"Secret"(A Jedi apprentice fanfic)

Nobody is going to animate the whole thing. The best would be to split it up into categories. Whoever is good at effects, do the space scenes. Whoever is good at characters, do the character scenes. While some people will get harder tasks than others, since the easy tasks are taken care of, the more expert animators can take more time to make their own parts. I'd volunteer to animate, but my slow computer is not suited at all to this type of thing.

 

Wow, look at us! We're hollywood people now. Producers and directors. Silly me, I thought you had to be Brad Pitt to make a movie!
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Something totally unrelated:

You think Josh Jackson (Dawson's Creek) would make a good Anakin Skywalker?

 

Defiance, how many animators are we talking here? And how difficult is it to animate these? Would each frame need to be drawn seperately, or is it just a matter of "move the arm a little, move the head a little" kind of thing?

 

I'm sure that it can be done but I would say that you should start off doing a couple of small test projects. things that wouldn't take to much time, or be to complicated but help you figure out who is good at what and how to collaborate your work.

The prob with using existing fanfic work is that you would have to make sure you don't step on the toes of those who wrote it. Everyone who writes has their own images in their head of how the scene comes out, and with so many people writing them it would be hard to get anything that most people who wrote it would like. If the people involved with the project write it it would be much simpler to keep people happy, plus you could probably make it so that it would be easier to do then some of the scenes written in the fanfic.

 

Well, I wrote on the "What If in Episode 1?" thread, so if anyone decides that that would be a good one, then I'd be able to help. I have connections with the other writers of the story, which could help with visualizing it. It'd be spectacular if done correctly. What about the voices? Are we just going to have subtitles?

 

Ton Phanan, animating is a very simple concept. Just set a position for an object, then over a course of X frames, the object moves/rotates/scales Y units. The computer calculates it for you.

But once you scratch the surface, you'll find a lot of complications. You have many objects, all of which needs to interact with each other. Then you need to handle special effects: explosions, lightsaber blades, blaster shots, etc.

In order to do a movie, a lot of animators are required. I would guess at least half a dozen, and some other people to model, make textures, handle the post-production effects, voices, sound effects, story line, script, distribution, concept artists, organizers. It's like a mini film studio.

 

Well, as I said, I'd be happy to work on a storyline/script, if this idea actually gets rolling. I think this is a very good idea, and I'd love to contribute, but I don't know much about 3D modelling. So, since writing fiction is a hobby of mine, I'd be glad to help in that respect.

I agree with BoB that if this were to be done, an original story should be used, not something from Fan-fic.

 

Tom, could you email me a little sample of a story...just out of curiousity. Thanks.

 

Hmmm. I don't have any stories on me offhand. I'm a sort of a perfectionist, so when I finish a story I usually look at it and say, "Argh! This is terrible!" crumple it up and throw it away, even though others tell me it's very good. So my old short stories are all in a garbage dump somewhere. It's a really annoying habit of mine, 'cause a few weeks later I always wish I hadn't done it.

I'm kinda busy this week, but I can write something this weekend, and have it for you on Monday. How's that?

 

Oh, do you have any requests? You want a Star Wars story, or just something general? What kind do you want? (No love stories, please)

 

I have a little story called Dark Nemesis that you can use.

Contact me at
mailto:johnnyblaze_55@hotmail.com">johnnyblaze_55@hotmail.com for the story and character description if you are interested.

[This message has been edited by Rinon, Shadow Jedi (edited 10-05-1999).]

 

If it's mainly character based story line, it will be very hard to do unless someone donates some good 3D character models. I've been trying for 3 months to make Darth Maul with no sucess at all.

 

Ok defiance, what kind of story would be good to have. If Ton was going to be working on one this weekend anyway, you can maybe suggest the type of thing you would want.

Not Character driven, so would you want something like an Xwing squadron attacking an imperial base or something like that, with most of the action being shots of the ships than people?

 

Yeah, just tell me what you want, and I'll write it. If you don't like it, don't use it, it's OK with me. But I will need to know exactly what kinds of things it is or is not plausible to do. For example, it's already been pointed out that characters are tough to do, (Maybe I can write an entire story about droids ) so I'd need to know things like that. Also, if I'm going to do it this weekend, we'd need to decide on a basic plot, also.

Oh, one more thing: would you want something general, like a short story, or something in a script form, with some shot by shot descriptions?

 

Guys, guys...we can't jump to far ahead into this. Now we obviously need a story for this...but first, more importantly we need to find CGI Artists. Because if we get too deep into this, drawing out sketches, storyboards, writing, etc...and dont find enough help, all our plans would be put to no use. So that has to be first on the agenda. Now, because obviously organic CGI effects are much more difficult, we would probably want to do a lot of it in space. Now, from what I know, and who I know, that is much more popular. People want to see action. Lightsaber duels...dogfights...some unexpected surprises. We also need to choose a time era. Personally I'd like to set the time era of it somewhere after the Battle of Endor. The best time, IMO, would be around the time of Thrawn. New ships were showing up, such as the E-Wing, you have huge character development seen in such characters as Luke, Leia, and also a few new ones like...oh...Mara Jade for instance. Now we cant make the stories off and books, but I have a few ideas for a plot. If there are other opinions out there...just email me. I don't know if this link will work, but here: mailto:Sithlord9d@aol.com
Oh, one thing I just thought about...doing an Expanded Universe short...series...whatever we end up doing, wont be as, well, "Universal" because to know about most of this you've had to have read books. Now this can either cause it to not be as popular, or it can spark interest from a new audience. I was hoping we could do something with the prequels but LucasFilm Ltd. wont even let authors write about anything until Lucas is done, so nothing will conflict. We could do a short possibly, but no series because it could conflict with timing. Sorry, I think I'm getting too off topic. We need people for Visual Effects. Can it be done? I will try to help but I need as much help as possible.
Thanks for your time.

 

OK. Before we talk about 3d animation, we MUST have a story that we can use and drawings of the charactrers and objects that will be used.

 

Obviously we need that but what good will it do without CGI artists? We can work on storylines, sketches, we need to get artists too. Not saying the other isnt important, but well..like i said.

 

I agree, we'd need to be sure we have enough artists to do the job before we start a project this ambitious.

 

We definitely need many artists to do this. It is a large project after all.

 

I wish my skills were better. For now, I can at least do some texturing and more of the 2d side of it. I took my webpage offline. Trying to rebuild it...gonna take FOREVER. I just dont have the time anymore. Argh.
Too many things to do, too little time.

 

I think that before considering doing a series that you should start by making a short film maybe only a minute or two just to get an idea of what you will need to do.

 

Yeah, that's a good idea. Something simple, with no textures or lighting or anything too complicated. Anyone want to try this first?

 

Well...heh, I could do that. I think the point he's trying to make is to make a short to test to see if this could be done, and how long it would take. Which means, yes, we could do a very basic, low res practice type thing, but would also need to do one with good quality, textures and all. Just to see how things will go.

 

Last night i hacked together a something, somewhere between a treatest and a scrupt on the el. Some dialogue, some and basic ships. Y-wings, Tie's some medium frieghters and a Corrilian Corvette. Since there are minimal moving parts in the ships choosen it seems like it might be simple project. If you want I could type it up and send it to people or post it. Just remember it is rough.

 

Have any of you seen that "Sacrifices" video? It's pretty much what we're talking about, but without any dialogue. It's not bad, and it's kinda similar to how I pictured something like this would look like.

BoB, could you put that in mpeg or avi format? I don't have any of that 3D software, but I'd like to take a look at it.