The Framebrothers (a network of some freelancers in Leipzig/Germany) created a trailer for the Visionbakery. The Visionbakery is a new online platform for crowdfunding in germany.
The trailer was completly made with blender 2.55.
Some earlyer animations from us (also made with blender) have been the Auro Comfort Trailer and the MDR Mediathek trailer, which also have been postet on blender nation. (http://www.blendernation.com/2009/04/28/blender-animation-commercial)
Thank you blender foundation for this great piece of software and BlenderNation for spreading news about blender.
Credits:
- Animation/Shading/Lightning: Simeon Conzendorf
- Modelling: Falk Johnke, Simeon Conzendorf
- Musik: Johannes Phillipp
Simeon Conzendorf
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23 Comments
I dig the paper cut-out style and the confetti.
Very nice!...
There is a lot of work!
NICE!
Really nice sequence but odd shadows and no reflections (immediately noticeable on a notebook's surface) or fake reflections. Obviously that materials need to be improved.
Nice! I love the visual style. I have no idea what is being said, but the music, VO, and visuals all work together quite well and still deliver the message. The company I work for has a commercial breaking on Saturday that we did in Blender, it's nice to see others that realize the real-world potential of this software and its continued development.
Cool to see such a platform for Germany. Kickstarter is unfortunately only available for US residents.
This is really a poor quality trailer, no matter if done with Blender! I would have prefered "no", in fact! :)
design, animation, render are really crappy.
@ Deutsche,,, If you are going to make harsh statements like that, you need to back it up with specific reasons: Whats is "crappy" about their animation?, is it jittery motion arcs, spacing, timing? Their designs: what do you think was missing/ over-powering? Was it the color scheme? What? Its fine to say something is "crappy" but you have to give "Positive Criticism" so that the artist/s being critiqued can improve their work next time round. To me, you just sound like a whimpering wannabe. Get out of that frame of mind dude, develop that analytical part of your brain and help grow the community. My respect to ANYONE who even manages to see a project through from concept to completion. Nice jobs guys
Sorry, but I agree with Deutsche. Lights and shadows are unrealistic, all materials look the same.. laptop, watch, catalog, iphone.. all is made out of one plastic. And it's hard to tell what stylistic they wanted to achieve. If photorealism.. it's not. If toonlike.. it's not. Camera movement could be more fluid also in some moments. And I hate when people use standard lens flares.. like in after effects.. everyone knows how that effect look like, so that gives artificial and synthetic feel to animation too. Blender is just a tool. At first you have to learn some things about composition, design.. gain artistic skills and understand world around you.
Sorry, this is the first time that I admit that they made blender look awful. Did they use blender 2.25 ?
Animation was fine, the rest look awful.
first of all: thank you for feedback. it's interesting and it's also the reason why we post it on blendernation.
@ jikz, hashusdin, Rushseeker: thank you!
@ Moolah: what do mean with odd? I used raytraced shadows from the position of the lamp position, another lamp for the halo with buffer shadows, but on a separate layer, so that there are no buffer shadows. too dark? the objects are (because of the paper style) very thin... so the shadows look special, but should be ok. but yes, some materials could be improved.
@Cornelius Brackett: that is an important point: the aim was to have an animation in just one shot and tell a short story about visionbakery. and everybody should know, that the final product depends of time and budget. and also the feedback you get before. Maybe I should post a preversion from next work earlier in a forum.
@Deutsche: this is really poor feedback. "really crappy"? maybe ugly? how should the blender community look like... we all never publish things until we are perfect? please post some work from you, that I can learn what real style is.
@mickiPixel: thank you. i couldn't wrote it better.
@Karlis: it should look more photorealistic as toonlike, but for photorealism is not the easiest thing to achieve. and yes: I learned many things about composition, desing... but there's lot more to learn, to try, to understand. but you agree with Deutsche? really crappy?
@Voc007: as the text says, we used 2.25. but i know that this wasn't a question ;) "this is the first time that they made blender look awful?" you haven't seen much! - please post some work from you.
Well I'm sorry to join the negative comments. But it looks quite outdated. It reminds me in terms of render quality to one of the first pixar shorts: Andre and wally b. I guess the major problem is inconsistent lightning. Outside it's a beautifull day but besides tje lens flare there is no sunlight entering the room. The materials of the colored people and the little house seems to be somehow selfilluminating while the table is not. The particles emerging from the chimney are dissapearing midair. The animation looks quite mechanical you might try to add some variancy to the movements.
Wow, tough crowd. My first impression was positive but I am not a professional.
As a consumer if I saw this on TV I doubt I would notice any of the things criticized.
I like the effect at the end with the logo pulled out of the scene.
Noemis - Don't worry about it. Pointing out faults in other peoples work just helps make them feel like they must be better.
Personally I felt like it was a nice little piece with some good stylistic effects like the cut out thought bubbles, the single camera view etc. One thing that I noticed - which may be on purpose, but may not be, was how everything on the right side was cartoon, cutout style, while everything on the left was closer to photo real. I didn't understand the Deutsch and so maybe there was a point to this. If there was, great, otherwise I would try and get it consistent. The shadows were a bit dark for my tastes, but what really would have brought this to life for me, would have been some, even very basic, animation of the people. Don't spend hours doing it, but as an animator, I like to see life. :)
Anyway, I rather enjoyed the piece, and like one poster said before, you've got to respect anyone who *finishes* a project with real world time lines and budgets and posts it for public examination. Somehow I suspect that if I searched for the people who just say things like "yu suxx0rz" that I wouldn't find any of their work here on BN.
I think that this is a good work.
People who watch TV does not know and does not care about reflections and shadows, but it understand the "soul" of a video. This one has it.
90% of people who criticize it ... is unable to to any better.
I have to jump in here.
I'm surprised some of you have jumped on this so strongly.
Why is everything even a short commercial compared to Pixar?
If that's the bar, then almost everything on TV, including almost everything in most commercials is crap.
Geez. I live and work in Hollywood, not just the city, but the industry.
I watched it with an uncritical eye and enjoyed it. I speak a little German so that may have helped.
Anything can be ripped apart, I myself was pretty tough on Sintel.
This was good for what it was.
Not everything is suppose to be Pixar.
I agree with terrachild. This was just a simple little commercial to get across a simple point: to broadcast VisionBakery’s name. I wish people would give more positive criticism. You can tell someone what they should look at working on with something in a positive tone. Though, if you're going to criticize someone’s work, I think it’s best to find out the purpose of that work first. Perhaps this was what the company asked for–a simple little visual to get the point across. “Best” is according to purpose. If you compared everything to the "best," you’re comparing everything according to your purpose of "best." That’s not fair critiquing. Maybe this was "best" according to the company’s request. Maybe the company wanted a short and simple animation. And not everyone WANTS a big project for their needs, and not everyone wants to pull out the YafaRay and hi-res textures and render some ultra-realistic animation for every project. Some things call for simpler solutions. And simple is a legitimate style, too. I thought that for the purpose of this video, it was a good usage of Blender. And like mickiPixel said, I commend anyone who actually completes a project from start to finish. I say, Good job, guys!
Hi, Noemis!
I respect your work so... I'll try to explain more
But first - look this funny commercial (old but cool :) )
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGnhgH_TPCQ&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGnhgH_TPCQ&feature=related - this one will be understandable only for Russians :))
Unfortunatelly I couldn't find my favourite commercial with very neat paper style graphics (sorry I'm telling this and can't prove... it was in 2010 and that was a reclame of a processor or an OS maybe)
So, by your clip:
The beginning is normal.
First "camera up" could be more dynamic (like you're flying fast to sky).. I don't really know the whole translate b'coz I don't understand well in Deutsch. Here you lacks of some simple "speed lines effect" (if you want to not to raise the camera too high)
Bank's building could be at least cubical (it's strickly my taste) and a bit more accurate (like everything other looks more).
Then: the plane's flight - I like it's trajectory. The plane's paper can be a bit more interesting (maybe made of an organiser's page or a copybook's page). The lense flare effects may have a good place here.. But first:
it starts just suddenly (like somebody turned it ON) and it's position, size and alpha is questionable to look so.
Then:
the table and the things on it - notebook looks overlayed (no reflections, a strange specular spot); the alarm clock and iPhone (or what is it) - I got that this is the clock (not a flashlight or something else) and this is the phone just after 8-10 repeats. Glass need to be less reflective and less specular. Obviously you need a side filling light (no spec. in it!) to immitate a colour reflection from the side (without it your picture looks dark and "plain").
Also you may add some good probe texture (spherical texture with an environment) using Reflection in Mapping and this will give you fake reflections where you need 'em (use different Mix modes for different materials) and this will not take a long time to render.
Just a little "off-topic": I'm not a director but why those coloured people stays "on knees"? Just looks like this. I understand the concept - it's the mean to fix 'em to the table... but it looks strange.
The blue 3d-house is falling like a strong but made not of paper... A paper construction must scorch on it's edges after hitting the table.
At the end - this crowd looks not really glad after they did. Can they show some "horray" signs? I mean - by clapping or moving their hands :) It will be more lively.
OK - now I got why that BANK was plain ))) But I got it only after looking this clip about 15 times and after analysing everything. A really good commercial must show an idea CLEARLY to everybody and it's not depends on their language knowledge.
Of course if you don't have a time to replan major things in the scenario - no need to worry so much. But at least give these things some decent materials and additional lights (it may be without specular as I said before).
This is my hobby work (also with fake reflections of an environment)
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1394402719624&set=a.1394402679623.49355.1818875109
I'm not very proud of it but you'll be sure I'm not a rookie.
P.S. Sorry if this text is too long. And pardon me for mistakes (I want to sleep badly).
@noemis
dude chill out, it is just my opinion, it does look like old pre-Pixar style. Here is a composition I did about 3 to 4 years ago:
[IMG]http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c61/voc007/falcon010bl.jpg[/IMG]
@ noemis, I think the harsh crits are coming because many of us LOVE Blender and study diligently under the tutelage of Blender Cookie and Blender Guru. Also, I think the response is due to the fact that while most of us do not try to tackle full projects like this one, we are constantly doing small projects and working hard to make them as sharp as possible. See Andrew Price's Energy Drink Advertisement on Blender Guru for an example of how easy it is to make a simply modeled object look fantastic. You might have more trouble with textures due to copyrights but its not terribly hard to reproduce such things with Gimp and/or a camera. And I can't stress this next point enough... Materials, textures, reflections! Personally I liked the Kid based theme you used but it looked as if you just added a simple color to many of the objects and let Blender do the rest. I would have SubSurfed the paper-people to make them round, and at the very least some kind of reflection textures to the laptop, car, pencil, and such if raytracing real ones was too much for your time frame. Perhaps you could position a camera at the object, facing out, and render reflection textures like that for near accuracy? But other than a few picky points I liked it and these others don't seem to realize that photorealism would look out of place in this commercial. I really liked the letter fountain and animation,especially the house dropping. This definitely reminds me of Banking commercials here in the states so I can tell you are on the right track, especially with so few people working on the project! It is what it is and I think it was fine. I think most of us are just looking for ultra polished cutting edge CG (even those of us who can't achieve it...ahem ;) So don't let the jerks get you down because its not "really crappy" at all. Two video tutorials come to mind though for materials like those that you were shooting for, both of them by Jonathan Williamson at Blender Cookie. 'Creating a Bunch of Balloons' and 'Creating a Present'. Don't be put off by the beginner look of them! I think these are very good examples of the look represented by your theme and would be worth the time spent watching them. Good luck and best wishes.
sorry wrong link :-)
http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c61/voc007/falcon010bl.jpg
Why is this video even highlighted on blender nation was it because its in destuch? .This advertisement concept is good ,but the material and final render out put i would classify as sloppy work .
environment lighting * needs improvement use ambient occlusion dude .3 point lighting.
materials for laptop ,table watch *need alot of improvement ,readjust your specularity , nor mal mapping settings .
NIce concept but i ve seen better work than this by others.
The negative points pointed out by the others is justified the work that you have produced would be rated as 4/10. fail
thanks to Moolah, Joost Bouwer, Blendiac, John,... and all the rest of you for your thoughts, comments, criticism,... this is extremly helpful! I have to concentrate on some other projects now, but when you look out of the window (in the film) you'll notice that it snows: these months it's winter in germany. in spring or summer I'll take the blendfile out of the archivfolder... search the blendernation website for this article, read all comments again and then rework the lightning, materials, rendersetup, animtaion of the film. And let it rain :) - until then I'll do some tuts, exercises, tests and maybe post another animation on blendernation... maybe to start another discussion ;)
amazing software, great community! happy blending and never care about sharing your work!
thank you!