Idea: Storm, the interactive open source learning movie.

[bggangel]

Hi,

I've been playing around with 3ds max for years as a hobby, but never have actually finished a lot for various reasons, but mainly time and the lack of knowledge.
For a while now, I've been playing with an idea, and I'd like to see how other people think about this.
First of all, in stead of just playing around creating glass ashtrays for no reason, I will start creating with a better subject.
The purpose is just trying to learn and having a good subject will motivate me, and perhaps you too.

I have no disillusions that this will ever be an actually movie (not in my lifetime, just by myself), as I have no time to do this.
But is will serve well, to at least have a goal to work towards.
As I will have questions about the technique, I will be helped by not having to explain my goal as I will use the visualization of a comic book. If you want to know which one, see the end of this text in "about the subject".
I am how ever going to start on a (comic) scene to (comic) scene basis. Where the first scene will probably take me more than a year to finish, and in the mean time, if I get stuck or bored with one, I might start up a parallel one...
I will post the original inspirational picture(s) of the comic scene, provide an translation (to English), improvements in the "script" (because of the holes in the original story, and it is not a movie script yet as the comic uses a lot of "informational text boxes" that cannot be used in a movie format, unless by using a voiceover, which I do not want to do),
provide the potential soundtrack and directions, remarks and everything that is necessary.
If case some of you have suggestions for improvements, that will better motivate you too help, I hope you will tell them, as I want it to be a group effort. If I agree, we can update the original, or maybe even better, we can have alternative 3ds max scene versions of the same comic scenes.
Like I said before: I will never be able to finish it by myself and I do not expect that to happen. Besides, I'm not even sure I want to be able to d all parts of the process. Texturing will not ever be my something I am good at.
I am not sure how I will provide this or set it up yet, on a forum, in different threads (1 per scene?) with download links or maybe through wikipedia or some other way. I am not a very technical person, so also here, I ask the help of people who are way better at this stuff then I am.
This format will probably change over time, but I have to start somewhere. And I'd like to start simple (probably provide all the scene info in 1 or 2 downloads)

Then I will "just" start with it. Like in the past, I will however run in problems that I do not know how to start, or models do not work, or the rig is faulty for some reason, or whatever. In the past I would muck around with it for a while and then give up.
For me, this is still a hobby and as soon as it becomes irritation for a to lengthy period of time, I used to give up.
But now, as I will not be able to solve and I will have questions why.
So this time around I will start asking questions on this public forum. And I will also provide the source of the problems at hand,
and I am hoping that people here can see what my problems are and will help me to find out what I did wrong.
Besides that, I hope people are then also encouraged to take what I started and improve it, and offer it up for download themselves. Or just start anew and make it better, and explain how and why.
If it is better (and it probably is), maybe you can tell what you did and how you did this and we can continue with the improved version, making things even better.
Or if you just happen to have something laying around that would help, without the fact that you created it, but you just found it somewhere, and you feel it would add to the project, that would be helpful to. (See how they did it). All within the limits of international law of course.

So I am hoping for a few things to come out of it: Something nice stuff (modeled for stills or animation) and a tutorial/reference database for others and me to see how it was done, and a public forum which people can help create and improve.
Perhaps at one point, if we start needing a lot of rendering power we can set stuff up for that too. A lot of people can make a lot happen (no I am not a socialist, but it is true)

So what do you think? Am I crazy? Is this already done before, or is this perhaps already happening somewhere? Do you think this could work? Would you be interested?

I am currently putting together an example of what I mean for the first comic scene, but in the mean time, let me know what you think...

About the subject:
It is a English/Dutch cartoon I read when I grew up, painted (yes painted) by don Lawrencee. See storm: Storm (Don Lawrence - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia) for the dry data.
The reason I choose this one, is because it is different than the stuff out there, it is so incredibly visually diverse in everything, from space to jungles to Mediterranean and medieval times, and honestly, it is impossible to ever reach anything that looks so good. That was the reason that the fact that the story was a bit weak (in my opinion) was largely overlooked. For our purpose it is a brilliant visual script which serves a great visual reference. The story however is full of holes and sometimes it covers years in just one text box,
but we will cross that bridge if we ever get to it.

[Sylook]

I loved STORM and I think it would make a great live-action movie (maybe even a series). Attempting to recreate the graphic novels in 3d animation yourself (unless you have an army of contributors for this project) does not seem realistic at all and it would be a shame to start something so big with determination, only to realize later its inevitable impossibility.
If your goal is to learn and evolve your skills, I would suggest that you start with a short film (2-3 minutes) project and see how this goes.

[bggangel]

Hey Sylook,

thx for the reply. Maybe I should be a little more clear in the goals I want. The fact that maybe (and probably not) something like a movie would come out is pure a bonus. I basically need a subject, and I figured, to get more response to potential questions and perhaps help if I needed it, I'd better make the subject an attractive one. If one scene of the story would take me one year to finish, that would be fine with me, as long as I have a subject, and in case I need to communicate what I want to achieve, I have a great visual reference. I'm just fed up with doing all sorts of fancy stuff with the logo of the company I work for, and basically was looking for a new subject.
To give an idea, if 10 other people take what I had made so far and, by combined effort but without me, would complete the same thing in a month, without me being involved, that would be fine too. I'd like to see what they would have done, but again from a learning point of view.
I was just trying to see, if I could expect people to say : "yeah, great idea, I'll help you.", but then again, I realize that I might have posted this in a wrong area, as it is not a "project recruitment", more of a "how about this?" idea, and I was curious if something like this was attempted before.
Besides, I was curious if that army of contributes would be around here and based on the number of views, versus the number of replys, I'd say not, but that is ok. I was just hanging it out there to see what would happen.
So I agree that the complete album would not be a realistic project, but for example, and I agree with your shorts idea. IT is just that I will split the story up in 2 minutes parts and scenes. It's more a series of shorts that cannot stand alone, but that's ok with me.
For example in the first few scenes of the first album needs 2 spaceships, about 7 characters, 5 sets, flaming and fog effects (in the eye of Jupiter). This is still a standard "sci-fi" environment, but after that, it soon changed to a snow environment and then to a medieval environment. I expect the first sci-fi part me to take more then a year, if I have the stamina to actually complete it. If in the mean time people are willing to help, that would be great, if not, that would be fine too.
And you are right, I am just going to start and I will see what will happen, I was just curious how other people though about this stuff. At least I now have a thread to point to in my "questions" thread. Like I said: I have to start somewhere.
Thanks for taking the time to reply though.