A new Short Blender Movie is in production by G2 Media Group, called project Valor. The main purpose of this project is promoting the work of G2 Media Group, as an animation studio, and they choose Blender to get the job done. By now there are only a few concepts sketches and character designs, but the project looks promising.
The story is about robots, and the main character is called Eugene. If you want to know more about this short, visit the official web site for project valor, and don`t forget to take a look into the gallery, to see some sketches and conceptual art. Unfortunately the videos aren't available yet.
15 Comments
Wonderful! Really wonderful!
Good use of Blender.. the rendered images are fantastic..
Can't this done by one person?
Awesome stuff. Really! Pity they didn't show more pictures!
Looks nice.... but why robots again? Robots, weapons, space ships, cars - seems to be the majority of work done with Blender. Looking at software independent CG art pages it looks totally different...
Nice pictures !
Robots with thermal engines, funny !
Nice. Reminds me of "Code Guardian", another animated indie short, which is to be found here:
http://stage6.divx.com/user/Streetcan/video/1207491/The-Guardian--Animated-short-movie
For one thing, mechanical objects don't have tricky organic mesh deformation issues when animated. They also often lack facial expressions. Not saying that people choosing these topics/characters can't do that stuff, but if you have limited resources and time, eliminating some aspects of production can be a good choice.
If he choosed robots, etc for fast production and not getting frustrated about that mesh deformation problems, etc, he really knows how to Texture and light a scene! Really cool character and nice screenshots :) Nice ilumination and texturing job
Robots or not, it looks amazing so far. I think they're being used in a way we haven't really seen too much of either, in the mainstream I mean. Looks like it's gonna be awesome. The texturing and lighting, the concept art, super bad.
Very awesome work. It's great to be able to see a project through the initial conception to final implementation.
I kinda agree with Jens that robots are overdone, which is why I was so happy to see the concept art for project peach.
Having said that...
I really dig Eugene. He has lots of potential. He's got a great feel about him, and a character with a wheel instead of feet can present a lot of challenges/possibilities.
One concern: The eyes look really cool, but it will be hard to get any emotion from his face.
@freen "I kinda agree with Jens that robots are overdone, which is why I was so happy to see the concept art for project peach."
haha, because furry animals have NOT been overdone?.... :)
robots are cool, and represent cutting edge technology, which is a main interest of many blender users and definately of a 3D studio. Anyways, some variety would be good. maybe..... Animated houses as characters...ohh no, already done in FF7. tell you the truth it's hard to think of ANYTHING that hasn't been turned into a character and animated. Dinos, birds, toilets, screwdrivers, matchsticks, rocks, staplers, sand, water, fire, Earth, flowers, tomatoes, cucumbers, germs, rugs.... I-ve seen it all, hehe. So maybe just enjoy the short for what it is (will be). maybe a cute story about how a bunch of slugs decide to go on a no SALT proliferation campaign in the face of a bunch of angry cows.... original? well, not even that...
Robots as shown are not cutting edge technology, they are fantasy. Mostly children's fantasy, like the other stuff you mention to be overdone. I think Betty Edwards put it in the right words in her book "Drawing on the right side of the brain", in one of the first chapters, when she wrote that most ten-to-fourteen-year-old boys have the most awful sense of taste, in fact they reach a low point then, thinking that aliens, gore, weapons, dinos and such are cool. According to her most people don't ascend from there.
If everything is overdone, then there would be no use to create any more art.
Look at any software-independent CG forum and look at the topics there. At CGTalk the count of these topics is significant lower.
Not to say anything against the technique shown in the planned movie, but the topic is IMHO a weak choice.
Jens -
Betty Edwards is a phenomenal resource and a wonderful launching point for those wishing to learn art and drawing. However, I would defer to Pablo Picasso in matters of "taste":
"Ah, good taste! What a dreadful thing! Taste is the enemy of creativeness." -
-- Pablo picasso
Good luck to "Project Valor" team! I, for one, never get tired of robots :)
Robots is the humanitis dream, servants to work for them. Go project valor! You have my support, and heck, maybe I'll get there too one day when I'm old and grey!