a big disappointment for everyone, we were very happy with Lyubo and we looked forward to his contributions to the movie. Lyubo also had indicated already he would rather not take the job of director. Decided last week was that Sacha would take over that role.
Luckily we had a couple of good names on our spares list, and we’re happy to announce the top candidate has committed to join us instead: William Reynish now is the fresh Peach team member, welcome William!
More results
- During the Blender conference we’ll reveal the movie concept and basic character sketches.
- We found a great animation industry teacher to give us a first week kick-off training (more news will follow)
- Main Blender feature work is of course the hair rendering and editing. Both topics should be tackled by mid november latest…
- We will need tree/plant generating software, and probably landscape editing stuff. Here Python might be a great tool.
- Team roles and responsibilities were verified and confirmed. Check the team page!
That’s it for now… William has been invited to come over to Amsterdam for one day, so we can discuss with him the latest stats, and he can check on the circumstances he’ll be working in for 6 months.
Later more!
-Ton-
August 30th, 2007 at 7:51 pm
Sounds great Ton (hope you don’t mind me calling you by your first name).
Tree and plant software and fast hair rendering/editing will be very nice! And thanks for continuing to improve Blender.
August 31st, 2007 at 12:11 am
Unfortunate to lose Lyubomir like that but welcome to William.I hope we get a photo to mangle soon ;o)
And the biggy Ton..do you have a script?? this is said to ready 1 Sept..
August 31st, 2007 at 1:46 am
Oh yes, I know how hard Video Editing with OpenSource Software can be…
But great work, I’m already curious about the result.
Keep up, folks!
August 31st, 2007 at 6:43 am
I’m so excited for this movie and the improvements to blender!!! I need to be getting me a credit card so I can pre-order it.
August 31st, 2007 at 9:00 am
@Big Fan, as mentioned more than once on this blog: yes, we do have script. And do you wanna know a secret?
…
…
… it has furry animals in it.
August 31st, 2007 at 9:10 am
I am going to really interested in seeing how the fur is handled in the movie
August 31st, 2007 at 9:28 am
@Sago
Yes I know that, no need for attitude.
I was asking about the ‘final’ script.
as in done, complete, ready to go, achieveable in the time with the available resources…ok?
August 31st, 2007 at 9:36 am
A script that’s only half done isn’t really worth mentioning. We mentioned it, so it’s done. Of course small changes will always occur during every phase… ok?
August 31st, 2007 at 9:36 am
What “training video (dvd) project” are you talking about, Ton?:-)
August 31st, 2007 at 11:21 am
ssshh! it’s a secret! more info is going to be announced soon! stay tuned :)
August 31st, 2007 at 12:32 pm
That´s Cool!
Now that was said something about fur, I remember something: This short must have HUGS! lots os hugs between furry animals! hehehe! fur interaction is freaking complicated!
September 1st, 2007 at 1:50 am
This project is a scam. They are collecting money for DVDs, but they are NOT actually making the movie.
September 1st, 2007 at 10:37 am
@Gustavo
dude, I wish someone told me this earlier, cause I’ve been making preparations for this movie for months. All this work for nothing! The worst thing is I even quite my normal job for when we start on this in october. Major bummer.
Btw, your comment is immature & stupid.
September 1st, 2007 at 10:59 am
Gustavo, you might want to do some research- project peach is the second movie project started by the blender foundation/institute, and the first one *did* end up in a movie- you may want to check http://www.elephantsdream.org (aka project orange ) to see that these people are very serious about their project- don’t spread FUD, please.
September 1st, 2007 at 11:37 am
Gustavo: You’re so cute when you’re trolling.
September 1st, 2007 at 1:12 pm
@Gustavo: Referring to Bassam´s comment… just visit his posted url… I pre-ordered the elephantsdream-DVD and got my it without any problem. I am sure that this will be the case with project peach, too!
And I am sure that this movie will rock!! Advanced fur editing, of course beside other great features, in a free software… come on, this is awesome!
What´s the planned length of the movie? Around 10/15/25/.. minutes?
Keep rocking guys!! Yet I am curious about the fantastic features Brecht, Campbell and Ton will integrate in the release after/while project peach!
Good luck guys! Tom
September 1st, 2007 at 3:46 pm
Trees and plants! Yes! Now Blender just needs proper NURBS tools.
September 1st, 2007 at 5:02 pm
Do not listen to Gustavo, he’s an employee of Autodesk.
I warn ya, those guys at Autodesk are getting a bit jealous because we’re going to have better fur/hair-tools and plant generation tools, wheheh.
They don’t even have a Python, wahah.
Okay, enough about that. I wish you guys a lot of luck and I’m looking forward to see all those furry critters running around on the big tiny screen!
September 2nd, 2007 at 2:12 am
>What´s the planned length of the movie? Around 10/15/25/.. minutes?
now if I have asked that I would be in a lot of trouble ;o)
but I am wondering too…
September 2nd, 2007 at 10:54 am
Purna! Good to see the flame has been passed on!
September 2nd, 2007 at 11:14 am
I like the idea of plant/trees and terrain generating software, but I do hope they mean as in not integrated directly into blender. There’s a number of scripts/programs around that do that, freeware or open source. Not to throll but does it really make sense in blender? It’s just not a terrain editor, there’s other programs for that.
Build the terrain stuff outside, then import it and animate etc away seems more logical. right?
September 2nd, 2007 at 1:03 pm
bob: yes, it’s definitely more logical. i think that’s what has been planned (see blog post)…
matt: hey there mate! good to see you’re still alive! we really miss you back in *the* channel, oranges and peaches alike. are you planning to go to bconf again this year?
tom / bigfan: it’s hard to make a definitive estimate, but we’re shooting for something under 10 minutes (in awesome quality that is)
September 2nd, 2007 at 1:14 pm
I wouldn’t mind if it were a scam and paid for my DVD I would just consider it a donation for the much joy Blender has brought me.
September 2nd, 2007 at 5:11 pm
LoMac: Me to. :D
September 2nd, 2007 at 5:24 pm
Hello everyone of the Peach Team, i am very happy to see that you are working in this new proyect, all of you are really talentus people. Is a inspiration for us, to dream things and then create in blender! A question: Can i buy the DVD from Argentina? How can i get it?!
Well… it seem so dificult…
well good bye to everyone!
September 2nd, 2007 at 6:41 pm
pablo, go check blender’s e-shop i think there should be info on that.. :)
http://www.blender3d.org/e-shop/default.php
September 3rd, 2007 at 12:33 am
the one question on everyones mind…will the Vrooom jacket make an apperance??
September 3rd, 2007 at 12:47 am
Ton said:
I learned that in the hard way :-)
Although Blender’s sequence editor is very good, the only program I could use for more complex editing jobs was Cinelerra, and it has its rough edges (and sadly its development appears to be stuck).
Have you ever considered to create from Blender Foundation a standalone NLE with the quality and flexibility of Blender? Video editing is one of the weakest points in FLOSS creative production and it would be great to have a quality program for that.
Sorry the OT.
September 3rd, 2007 at 1:46 am
I’m also interested in the video editing part, that’s the only thing I’m missing from open source / free community.
Keep up the good work dudes!!
September 3rd, 2007 at 3:15 am
Along with others I am interested in video editing and was wondering if this ‘How to Training Video’ will show and explain “what was used” to do things. I bought, pre-production, “Elephants Dream”. I am wondering how they did the DVD Menuing. Does anyone?
September 3rd, 2007 at 3:32 am
@Sago Nice character design hope that will be resembled in 3d with a same funny scenario that they are :D
Wondering what software you used for the 3d sketch …or you prefer to scan from paper and ink it on software ?! :D
@andy 10 min ?! Suppose that will be in the 3-9 min from what you wrote
Hope that Blender 2.5 will have the Plumifieros and Peach developed things added and the changed UI that was told over an over to be incoming ;)
September 3rd, 2007 at 3:34 am
Grr I meant “2d sketch” not “3d” lol
September 3rd, 2007 at 9:15 am
@Numarul7
translating the 2D drawings into 3D will indeed be a great challenge. Btw, I’m more of a sketch-with-pencil-and-paper-and-scan-later-person.
@wutacular
seems VERY likely, yes.
September 3rd, 2007 at 10:11 am
A tree/plant editor in Blender will be great!
September 3rd, 2007 at 10:47 am
I didn’t check if you are using Ubuntu (with Gnome as in the Orange afaik) but if you have a linux box with KDE you should check-out Kdenlive, it’s so easy and fast for standart video editing. It’s much new and less known comparative to the Kino, Cinelerra and etc. so I thought you may not be aware of that or you may thought it’s under-developed since… But I strongly suggest…
btw… good luck and have much fun ! :)
September 3rd, 2007 at 11:04 am
The DVD menus were done using a piece of proprietary software – the opensource requirement was limited to the actual animation and texture creation for ED – for sound and DVD mastering proprietary tools were used.
@ndy, I think terrain and plant tools make sense to integrate directly – ie Mayas paintfx tools are used for terrain, plants etc.
September 3rd, 2007 at 2:24 pm
maybe, but maya is also bloated as hell :) i’m optimistic we can find a good and streamlined solution
September 3rd, 2007 at 3:22 pm
@Sago: love your concept drawings, I think they will look awesome in 3D and furry!
I’m not sure about integrating Tree/Plant and Terrain generation directly into Blender, but I think a way of nicely handling level of detail in Blender might be useful for you guys if you are planning larger scale scenes.
Keep up the great work and have fun!
September 3rd, 2007 at 4:30 pm
I’m really looking forward to seeing the movie and all the improvements to Blender. Thanks, Peach!
September 4th, 2007 at 9:45 pm
Hi all!
What if I would like to become involved in movie making at Blender? Helping out with the peach project, or presenting new projects what might be of interest to you. How do I go about that?
September 5th, 2007 at 2:38 pm
Yea!!!! Good luck guys!!!! Dang, I wish I could be there…
September 5th, 2007 at 5:18 pm
This is OT, but I’ll post it anyway. If you’re interested in working/testing a OpenSource NLE, let me know. I’ve started working on Positron again, now that Jahshaka has bit the dust. Anyone wanting to help with ideas/suggestions/coding/bug testing, please drop me a line at tbaldridge at gmail dot com.
September 5th, 2007 at 7:38 pm
Nice to hear that Timothy! I checked Positron’s SourceForge page a while back, and saw that the last release was several years ago, and thought that the project was dead, so I’m glad to see it resurrected. Didn’t realize that Jahshaka was no more, though.
And back on topic: One of the pictures at the top of the page shows you guys at the zoo. Were you researching on how the different types of plants and animals should look, or was it just a sightseeing tour?
September 9th, 2007 at 1:29 pm
Hi,
How about some comments to go with the pictures so we know what/who’s in the picture?
BTW I’ve already ordered a Peach DVD and I love Blender. I’m really looking forward to meet the Blender team one day.
September 10th, 2007 at 11:47 am
In the big image at the top, from top left:
Sacha and Andy, Ton, Brecht and Nathan, Enrico and Lyubomir.
In the small one: EnV and Sago.
September 15th, 2007 at 3:19 pm
I’m really excited about this movie, and I’m following it with great anticipation. The team on this project are some of the best. Good luck to everyone.
September 21st, 2007 at 1:06 pm
I second the suggestion to check out KDEnlive. You must check out either the recently released 0.5 version or the svn version if you tried it before some time ago as it has come a long way since its last release.
Thanks to KDEnlive, xdtv, kino, DEVeDe and avidemux video editing has become easy enough for everyone to use now. Every one of these apps is included in the new JackLab 1.0- I just wish it also came with Blender and synfig but its very likely both these will be included in JAD 1.1.
JackLab is more geared towards audio than it is video but even then I think has the best selection of video tools included of any distro I’ve used.
March 3rd, 2008 at 6:54 pm
I wouldn’t mind if it were a scam and paid for my DVD I would just consider it a donation for the much joy Blender has brought me.
April 5th, 2008 at 10:45 am
What video editing software are the Peach team using?