Last year we got together and did "Pass the Ball" as an everyone-can-join-in A:M forum project and much fun was had.

Is there interest in doing another one this year?

JohnL3D came up with a great linking premise which I'll call "Next Room":

A character enters from door on the left of the screen, does something, then exits thru a door on the right.

No other specifics yet, feedback and input below.

Interest?


EDIT:

Proposed plan:

1) Premise: "Next Room"
2) Any character you want. Your own or any stock A:M character
3) I will provide a base CHOR that incorporates the doors and the intro and outro camera motion, between which you can put anything you want.
4) Length: Any length you want as long as it includes the minimal time of the base CHOR. 20 seconds would probably be very, very long!
6) Audio optional
5) you submit your rendered 16:9 footage. Res to be decided.
6) Deadline: end of September 2010

If there aren't immediate objections to this plan I will move forward with it.


Proposed plan:[/b]

1) Premise: "Bus Stop"
2) Any character you want. Your own or any stock A:M character
3) Each segment begins with a bus pulling away to reveal a bus stop. Your character does something and the segment ends with another bus pulling up in fron of the bus stop hiding the character.
4) Length: Any length you want. 20 seconds would probably be very, very long!
6) Audio optional
5) you submit your rendered 16:9 footage. Res to be decided.
6) Deadline: end of September 2010


See official project roll out in new thread.

I'm In..

I actually saw something like this a few years ago and thought it would be fun to do

I will attempt an entry !

Photoman

Interested.

btw, the "next room" premise isn't decided yet. If we come up with one more people love, that's OK too. But we do have to come up with one.

I like the next room idea...already have some ideas swirling in the ol grey matter.

I'll give it a go

IN!

Is it always the SAME room? Could be cool to collaboratively model a room with ample 'props'.... and share that choreography for everyone to use...

More INs please! We should have at least 10 to make a go of this.





options I was thinking of...

- a bare room with doors on each side. they can furnish it any way they want.

- just doors on each side. No walls! The doors are like portals to another dimension.

-

I like that idea..it has a simple eloquence to it. I've got several ideas....hmmm yet another reason to slow down the ol' movie project!

Yeah... I like this idea... keeps a constant camera tho, right? If people want to pan/zoom in their sequence... they CAN... but end-up with the cam in a common spot and focal length...

MORE 'INS'!!!

I think this is a great idea. How about we keep the camera tracking with the actor? That would create that feeling of continuity, even as the rooms and actors change.

Yes, we could make a chor that contains the camera motion so that the motion of the wall leading in matches the motion of the wall leading out and they would cut together exactly.

Each animator could slide those keys to make room in the middle for the time they need.

when's the deadline and can i use thom?

It's still in the larval stage, so there's no deadline or even startline yet. I'm sure Thom will be allowed whatever we come up with..

Hey, here's another possible linking theme:

"Rear Window"

Like the Hitchcock movie. The camera moves from one window to the next, to the next, to the next...

I would add in my stuff.

Might be fun if everyone used Thom with the option of adding any material/decals etc and then is we want to have the camera in a set chor follow the character we could use a restraint to the thom model

I love the idea. Count me in!

Detailed proposal now in post #1

I'm IN ...
what kind of render will we use ?

Final?

30 fps?

Probably 24, but it's good you brought it up.

Final is great Robert !!!!

I would like to know if each user will use his own render ( radiosity, AO, IBL ) or is there a specific render for all shots ?

My inclination is to have everyone render their own shot so it will be up to each person to decide how he wants to make it look in that regard.

I would like to add one thing
no sneak peaks !
we won't know what anyone has done till the end
except for Rob who I guess is doing the cutting

Here's an idea that might help bind it all together...

The character that enters the room is not the character we follow out of the room.

Character A enters the room... something happens in the room... and then Character B (who was already in the room) leaves.

If you want to use your own character you still can but he's part of that middle something and isn't the character entering or leaving.

We set up a series of character pairs in advance like this

Thom, Shaggy

Shaggy, Rabbit

Rabbit, Knight

Knight, Lady Goodbody

and so on...

Everyone claims one pair at the outset and then we can edit the segments together by matching up the leaving-->entering characters.











Maybe. I was thinking people might want to post their wips for help. We might make that optional.

An idea for some added bit of interest/complication: The animators could attempt to coordinate their exits and entrances.

Example:
If Animator Andy has Thom leave a room by stumbling backward through the door, and Animator Jimmy has the next room, then Jimmy has to finish Thom's backward stumble/fall in Thom's entrance into Jimmy's scene.

It would be a good way to practice teamwork and continuity. But it may be a level of complexity that can be skipped for a fun exercise like this.

Easy way to add to the fun is making more than 1 entry

This sound like a good idea. I assume (not always a good idea) the characters would have to enter and exit the correct doorway in order for this to work right.

Another idea would be to setup one set, for example a park bench on the side of a street. You could then have any character come and go as they please, as long as the animation starts and ends with no characters in it. You could have a character/characters walk by, you could have them sit down on the bench waiting, reading a newspaper or talking to others. You don't even need to animate characters, you could have cars driving by or have a character come in and sit waiting for a bus and have the bus stop and go.

Another idea would be to use the stage set from the A:M cd and have like a talent show.

I think you guys are starting to over think this thing

I agree.

I think constraints and guidelines are good, but at some point it might get a bit in the way.

I personally prefer the simple idea of a room and camera movement (constrained on the beginning and end for continuity). The "rear window" variant is great, but I assume it would add a lead-in / lead-out requirement for each scene right?

In

Yes. The more a person has to get right, the more likely they are to not get it all right.

When we did the Stereoscopic AniJam I thought I had everything explained perfectly but only about half the people who tried got anything done.

Okay, I'm in. but I didn't participate in the first one so I'm going to refrain from making any suggestions!

Here's a proposed room. Each person could decorate and light it however they wanted.

Click to view attachment



But I'm not sure what proportions the room should have. If it's quite wide there may be trouble getting the action from one side to another in a reasonable time. If it's quite narrow it will seem claustrophobic.

Anyone got ideas on a default lighting scheme? Something that will render fast but look nice and look "indoors"

Camera view?
Will it work?

The room doesn't have to be right angles, think theater?

As for the park bench idea I had, here's the set I was working on. Still need work though.

That 's not a camera view. I'm just showing what the shape of the room might be.

If we are doing "next room" the side walls are needed to block out the previous and next room during the camera moves.

The right side of the room needs to be able to match up to a copy of the left side of the room.

There is no premise that is everyone's first choice, but "next room" has some mechanical advantages.

Still, it's not final yet.

not to interfere but I really like the pakbench idea and set
but the camera should never move so the shot of the bench appears one take.
Just imagine the people and events that could be going on!
cars!

dunno if this makes sense for anyone else, but i see no reason not to have both doors and outdoors, whatever you fancy:
if the room has an outside as well -same materials as inside- opening a door could take you to the park scene. just like that.
the camera could slide past the open ended wall and with a slight pan you wouldn't even have to see the outside of the wall. and reverse for going back indoors at the end of the scene.
(i still can't plan past week 34 and i only sparked once, the indoor one character scene.)

Well Gene, it doesn't appear that the park bench was a good idea. I guess Robert's room will be the way to go then.

I'm not sold on any scheme yet.

The problem with the room is the time involved in getting from left to right.

The problem with the park bench is that the scene needs to be totally vacated between each person's segment.

I'm inspired by both.

The "variation on the same theme" is a good thing though. Two environments in a one-shot camera style would add a bit of narrative confusion and technical difficulties in my opinion.

the door theme does give a cut off point to change the character even if only one character is used per person and pretty easy to set up here is a rough draft of a easy sample using the just donated door model ,a few grid primitives to form the room a path, thom and an effect


Click to view attachment


total time less than 30 minutes

Roflmao!
Thom was going nuclear fission for a second there.
Yup

What if a bench was a bus stop, like Forrest Gump? A bus (layer object) could block the view as it pulls up and leaves, creating the transition. Then the animator just creates whatever business would be funny or interesting in between stops.

that should work excellent idea