Here's an idea.  I'm not sure I have the will or time to do it all, but
here's the idea:

ELIGIBILITY: Anyone who's ever posted an anims entry to IRTC.

END PRODUCT: Eventually, we have a single image which touts animation in
IRTC, with the URL displayed. It would look like a splash page for a comic
book, a movie poster, or maybe a hospital's ad.  It would have a
"character" from everyone choosing to participate.  The "characters" could
be anything you had that moved in the animation, from Tek's spaceship to
N.A.'s Microcosmic mite to Matt Giwers' 8-ball guy to Rusty to my blob guy
to the rubber duckie to one of the Dry Run guys.

HOW WE DO IT:
1) A Coordinator solicits a model sheet (just a 320x240 rendering) of your
character, with some notes of its poseability (is it a solid mesh, fully
manipulatible, etc.)
2) The Coordinator gives to the Head Artist all the model sheets.  The Head
Artist sketches up a storyboard (single frame of course) with all the
characters assembled in some interesting way.  The Head Artist then
notifies the Coordinator how each character is to be posed and lighted.
Probably with instructions: fit your character in box{A,B} with camera at
{C} and lights at D,E,and F.
3) The Coordinator tells the individual artists to make a rendering of their
figure in the way indicated.
4) The Head Artist then splices all the images together.
5) The T-shirt is then uploaded to zazzle.

WHERE IT GOES:
If it's cool enough, maybe the owner of the Reach for the Stars account at
zazzle will allow us to put it on "their account," so that sales of
T-shirts with the image will benefit the IRTC server.


I'd love for this note here to cause the project to take off.  I've got too
many things on my plate to do it "well,"  "now"  as either Coordinator, and
you don't want me to be the Head Artist.


Greg M. Johnson

Post a reply to this message

gregjohn wrote:
> 
> Here's an idea.  I'm not sure I have the will or time to do it all,
> but here's the idea:
> 
> END PRODUCT: Eventually, we have a single image which touts animation
> in IRTC, with the URL displayed. It would look like a splash page for
> a comic book, a movie poster, or maybe a hospital's ad.  It would have
> a "character" from everyone choosing to participate.  The "characters"
> could be anything you had that moved in the animation, from Tek's
> spaceship to N.A.'s Microcosmic mite to Matt Giwers' 8-ball guy to
> Rusty to my blob guy to the rubber duckie to one of the Dry Run guys.

Works for me.

> HOW WE DO IT:
> 1) A Coordinator solicits a model sheet (just a 320x240 rendering) of your
> character, with some notes of its poseability (is it a solid mesh, fully
> manipulatible, etc.)
> 2) The Coordinator gives to the Head Artist all the model sheets.  The Head
> Artist sketches up a storyboard (single frame of course) with all the
> characters assembled in some interesting way.  The Head Artist then
> notifies the Coordinator how each character is to be posed and lighted.
> Probably with instructions: fit your character in box{A,B} with camera at
> {C} and lights at D,E,and F.
> 3) The Coordinator tells the individual artists to make a rendering of their
> figure in the way indicated.
> 4) The Head Artist then splices all the images together.
> 5) The T-shirt is then uploaded to zazzle.

The way I see it, if the artists' instructions for their models make enough
sense, the Head Artist should be able to render everything in one scene,
which is probably simpler than patching everything together.  Assembling a
collage of different IRTC characters is a different issue.

> WHERE IT GOES:
> If it's cool enough, maybe the owner of the Reach for the Stars account at
> zazzle will allow us to put it on "their account," so that sales of
> T-shirts with the image will benefit the IRTC server.
> 
> I'd love for this note here to cause the project to take off.  I've got too
> many things on my plate to do it "well,"  "now"  as either Coordinator, and
> you don't want me to be the Head Artist.

I'm game for participating.

Regards,
John

Post a reply to this message

John VanSickle wrote:
>
>The way I see it, if the artists' instructions for their models make enough
>sense, the Head Artist should be able to render everything in one scene,
>which is probably simpler than patching everything together.  Assembling a
>collage of different IRTC characters is a different issue.
>

Um, I guess I don't understand.  I was trying to get over the issues of
proprietary code and multitudinous rendering packages.  How could they
render everything in one scene?  I guess that your scenario would instead
be just like a photograph of a wall of a gallery, which might have less
appeal.

Just thinking out loud,
greg

Post a reply to this message

>
> Um, I guess I don't understand.  I was trying to get over the issues of
> proprietary code and multitudinous rendering packages.  How could they
> render everything in one scene?  I guess that your scenario would instead
> be just like a photograph of a wall of a gallery, which might have less
> appeal.

Then there would be the problem of reflections and shadows, etc, etc.
Everything kind of needs to be in a single scene.

AW

Post a reply to this message

Andrew Wilcox wrote:
>>
>> Um, I guess I don't understand.  I was trying to get over the issues of
>> proprietary code and multitudinous rendering packages.  How could they
>> render everything in one scene?  I guess that your scenario would instead
>> be just like a photograph of a wall of a gallery, which might have less
>> appeal.
>
>Then there would be the problem of reflections and shadows, etc, etc.
>Everything kind of needs to be in a single scene.
>
>AW
>


Well, there was an add for LOTR that had closeup facial photographs of ten
different characters, probably taken weeks apart.  So it is doable to
"sell" IRTC without having a single rendering.

And if we're simply showcasing the characters, rather than trying to trick
someone into thinking they're seeing a photograph, couldn't they just as
well rely on cutting and pasting out a particular regions of different
bitmap.  You just tell them to be inside box{A,B} with certain lighting
setup.  If we have characters (like Rusty) with reflective surfaces, we
could give the artists  something to reflect off of (a sky sphere, put them
in front of the crowd but behind the letters WWW.IRTC.ORG).



But if a single rendering is absolutely required, maybe that's the reason
it's just a plain crazy idea, for two reasons:

1) I'm sure that we ought to open it up to non-povvers, and I for one
wouldn't want to import items from four different packages together.  I'm
sure my blob character will not work in any other package.
2) Even among folks with a very high level of comradery, it takes a whole
'nuther level of trust to just email over your whole character's code
files.  Even if you trust the person not to run away with it, you might not
be ready to expose all the warts, etc., involved in the use of the scene
file.


Greg M. Johnson

Post a reply to this message

gregjohn wrote:

> Andrew Wilcox wrote:

>>Then there would be the problem of reflections and shadows, etc, etc.
>>Everything kind of needs to be in a single scene.

I disagree. While it's true that reflections and shadows 
sometimes ARE a problem, their influence on the final picture is 
greatly exaggerated ;-) I guess it's enough if all elements used 
the same lighting setup (or maybe just the rough direction - 
possibly with soft shadows, that's easier to combine in, say, 
Photoshop or Photopaint).

> Well, there was an add for LOTR that had closeup facial photographs of ten
> different characters, probably taken weeks apart.  So it is doable to
> "sell" IRTC without having a single rendering.

Of course it's easiest if each picture comes with an alpha 
channel, so some "generic" background could be used. Maybe a 
pov-ray source file or something as background?

> And if we're simply showcasing the characters, rather than trying to trick
> someone into thinking they're seeing a photograph, couldn't they just as
> well rely on cutting and pasting out a particular regions of different
> bitmap.  You just tell them to be inside box{A,B} with certain lighting
> setup.  If we have characters (like Rusty) with reflective surfaces, we
> could give the artists  something to reflect off of (a sky sphere, put them
> in front of the crowd but behind the letters WWW.IRTC.ORG).

Maybe something like

-www.irtc.org-
--animations--

instead of just plain www.irtc.org ?

Just some input.

BTW, my characters are posable ;-)

-Markus

Post a reply to this message

One point is that when a kid buys an "Incredible Hulk" T-Shirt, he'd be
happy with a correctly shaded Hulk on a white background, he probably
wouldn't care whether Hulk cast a photorealstic shadow on a wooden floor.

http://www.alexrossart.com/images/wallpaper/GoldenAgeGreats800.jpg

I've posted to the binaries group an updated plan (of course not five copies
of my character!).

Here's the plan:

Folks who want to enter would submit a rendering of their character.  First
they'd scale it so that its height approximates 200 cm=83 pov units, or that
a heroic human male would have a height of 83 units.  Then they'd place
their character in a scene with

/*light_source{ <12000,10000,0> rgb 1 rotate 0*y  }
light_source{ <12000,10000,0> rgb 1 rotate 120*y   }
light_source{ <12000,10000,0> rgb 1 rotate 240*y  }
camera{location <0,100,-350>  look_at<0,80,0> angle 45}
background{rgb 1}
*/

and position their character so its "feet" are on a nonexistent y=0 plane,
then translated to <40-SomeNumber, 0,0>.

You can intensify or dim the lights or if you're smart find some way to add
an interesting background to reflect off of that isn't in the image, but you
should keep the above params.  The rendering would be something huge (don't
do it *yet*), but the pasting of images together, if they don't overlap,
should be easy.

If we get a spaceship, we can have it flying overhead as I estimated in that
image in p.b.i.

Rusty is a hero to many in IRTC, so he shouldn't be half-blocked out of the
picture. I don't know-- how tall **is** he?  Would an IRTC logo like I've
suggested block too much of him?  (Haven't figured this one out yet).

If we get more than 5, it's still fairly doable, I'd just have to think
about how to compose it.  I would like to ask almost all the entries in the
January round to participate.



"Markus Altendorff" <maa### [at] anthrosphinxde> wrote in message
news:400c412f@news.povray.org...
> gregjohn wrote:
>
> > Andrew Wilcox wrote:
>
> >>Then there would be the problem of reflections and shadows, etc, etc.
> >>Everything kind of needs to be in a single scene.
>
> I disagree. While it's true that reflections and shadows
> sometimes ARE a problem, their influence on the final picture is
> greatly exaggerated ;-) I guess it's enough if all elements used
> the same lighting setup (or maybe just the rough direction -
> possibly with soft shadows, that's easier to combine in, say,
> Photoshop or Photopaint).
>
> > Well, there was an add for LOTR that had closeup facial photographs of
ten
> > different characters, probably taken weeks apart.  So it is doable to
> > "sell" IRTC without having a single rendering.
>
> Of course it's easiest if each picture comes with an alpha
> channel, so some "generic" background could be used. Maybe a
> pov-ray source file or something as background?
>
> > And if we're simply showcasing the characters, rather than trying to
trick
> > someone into thinking they're seeing a photograph, couldn't they just as
> > well rely on cutting and pasting out a particular regions of different
> > bitmap.  You just tell them to be inside box{A,B} with certain lighting
> > setup.  If we have characters (like Rusty) with reflective surfaces, we
> > could give the artists  something to reflect off of (a sky sphere, put
them
> > in front of the crowd but behind the letters WWW.IRTC.ORG).
>
> Maybe something like
>
> -www.irtc.org-
> --animations--
>
> instead of just plain www.irtc.org ?
>
> Just some input.
>
> BTW, my characters are posable ;-)
>
> -Markus
>

Post a reply to this message

Current entries include:

Tekno Frannansa's spaceship
Greg M. Johnson's Man from M.I.M.E.
Richard Sutherland's "rpaz_teo.mpg" Man + Woman
John vanSickle's robot(s)
Markus Altendorff's Anthrosphinx character(s)
Sharp Hall's   SUZ-4N2  robot



It's open to any and all "things that moved" in IRTC animations.  I have
sent this message to the IRTC-l list, sent personal emails to all of the
January 2004 entries and to a handful of other artists whose IRTC anims work
I personally found interesting.   I may end up closing the list soon so we
can start thinking about the composition.

So we basically have five person-sized characters, a spaceship, and 2 or
more robot(s).  My guess is that Rusty is about waist-high to a human and
that the SUZ-4NS robot is not quite knee high.  Maybe one option is to have
the robots holding up a sign, or maybe two of John's robots holding it up
with SUZ dawdling in front of it. (hope that's not disparaging).


Once again, here are the instructions for partcipating:


1) Tell me you're interested and provide a "model-sheet" style rendering of
your character-- it can be as simple as 160x120 pixels, or if you're
seriously worried about doing that, just point to a specific IRTC anim the
character has appeared in.  Pick out one character.  (I suppose if it's only
John, Markus, and myself, well each get 2-3 characters, however).
2) Scale your character so that it's 83 units=200 cm, or, so that a heroic
human male figure is 83 units tall.   Tell me your character's depth and
width with these new dimensions
3) Render for yourself an image where your character is standing at the
origin in a scene with no other visible objects and the following settings:

light_source{ <12000,10000,0> rgb 1 rotate 0*y  }
light_source{ <12000,10000,0> rgb 1 rotate 120*y   }
light_source{ <12000,10000,0> rgb 1 rotate 240*y  }
camera{location <0,100,-350>  look_at<0,80,0> angle 45}
background{rgb 1}

... and tell me how it looks.  You can certainly turn on radiosity or maybe
some other advanced features, but tell me if you like the way it looks, OR
whether I'd need to change these global characteristics in the way we tell
everyone else to render.   If you want to put your favorite spaceship into
the image (and if we have too many, the image might not fly),  I'm guessing
compositionally we'd want it up in the air.   If we end up with no
spaceships and say 5 figures, we might want to change the above specs so as
to not waste white space.

4) I'll figure out how to space all these characters. I'll eventually be
telling you, "Provide me a 5120x3840 image with the settings in #3 and your
character at <x,0,z>".   If you want reflective surfaces on your character
to reflect off something interesting, that's fine, just give me an image
that is your character + pure white.

5) I'll paste all the images  together into one and then go knocking on
doors (Chris Cason, IRTC Team, etc.) to get it on some zazzle space.


Notes:   I'd also like the url for IRTC to be prominently displayed. If we
get some really small characters, like the duck that won one round (IIRC),
perhaps it should go in front of the logo.   If we get a whole bunch of
responses, and it's all "tall" characters,  we could have two of John
vanSickle's robots be holding up an IRTC banner.


Thanks.  Happy tracin'.

greg

Post a reply to this message

Greg M. Johnson wrote:
> 
> So we basically have five person-sized characters, a spaceship, and 2
> or more robot(s).  My guess is that Rusty is about waist-high to a
> human

Rusty's hand is usually carried at <0,100,30>, at centimeter scaling.
The starbot (the guys on the ship) come in at 82.5 cm high.

Regards,
John

Post a reply to this message

How do we reply to you directly?

Post a reply to this message