thefreshestever Posted June 14, 2008 Posted June 14, 2008 hello hashers, yesterday i started a new big project, i´ll need your help here the next few weeks, technical and motivational i guess here´s the thing: a friend of mine wich is a music producer came to me with a veeeery cheesy and catchy song and asked if i could make a 3d-video for that so we can sell it to a big provider for mobile-phone ringtones here in germany... at this moment the no. one hit there is a music video with a little rabbit and his carrot: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9muADLVPjq8 ... this thing even did it to the top10 here... unbelievable... so we thought, hey, why not try this by ourselves. i already talked to the provider, the conditions are really good, never would have thought that: they give you about 50% of the money made with the downloads, and when a record-company want´s to make a deal to push it further (we hope that this might happen) they don´t even raise a claim to participate, so all would be between us and the record company... sounds not that bad, right? the song he made is really crap, but extremely catchy, couldn´t get it out of my mind for days when i heard it the first time... but still it´s even 10 times more sophisticated than the song with the little rabbit (don´t really know if this is good or bad, )... the hook is with a vocoder-voice, so we thought: hey, let´s make some robots. here´s a short overview about the story: there will be a cute little old-fashioned rusty robot-boy who´s in love with that shiny sexy modern robot-girl... he tries to tell her what he feels, but he´s beware of the fact that he´s not playing in her league at all... you see where this is going... here´s a short example af the song (there will be some "rap"-parts between the hook, wich will have the function of narration, so the robot will only sing the hook...), and a first render of the rusty robot-boy. i´m really proud because it only took 4 hours to model and texture him and he´s already almost exactly how i wanted him to look like. at this point i´m not sure about the scenery of the video, should it play on a little planet in space, or a futuristic city, or in a park???... i really don´t know yet. any help here would be appreciated... please tell me what you think about the idea, the song and the character so far... thanks guys... doyouknow_snip.mp3 Quote
heyvern Posted June 14, 2008 Posted June 14, 2008 Sounds exactly like the plot of Pixar's "Wall-e"... that is a good thing actually. -vern Quote
thefreshestever Posted June 14, 2008 Author Posted June 14, 2008 Sounds exactly like the plot of Pixar's "Wall-e"... that is a good thing actually. -vern yeah that´s the thing: if the realease timing will be as expected we could benefit a bit from the wall-e hype Quote
Eric2575 Posted June 14, 2008 Posted June 14, 2008 Listening to the snippet and looking at your model, I imagine the little robot flying/hovering around a much larger/unattainable beautiful robot. As he is doing this, his hands clasp over his heart while images of little hearts are following his trail like bubbles. Off course the hearts burst, just like his chances of hitting it off with the lady robot. You could pull this off with minimal or no background to speak of. Check out "Alien Song" Quote
heyvern Posted June 14, 2008 Posted June 14, 2008 Considering the "hit" you mentioned... it should be "Robotic Bunnies". And the song sounds too good... you need to dumb it down for the mindless masses that make this stuff popular. ------- I overheard a conversation at the Wawa yesterday. Someone who works in tech support for some electronics company got a call from a guy who saw his reflection in the TV and wanted to know how he could record it. He thought it was real. What makes me sad... that guy is still allowed to VOTE! -vern Quote
Admin Rodney Posted June 15, 2008 Admin Posted June 15, 2008 Sounds like a hit to me. I look forward to seeing more as your WIP progresses . Side note: A bit weird perhaps but as I revisited the song in my head (I guess it IS a bit catchy) I kept seeing our hero following a live action girl (hey... she's cute!). The ultimate Robio and Juliet? Hmm... lets see... he chases after this beautiful girl thinking 'could this be the one?' and at the end of course... she isn't. But... at song ends... a cute little robot girl passes by him and regains his attention. Just running with your idea... not trying to distract you. After you all get rich then you can hire all the sexy models and Live Action/CG it for the second video. Quote
KenH Posted June 15, 2008 Posted June 15, 2008 Nice model. The song is suitably naff for that market. From your description, I imagined the little robot aquiring "upgrades" to try to impress his girl. Bigger muscles for his arms, an a** etc. You might be inspired by this guys work: http://www.rustboy.com/rustweb.htm Quote
thefreshestever Posted June 15, 2008 Author Posted June 15, 2008 thanks for the replies guys... vern: i know what you mean, but i think it could work even though the song is only 99% crap and not 100% as this stuff normally has to be.. eric: i like the idea that he can fly, i´m definately going to add a jetpack... and also the hearts, that´s the kinda corny stuff it´ll need to have... maybe he could hover up a tree, sitting there and lookin at his beloved girl through the window or something... thanks. ken: yeah i WAS inspired by rustboy... rustboy was essentially responsible for me regarding getting into 3d in the first place... i love the look of his movie, it´s so fantastic! too bad there were no updates since 2 years or so... did he give it up? i hope not... i just started modeling the girlbot, i think i can post an update tomorrow.. again... thanks... Quote
thefreshestever Posted June 15, 2008 Author Posted June 15, 2008 here´s an update with the girl included... i´m not sure if they´re cute enough yet, but i guess facial expressions will achieve a big cuteness-jump... hope so.. i guess i´ll give tsm a shot for rigging, never used it before... Quote
heyvern Posted June 16, 2008 Posted June 16, 2008 I kept seeing our hero following a live action girl (hey... she's cute!). The ultimate Robio and Juliet? Rodney, in keeping with the "techy" theme it should be Robio and Joliet. -vern Quote
Admin Rodney Posted June 16, 2008 Admin Posted June 16, 2008 Rodney, in keeping with the "techy" theme it should be Robio and Joliet. I knew I was going to regret typing that. RE: The girlbot! Nice update. I like the silver (highly polished chrome) girlbot. Quote
Gerry Posted June 16, 2008 Posted June 16, 2008 I have no comments other than to say it looks like you're onto something. Nice look, poppy techno sound, nothin' wrong with that! Quote
thefreshestever Posted June 18, 2008 Author Posted June 18, 2008 animated the action for the boybot singing the hook yesterday an did a testrender... here it is, still some tweaking to do though... one question: is there a way to set the framerate to 24fps AFTER i did a animation with 30fps? i have the problem that whenever i start a new project my default frame rate jumps back to 30 even though i set it to 24 in the preferences... in this case i totally forgot to switch it back to 24, and i recognized it not until after i made half the animation. aaaaaarrrghhh... so it would be very cool if i could covert my action to 24fps, it would save a lot of frames for rendering later... scenetesting_bot.mov Quote
Admin Rodney Posted June 19, 2008 Admin Posted June 19, 2008 Nice. Great progress. Regarding the FPS... Are you setting the FPS in the Project File properties (in the Project Workspace)? I'm not sure if this is what you meant by setting the FPS in 'preferences'. Quote
thefreshestever Posted June 22, 2008 Author Posted June 22, 2008 here´s a little update, tweaked the arm movements a bit, corrected timings and optimized the yet-pack flames... the next step will be to send this clip, the complete song and some stills of the characters to the provider to make a deal with them... i really hope they like it so that i can start working on the video.. rodney: thanks for the tip about setting the frame rate in the pws, it´s working now... scenetesting_lower.mov Quote
bentothemax Posted June 22, 2008 Posted June 22, 2008 I read this whole thread over pretty fast. The animation looks really good. The things I would change are really small ... first thing would be the thrust. It doesn't look like that little thrust could support him. Also if he is flying upwards I would make the little antenna on his head bend downwards. Those are minor details and like i say the overall animation looks really good. I think that he could be remembering all the times he had seen her (like him walking through flashbacks), and wished that he had talked to her, then perhaps if there is near the end of the song where he expresses his feelings, it would be where he actually says it to her. Just my 2 cents Good luck ! Ben Quote
Eric2575 Posted June 22, 2008 Posted June 22, 2008 Looking very good! I'm not sure I agree with the thrust, since this is after all fantasy/sci-fi/cartoon. Even the hint of levitation/thrust, indicated by wavy lines pulsing out of his thruster pack would do the trick. But, what I would change is the positioning and movement of the little guy. Have him sway, bob , and weave with the rhythm of the music, like a little boy who is totally infatuated with this robot girl. In my head, she is much larger than him, her head about twice the size of his body, and he is buzzing around her head in a love dance brimming with infatuation. Maybe you can make her head be vague somehow, translucent, like he is just dreaming or imagining her. Don't forget to have the hearts following his path. The hearts can have a short life, like a cloud following him and dissipating after a few seconds as new hearts form. Quote
thefreshestever Posted June 23, 2008 Author Posted June 23, 2008 thanks... ben: i´m not sure if it has to be physically right since it´s not supposed to be close to reality, but i´ll definately tweak the thrust again, i´m not 100% happy with it either... eric: this isn´t a finished scene of the video later, just a test render with a moody night sky in the background to tease the provider so we can make a deal... i really don´t wanna spend too much time on it before i know if they like the song and the idea for the video... i´m not totally sure about the storyboard yet, i think at the beginning he will fly up a tree wich is in front of her window just admiring her, and she doesn´t notice him at all... i´ll definately add flashback- or dream-sequences wich both of you mentioned, there will be a lot of room for cheesy stuff like heart-trails and such... i´m not sure about the end though, i want her to notice him but i don´t know how he´s gonna get her to... any ideas??? Quote
jakerupert Posted July 25, 2008 Posted July 25, 2008 How`s this project coming along? I wonder if the mobile ring-tones business is such a big thing in the US as well? Anybody here has ever had some comercial succsess in this field? The conditions over in Germany seem to be rather attractive... Thanks ;>) Jake Quote
thefreshestever Posted August 19, 2008 Author Posted August 19, 2008 How`s this project coming along? I wonder if the mobile ring-tones business is such a big thing in the US as well? Anybody here has ever had some comercial succsess in this field? The conditions over in Germany seem to be rather attractive... Thanks ;>) Jake unfortunately this seems to be going nowhere... i sent it to the provider a couple of weeks ago, they said that they forwarded it to the content manager, nothing heard from them until now.... two weeks ago i sent an e-mail asking if they already made a decision... still no answer... maybe my contact there is on vacation or they´re just not interested, i don´t know... Quote
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