HELP ME BLENDERNATION… YOU’RE MY ONLY HOPE!
We don’t get requests like this every day :) *feels like Obi-Wan*.
This message was sent by Ian Ball, whom we know from his animations ‘Barry and Dan, Burglars‘. Ian is now participating in a contest for the British music/video website E4.com. Check out his entry ‘cyclops’ below (hi-res version also available):
Ian writes:
I’m not a trained animator. I’m just a hobbyist who picked up Blender as it was open-source. Yet I have been shortlisted in the top 25 of a prestigious competition with the chance to win a commission worth £15K! This could set-me off on a career in animation and I would owe it all to Blender and the Blender Community!
If you want to vote for Ian’s entry (or anyone else’s for that matter) you’ll have to register, which is a bit unfortunate (when will these marketing people ever learn?!). But if you want to help out a fellow Blenderhead those few seconds might be worth it. Voting closes on february 29th.
By the way, Ian: how comes the cyclops can hit the snooze button on his alarm clock perfectly without fumbling around? :)
I don’t think it’s fair to vote for this short =|
No matter what software was used to produce it!
I think it is. :P
It’s made with Blender you know!
Well I think like Durden. That animation didn’t throw me of my chair.
Same here,
asking for votes is pretty low…
Putting the request on something with the scale of BN… might be even lower.
ok, ok – I’ve learned my lesson :)
*hurries to finish the first Peach Interviews video*
That’s not a great attitude guys. Why not support someone who actually got off his behind (figuratively) and actually entered a comp and has got this far. A little support isn’t a bad thing, even if it hasn’t “blown you off your chair” Sheesh.
Greenlig
Begging for votes? Even if everybody else does it in the competition, it’s weak. Work and recognition will come to you if you’re good, no need fo that request.
Come on. There’s nothing “low” about asking for votes, and there’s absolutely nothing low at all about BlenderNation posting an article about somebody doing something interesting with Blender. You don’t have to vote for the Cyclops video. Vote for whichever one you like, or don’t vote at all.
It’s worth checking out in any case. There are some pretty nice animations entered in the competition.
honestly. the animation (meaning the movement) isn’t even bad, just the rendering is. add hair to the cyclops, do some sculpting (for example the fingers / hands), so it has more details, add textures to the table, add some more things (like pencils or what) and add stuff to the background (maybe a room with a picture) use the DOF-node, so the room is out-of-focus, and change the camera twice (grabbing the eye, inserting/blinking the eye) enhance overall texture quality and way better lightning (soft shadows!!!1). that’s it, it’d be a serious performance, since the basic conept and animation is good. it just needs details; the tasks listed above’d maybe be an 5-10 hour time investment, something well worth for 15 grand. well, only if one can still change the submission
i watch a bit of e4 and that is the exact style of the animation it uses. quite surrealistic. though make the man purple to go with the programmes colour.
Its very normal to ask for votes, but I just think its a bit unfair. You vote for the entry YOU think is the best. Not the one that you were ASKED to vote for…
Re-read Ians email. He isn’t asking for votes. He is simply saying “check it out”, “Look what I have done”.
Before adding any details, please do some work on composition. Lighting and background are poor. The item placement on the desk is odd. My alarm clock is more useful when it is placed in front on me :p.
Moreover, i dunno if is is intentional, but the cyclops has rather very large hands (over focused by camera ?).
Finally, we hardly recognize the E4 logo. Some camera movement might help as it is previously said.
The video sucks and the sound is f#ck’n annoying. I would vote the the best video based on several quality factors and not the product used to create it.
“By the way, Ian: how comes the cyclops can hit the snooze button on his alarm clock perfectly without fumbling around? :)”
I can hit the snooze button on my alarm clock without looking perfectly. Its years of training. ;)
Let he who has his animation in the top 25 of anything cast the first stone. Oops, too late.
Could such an appeal disqualify his entry?
“This could set-me off on a career in animation and I would owe it all to Blender and the Blender Community!”
The implication seems to be that if we don’t vote for this animation we are destroying someone’s dream/potential career; This is ironic since the author states, “I’m just a hobbyist.”
If we do vote for it the author will really owe us. Wow! Thanks! This post comes across as E-begging, plain and simple.
Future contestants/Blendernation editors should try something subtler like, ‘Feel free to check out a Blender nominated animation entry.’
I personally don’t think he’s asking for votes. He’s sounds like he just wants to expose his work a little and get a bigger audience from his ‘supportive’ community… but I guess I’m just a naive guy.
I personally didn’t like it, so I’m not gonna vote for it but I would never have known about it otherwise. Nothing wrong with a little showing off, lets not make it seem like there is.
ah well…
just for ones its kinda funny, it would be sorta cool if he wins (now…)
Ian is the lucky guy and he’s got my vote :) !
I have to agree on the fact that this is a bit of spoil for that contest…(and I won’t do this again)
but… let’s see now how much this will accomplish! ;)
Well the title of the post is HELP ME BLENDERNATION YOUR MY ONLY HOPE which does imply our action is needed.
Unless he’s not asking for votes, but for our advice.
My advice is make the character get up slightly to the right of where he ends up. You never want to have a character dead-center in the screen.
I’m not sure if your limited by time, but if you have more time, make it take longer for the cyclops to get up, make him struggle, ect. Its those imperfections in character that would benefit.
To me it seemed like a plea for help. And since it might create a spark in the void, I decided to vote for it. Remember second place is the first of the losers!
he is not confident enough with his works? i think cheering him is good enough, as long as “supporting” is not mean that you must “voting” something . good luck buddy.
Crusty nasty smelly blender users. Give the guy a break. Bunch of nasties.
Have a nice day :)
It’s not fair to ask votes like this, If it is good he will get his attencion.
BN what a shame, post this and do not post what I’ve sent (news that I will teach a course in Brazil about the Blender Game Engine for poor people).
CYa.
dreamkatana,
poor people need the game engine? hmm…. I would have thought they might need some food or something.
i turn my alarm clock off without opening my eyes daily
After reading the negative noise-making of the talentless, do-nothing losers at the head of the thread, the first damned thing I did was register and vote for this entry.
The envy of some of you is as pathetic as it is obvious. You are in the top 25 of nothing. You present us with no work of your own. You talk and talk as if you have any talent to lend your words even the slightest hint of respectability. You are nothing, have nothing, can produce nothing. You are contemptible creatures, walking errors, whiny children.
A well-earned kudos to the fellow who actually did something with his life and can now brag about a top 25 placement for the rest of his career.
You’ve earned every vote you got. Best wishes to you. Hope you win.
The rest of you can suck a grinder.
Well, his original message clearly has a begging character, which is the reason for some of the reactions. Understandable, I have to say. So can I suck a grinder too?
Scotter,
A few to many assumptions
Sago,
If you would react in such a way I guess you would get some of the same.
Yea, not the most impressive, but top 25 sounds good on the resume. I guess that’s all that counts.
actually, camera angles might help your animation more. Zoom up on the eye (with a focus/unfocus effect) to make it a little more interesting. Might help in a rather short time period.
P.S. use an external renderer for this, Give it some noise and you’ll be fine, I have no complaints.
P.S.S. ccherett, everyone here has assumed much.
good day :)
Online voting is stupid! Everyone with a bigger network then you will outvote you although you would have been the better choice.
a Dutch site often calls on it’s huge fanbase to “wreck” a poll and once succesfully had a chipsflavour named after them (Doritos geenstijl) because of this.
They do this all to prove that these kind of polls aren’t worth a dime (and to make themselves more notorious).
Therefore i give my vote to this kind of polls/contests (unless the cause is illegal or otherwise not acceptable) when people ask me.
For all i know, they could return the favor to me once.
A vote for Ian Ball’s animation is a vote for Blender!
Lets all vote!
It would be a nice action if all the blender people rule the poll and help a fellow blender artist.
That moment when the character transitions from sleep to wake and is groggy can be a fun and, please forgive me but, think there is a missed the opportunity to play with it.
To give an example, check out how RG Sudios does it with “Bernard”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMFt53XVrqo and
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJjWZqJ2M8c
Brilliant!
I know there is just seconds to work with, but I would like to see something more than having the character sit up and turn like a robot. I’m suggesting something in the way he moves or a visual gag that shows his brain isn’t running full speed yet.
BTW: I love the use of foreshortening and good luck.
I just checked some of the other videos and I definately have to say, that the quality of Ian’s entry just doesn’t seem to match that of quite some others. Be it detail, lighting or animation. The idea is good but that alone normally shouldn’t win a competition if the execution is just sub par. BUT I’m sure that Ian could do alot better given more time and attention to detail (better than me anyway…)
Look at: http://www.e4.com/video/t9fXCExCoeiGMm5xtlbQYE/play.e4
or http://www.e4.com/video/8z7CNuF6bcTHhp1sYqX378/play.e4
and judge yourself which one is worthy of your vote…
Thanks to all who have voted and given constructive comments.
Whether to vote or not (or ask for votes) seems to have you divided.
On-line votes aren’t the best as the person with the most mates can often win. I haven’t got any mates so that’s why I’m asking on here! ;-)
If you get to the top 25 of a big competition with a big prize would you not try to generate some publicity to help you? Of course you would.
Anyway, I’ll answer some points to give you more background:
The animation could use work (I’m not saying it’s the best). I found out about the competition with two weeks to go until deadline day. Initially I thought I wouldn’t bother as I didn’t have enough time… but then I thought “no guts no glory” and set to work.
There are things I have learnt since that would have helped me and things that weren’t in the version of Blender I used that would have helped me… but it’s all a learning experience. The sound is rubbish, but I haven’t got any good recording equipment… something I could remedy if I won a runners-up prize!
It’s true that I just started doing Blender as a hobby but I am achieving things which make me think that I could use it in a career (especially if I win the competition!). I work a 9-5 doing website work so this is all done in my own time… plus I have two young kids (7 months and 2 years) and anyone with kids will tell you that personal time is very hard to come by! If I won a commission like this then I could do some serious damage! I’m confident about what I can and can’t do and I would be successful if I had the time, resources and computer power behind me!
Our programmer at work said he could rig-up a system to automatically place votes for me. I said no as I don’t want to cheat to win and I wouldn’t want to cheat the prize away from someone else. Some of the other animations are truly great and I would encourage you to vote for them. I wanted to highlight the competition as a whole. I thought it wasn’t impossible that some people would like and vote for mine anyway (though clearly some of you hate it). I also wanted to show that you can use Blender to compete in professional animation competitions like this.
I’m pretty sure I won’t win as some of the others are so good… and mine is clearly so bad! ;-) And even if I did win I’m not sure you just get £15,000 to spend on anything you want. But giving money to the Blender Foundation is definitely an option. As I said, I would owe it all to Blender and the Blender community… although I’ll make sure those with a negative attitude don’t get a penny! ;-)
Well said Ian. If you’re just a hobbyist then you’ve probably knocked out several professional animators already. The people on here are just soooo jealous. Keep up your good work and well done on reaching the final 25.
When he says: “I’m just a hobbyist who picked up Blender as it was open-source. Yet I have been shortlisted in the top 25 of a prestigious competition…” he sounds like, I made this animation with this crappy software I was forced to use because I got no money for a commercial one, yet my project was selected. And then it sounds like “help me get those £15K to buy a real 3d package and stop using this nightmare of blender!
I’m not voting for a project who has blender in such a concept. And the burglar animations were top quality, I don’t see any of that in this short.
juanf, seriously? You got this:
“I made this animation with this crappy software I was forced to use because I got no money for a commercial one, yet my project was selected. help me get those £15K to buy a real 3d package and stop using this nightmare of blender!”
from this?
“I’m just a hobbyist who picked up Blender as it was open-source. Yet I have been shortlisted in the top 25 of a prestigious competition…”
Are you dumb?
I don’t take offence to any of the comments on here but you just haven’t thought yours through at all! I’m the biggest Blender fan I know. I love it and support and promote it at every opportunity! I am unlikely to ever change to another promgram as I already have far too much time invested in this one. And why would I want to waste any money on another program when Blender does far more than I’ll ever need???
If the impossible happens and I actually win £15K I’ll use it to pay my mortgage while I get to work on the commission you idiot! Though now I’m starting to think I’ll use a portion of it to hunt you down for posting such a stupid comment you absolute pr1ck!!!
LOL! Try not to take it personally. I would bet money that JuanF is an angry little boy still trying to UV map his first cube!
I live in the United States of America, and right now, a whole lot of people are begging for votes, since we have our presidential election coming up this November. In fact, they’ve been begging for votes for over a year now. So for me, begging for votes is too commonplace to care about it as a possible ethical dilemma. It’s everywhere, omnipresent, and very easy to deal with. The choice to vote, or avoid voting, has become second nature for me, something like walking, or moving my mouse.
However, I now have more sympathy for ALL of the presidential candidates, whether I like them or not. If there is this much of an uproar over a contest of this nature, how much grief do political candidates have to put up with?
@Ian Ball, I would think it is good to rotate the 4 ball a bit so the 4 can be seen clearly before it is placed in the eye (more brand exposure). The robot reminds me of bender from Futurama.
@Ian Ball. Don’t let negative comments get you down. Stone throwing and all that. GO GO GO. Dominate the competition.
YYeaahhh.. There’s a ton of other comments to read on this topic. Many people make their point. If I were you, Ian, I would stop reading every single one – even mine – and go make your animation better. It should at least be clear that to this audience you’re not winning so you wont be winning in that huge competition either.
Add some things for him to knock over.
Make some sort of super snappy ending at the last second to show off the logo.
Overlap the action! His right hand searching for the snooze button, and the left hand searching for the eye. one finds one item and then helps the other all the while knocking over things.
I could go on, but really you should get to work doing whatever it is you think kicks ass.
Thanks! But I can’t change my entry now. If I had more time then I could have tried to include more things but I had to make quick decisions and stick to them to get it in on time.
@Ian Ball. Just use and make the best out of it. I think you’re getting better as time goes by. Dont let negative comments overrun you.
ccherrett – poor people need Knowledge, so they can buy food or something.
Cya.
Ian,
Best of luck my friend :)
Thanks for your support! I’ve had the same sort of grief on the Blender Artists forum. So, instead of repeating myself… I’ll just link to it:
http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?t=115971&page=2
Basically, I’m right and everyone else is wrong! ;-)
…and one more thing. Juanf (you’ve obviously run away with your tail between your legs?) – My support for Blender cannot be questioned. That’s why my name appears in the credits of Elephant Dream and will appear in Peach. However, I don’t see your name anywhere. Maybe that’s because I actually put my money where my mouth is and you just talk b0ll0cks!
saw this on the telly this morning :)
Well, I gave my vote.
Because in my opinion, it is also my clip, and I do not see any reason why I should not vote for my own “work”.
Why is is also mine?
Well, Blender and it’s Open Source philosophy means for me that I am a part of the project since I bought the Peach and the Mancandy DVD (you know, a part of the effort goes to the Blender Foundation). So I am part of the whole project as Ian is.
I am sure many of you do not think like me, but that’s what Blender’s Open Source idea in my interpretation (though not all Open Source projects have the same idea).
Daniel
SPOTTED! this is being aired on E4! saw it on the telly about an hour ago.