Ryoker - Apolar - Music Video

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Draise
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Ryoker - Apolar - Music Video

Post by Draise »

Ryoker - Apolar



Atlast I finished it. There were a lot of mistakes made and lessons learned. Legalities and production wise I think some of the lessons were priceless.

So the whole project had a total of 1000 man hours invested. 700 of them were mine and 250 were of my illustrator Heyner who helped me me with the concept art, designs, and 2D assets - not to mention the 2D animation of the Lineart, and the rest was done by my brother Miguel and an old 3D student of mine Memo. The client Ryoker edited it. This was all done over a period of 4 months.

I hope to do a mini series of break down videos some time in the future.

Here are some random facts:
-there are 19,000 people in the crowd made of 840 color combinations based on 54 character combinations.
-the island is 7km in diameter and up to 750m in altitude
-the main character is 2 meters tall
-The Giants measure between 7.5 to 9 meters tall
-the render was done principally by GPU using Mach Studio Pro 2 (DirectX10) and OpenGL
-the Lineart and animatic was done with Blender: the grease pencil used in the VSE
-between the light stage and the factory, there were 150 volumetric lights or more used for GPU
-130 shots and 110,000 frames were produced with me than 500,000 frames rendered into passes
-average render time per frame: 12 seconds
-software used: Softimage, Blender, trueSpace, Krita, Fusión, Virtual Dub, Photoshop, Freestudio, Gimp
-sound effects done by my guy Juan Pablo
-Total size of the project: 150 gigs
-Preproduction duration was 2 months
-Size of the screenplay / shotscript was 35 pages
-Revisions of the script and shotscript was done 9 times but it still wasnt enough due to last minute revisions over production.
-this animation was originally planned to be done in 2D
-the terrain alone was over a million polygons.
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Re: Ryoker - Apolar - Music Video

Post by Finis »

:worship: Most awesome. Great video.

You can manage a crew of employees and complex projects. You're not "only" a CG guy. You have the business and management skills to go far.

Things I learned, or had reinforced, from your suffering:
- Don't take a job unless you can finish it long before the deadline.
- Stay close to what you know you can do or know is profitable for work. Push your boundaries and expand your abilities but avoid "uncharted waters" in work projects. Most learning and experimentation is on your own time.
- Charge for costly/delaying/troublesome changes to the requirements.
- Be clear about the goal and requirements before production begins.
- Bid high. You can negotiate down. A customer who won't negotiate price, just says "no" and leaves, would only have been trouble. Bidding a higher initial bid gives the impression of confidence, quality, ability, worth (this isn't the cheap stuff, it's the good stuff).
- Price negotiation should include options to reduce cost (make the video simpler or shorter or whatever) or justify high cost with benefits (I can do it in that time but I'll need more employees ...)
- Gear up. Get and use the best equipment and software you can afford.
- Level up. Become expert with your tools and techniques. Study the art and science of what you do. You're a pro not a hobbyist. Learn what others know. Read. Watch tutorials. Seek advice.
- Creativity and imagination are some of the most valuable tools a Human has. They can be applied to problem solving as well as art.
Mice die in traps because they don't know why the cheese is free. -- seen on a bumper sticker
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Re: Ryoker - Apolar - Music Video

Post by Draise »

I agree with them all.

Minus one point. Dont just stick with what you know. I didn't know how to make crowds nor forrests. I didn't know how to make a kaleidoscope. I didn't know how to render in Machstudio Pro 2 to that scale. I didn't know how to light a factory. And I didn't know how to sculpt a terrain and texture it when it was a million polygons large (which I managed to do by chopping it into around 17 chuncks). I didn't know how to script in Softimage for some tedious work till this project. There was a lot I didn't know when I started.

It is better to be paid to study how to do it than not. Do it in free time yes. But better on the job with the specific requirements. You never know what you'll need in the future. The best skills you can have is to know how to learn quickly and troubleshoot efficiently and think outside the box to get the goal. A bit of marketing bluffing helps....

And yes. I think the most important one here learned is to agree and plan and write the agreement and plan before you start production to avoid future misunderstanding.

Another important one concerning time. .. predict twice the time more than you estimate.....

Concerning toolz. Just know the strengths and weaknesses of the software of choice. Big guns aren't always necessary. There is no way I could use Blender to manage hundreds of assets. But I can use Blender to plan and make animatic abs edit video and particle systems and sculpts and textures. There is no way I can use Softimage or Blender for quick Previz and speed modeling, but in trueSpace WS yes. And yes, sometimes a big gun will save lives, like Softimage. What an incredible software when it comes to data crunching and animation. A beast you can trust. But know them.

Lots to learn!
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Re: Ryoker - Apolar - Music Video

Post by MikomDude »

Sweet. There's a decent bit of geometry clipping and some texture flickering here and there but other than that it was a cool stylish video. The dance segment in the jungle was pretty impressive.
:bananathumb:
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Re: Ryoker - Apolar - Music Video

Post by Finis »

Pretty nice tune from that guy too. Needs the beat for dancin' of course but slightly too repetitive on top of that.

You would benefit from more big picture, long term, less specific thinking. If you want to go big and build a larger company that would open the door to it. That also provides defense against some causes of failure which is good even if you want to remain a small company. I know my business would benefit from it. (Points at self, "Now implement those big picture strategies you lazy bum.") Short term, focused, details are important while doing a job and you excel at that. For security and greater success in self employment best to think like general and fight like a sergeant.

Why does a boxer spend so much time jumping rope?
Mice die in traps because they don't know why the cheese is free. -- seen on a bumper sticker
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