I have a great idea for a huge animation project. How about making a
raytraced animated version of the Harry Potter books, chapter by
chapter, word for word. And making the resulting animations available
for download for free.

Anybody interested in this idea?

Rohan _e_ii

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On Fri, 19 Jul 2002 20:27:02 +1000, Rohan Bernett <rox### [at] yahoocom> wrote:
> I have a great idea for a huge animation project.

similiar to http://www.imp.org/ ?

> How about making a
> raytraced animated version of the Harry Potter books, chapter by
> chapter, word for word. And making the resulting animations available
> for download for free.

what about copyrights ?

ABX

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W wrote:
>On Fri, 19 Jul 2002 20:27:02 +1000, Rohan Bernett <rox### [at] yahoocom> wrote:
>> I have a great idea for a huge animation project.
>
>similiar to http://www.imp.org/ ?
>

Sounds a little like my idea.

>> How about making a
>> raytraced animated version of the Harry Potter books, chapter by
>> chapter, word for word. And making the resulting animations available
>> for download for free.
>
>what about copyrights ?
>

I don't think the publishers object to you making fan pics, so they
shouldn't object to making a fan animation.


Rohan _e_ii

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Rohan Bernett wrote:

> I don't think the publishers object to you making fan pics, so they
> shouldn't object to making a fan animation.

Try telling that to Disney.

-- 
Ken Tyler

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Ken wrote:
> 
> Rohan Bernett wrote:
> 
> > I don't think the publishers object to you making fan pics, so they
> > shouldn't object to making a fan animation.
> 
> Try telling that to Disney.

and we were SO close to Mickey becoming public domain but then they
CHANGED the damned laws!!!!!!!!!  Grrrrrrr...

I so want him in the public domain.  Just to see what happens to a
corporation so bound to their "intellectual" property without real
materials.

-peter
-- 
Modeling slave:
"Ballet pour ma fille."
http://www.applesnake.net

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Rohan Bernett wrote:

>
>I don't think the publishers object to you making fan pics, so they
>shouldn't object to making a fan animation.
>

A little something else, don't forget that Harry Potter is only in the form
of text, so there wouldn't be anything image-wise for the pulishers to
complain about. :-)

Rohan _e_ii

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All this aside, I can't believe anyone thinks they could accomplish this
before the book becomes public domain anyway. :o)

-peter

Rohan Bernett wrote:
> 
> Rohan Bernett wrote:
> 
> >
> >I don't think the publishers object to you making fan pics, so they
> >shouldn't object to making a fan animation.
> >
> 
> A little something else, don't forget that Harry Potter is only in the form
> of text, so there wouldn't be anything image-wise for the pulishers to
> complain about. :-)
> 
> Rohan _e_ii

-- 
Modeling slave:
"Ballet pour ma fille."
http://www.applesnake.net

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"Rohan Bernett" <rox### [at] yahoocom> wrote in message
news:web.3d460bc59fdfa9aad02c7b870@news.povray.org...
> A little something else, don't forget that Harry Potter is only in the
form
> of text

    If you ignore the film.

--
Pandora/Scott Hill/[::O:M:C::]Scorpion
Software Engineer.
http://www.pandora-software.com

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"Pandora" <pan### [at] pandora-softwarecom> a écrit dans le message news:
3d472280@news.povray.org...
> "Rohan Bernett" <rox### [at] yahoocom> wrote in message
> news:web.3d460bc59fdfa9aad02c7b870@news.povray.org...
> > A little something else, don't forget that Harry Potter is only in the
> form
> > of text
>
>     If you ignore the film.

And the illustrations of the books...
And the merchandizing products...

>> A little something else, don't forget that Harry Potter is only in the
form
>> of text, so there wouldn't be anything image-wise for the pulishers to
>> complain about. :-)

You are not proposing to make still images, but to follow the book word by
word... The text *is* copyrighted, so a scenario following it falls under
the laws. Even if it was vaguely paraphasing it...
The name, the concept, etc. Everything can be matter of suing.

There was some brouhaha about a Chinese writer (anonymous :-) selling a
Harry Potter book, as if is was written by the original author. Except it
has strong Chinese feeling.

So even if the scenario was entirely original, but used the characters from
the series, it is still matter to trial (in legal sense). And I don't see
somebody good enough to make an original scenario as good as the real
books...

-- #=--=#=--=#=--=#=--=#=--=#=--=#=--=#=--=# --
Philippe Lhoste (Paris -- France)
Professional programmer and amateur artist
http://jove.prohosting.com/~philho/

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"Rohan Bernett" <rox### [at] yahoocom> wrote in message
news:web.3d449ba29fdfa9aad02c7b870@news.povray.org...
> W wrote:
> >On Fri, 19 Jul 2002 20:27:02 +1000, Rohan Bernett <rox### [at] yahoocom>
wrote:
> >> I have a great idea for a huge animation project.
> >
> >similiar to http://www.imp.org/ ?
> >
>
> Sounds a little like my idea.
>

Except we are only using either public domain stories(like Aesop) or
originals.

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If the project is being done for free and by the public, who are the
publishers going to sue? Everyone who has ever read the books?

Rohan _e_ii

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"Rohan Bernett" <rox### [at] yahoocom> a écrit dans le message de news:
web.3d4cf5d19fdfa9aa2c120f590@news.povray.org...
> If the project is being done for free and by the public, who are the
> publishers going to sue? Everyone who has ever read the books?

While there's certainly a grey zone when it comes to fan fiction, hot
properties like this are very closely guarded. To take an example I've read
about, Anne McAffrey (writer of the Dragonriders of Pern series) encourages
fan fiction, provided it doesn't use characters and situations from the
books. This is not to take lightly : very recently, in France, the family of
Saint-Exupery sent their lawyers (or threatened to do so) to a school that
wanted to make a local, but unauthorised, stage production of The Little
Prince with kids as actors. As outrageous as it seemed, they were in their
full right apparently.
And we're not talking about a billion-dollar franchise like Harry Potter...

G.


--
**********************
http://www.oyonale.com
**********************
- Graphic experiments
- POV-Ray and Poser computer images
- Posters

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Big companies are getting too much power and making too much money anyway. I
say go ahead and make the project anyway and ignore the big companies. Why
not do the project as open source, then they can't do anything about it.
:-)

Rohan _e_ii

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"Rohan Bernett" <rox### [at] yahoocom> wrote:
> Big companies are getting too much power and making too much money anyway.
I
> say go ahead and make the project anyway and ignore the big companies. Why
> not do the project as open source, then they can't do anything about it.
> :-)
>
> Rohan _e_ii

Alas, I fear it is not so simple.
An open source project needs some leader(s), to coordinate effort, etc.
Even if it is perfectly distributed, the site can be closed, even the server
owners can be sued, etc.
Big companies are powerful (lot of money, lot of lawyers), and are very
aggressive when they feel their money is threatened...

Regards.

-- #=--=#=--=#=--=#=--=#=--=#=--=#=--=#=--=# --
Philippe Lhoste (Paris -- France)
Professional programmer and amateur artist
http://jove.prohosting.com/~philho/

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"Gilles Tran" <git### [at] wanadoofr> a écrit dans le message news:
3d4d9374@news.povray.org...
> "Rohan Bernett" <rox### [at] yahoocom> a écrit dans le message de news:
> web.3d4cf5d19fdfa9aa2c120f590@news.povray.org...
> > If the project is being done for free and by the public, who are the
> > publishers going to sue? Everyone who has ever read the books?
>
> While there's certainly a grey zone when it comes to fan fiction, hot
> properties like this are very closely guarded. To take an example I've
read
> about, Anne McAffrey (writer of the Dragonriders of Pern series)
encourages
> fan fiction, provided it doesn't use characters and situations from the
> books. This is not to take lightly : very recently, in France, the family
of
> Saint-Exupery sent their lawyers (or threatened to do so) to a school that
> wanted to make a local, but unauthorised, stage production of The Little
> Prince with kids as actors. As outrageous as it seemed, they were in their
> full right apparently.
> And we're not talking about a billion-dollar franchise like Harry
Potter...

I have read that Disney forced a kindergarden to destroy a fresco showing
Disney characters (Goofy, Mickey, etc.).
Urban legend or reality, I don't know, but I believe it could be true...
Perhaps they have softened their policy now, as a matter of public relation.

BTW, once the project is completed, I guess Harry Potter will be in public
domain anyway :-)
But releasing peek preview is another matter...

Regards.

-- #=--=#=--=#=--=#=--=#=--=#=--=#=--=#=--=# --
Philippe Lhoste (Paris -- France)
Professional programmer and amateur artist
http://jove.prohosting.com/~philho/

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> Big companies are getting too much power and making too much money anyway.
I
> say go ahead and make the project anyway and ignore the big companies. Why
> not do the project as open source, then they can't do anything about it.
> :-)
>
> Rohan _e_ii
>

Yeah! Sure! Go ahead, but if I was going to try and bring a copyrighted work
to film,
 I think I would get permission first.  If it is truly a fan effort and not
for profit, an author
may be inclined to give a limited license for free.  I'll just keep working
on IMP.  A lot
less lawyers there, besides there is already a movie version of Harry Potter
that is not
half bad.

Tom

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Tom Galvin wrote:

>If it is truly a fan effort and not for profit, an author
>may be inclined to give a limited license for free.

Well the project would be a true fan effort and not for profit. I would go
and contact the author, if I knew an email address to contact her at. What
is a limited license anyway?

>besides there is already a movie version of Harry Potter that is not half bad.

Unfortunatly it leaves out a fair bit of what is in the book (I'd guess
about a third of it), including an important part in the defences for the
philosopher's stone.

I recall reading somewhere that J K Rowling finds fan-made things about the
Harry Potter characters rather flattering, so I suppose this would be the
ultimate form of flattery for her. :-)

Rohan _e_ii

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"Rohan Bernett" <rox### [at] yahoocom> wrote in message
news:web.3d4f22de9fdfa9aa18ccf4f70@news.povray.org...
> Tom Galvin wrote:
>
> >If it is truly a fan effort and not for profit, an author
> >may be inclined to give a limited license for free.
>
> Well the project would be a true fan effort and not for profit. I would go
> and contact the author, if I knew an email address to contact her at. What
> is a limited license anyway?

Here is the contact info for use of Harry Potter.
http://www.bloomsburymagazine.com/harrypotter/copyright/index.html

I wish you luck, but I think you would have better luck with a less
commercial
piece.  But before approaching a copyright holder I would have all my ducks
in
a row.  Have answers to any question they may have and clearly define the
scope
of your intended use of the copyright, and be clear that you will abide by
all their
restrictions.

One of my favorite candidates for translation to film is "Little Fuzzy" by
H. Beam Piper.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0441484980/qid=1028605823/sr=1-5/ref=
sr_1_5/102-4166119-2251359

Tom

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Well, I contaced the publishers, now I just have to wait for a reply.

Keep your fingers crossed...

Rohan _e_ii

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Bad news... I contacted the publishers and the answer was no.

Here is a copy of their reply:

=========begin quoted=========

6 August 2002


Dear Rohan Bernett

Harry Potter

Thank you for your email sent today regarding your proposal to make a
raytraced animated version of the Harry Potter books.

I regret to inform you that we are not offering these rights for the
foreseeable future.

In addition, we would ask you to kindly note that 'Harry Potter' and
other images; names and places from this series of books are subject to
complex contractual commitments and trademark restrictions and would
therefore not be available for use by you in any future project.

I am sorry for this disappointing response but would like to thank you
for your interest and enthusiasm in this series of books.

With best wishes

Yours sincerely

Christopher Little
(Agent to J K Rowling)

========end qouted============

Another great idea ruined because of legal nasties. *sigh* :-(

Rohan _e_ii

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Rohan Bernett wrote:

> Bad news... I contacted the publishers and the answer was no.
snipped
> Another great idea ruined because of legal nasties. *sigh* :-(

I for one am not at all surprised at their response considering
the enormous profit potential these books and movies have for
the entertainment industry.

-- 
Ken Tyler

Post a reply to this message

Rohan Bernett wrote:
> 
> I have a great idea for a huge animation project. How about making a
> raytraced animated version of the Harry Potter books, chapter by
> chapter, word for word. And making the resulting animations available
> for download for free.
> 
> Anybody interested in this idea?
> 
> Rohan _e_ii

(devil's advocate mode_on)
Aside from the copyright side of it, which is discussed in depth by
others, the sheer scope of the books, and the speed of todays computers,
a project of this magnitude would take longer than any of has available,
in this lifetime or the next.

As for the size of the file, even a single book would run into 100's of
mb, and who would want to tie up their phone lines for days on end
waiting for the file(s) to download.

Interesting idea, but at the moment, I think, beyond the scope of a
volunteer group. (where is the group animation from years ago?).
Remember, even the studio who produced the film, spent years on the
computer graphics alone, and that was scan line rendering, not ray
tracing, which is faster to produce on a frame by frame basis.

Alex

-- 
  ,-._|\  Alex McMurray
 /  Oz  \ ale### [at] melbpcorgau               Melbourne PC User Group.
 \_,--.x/ Melton. Vic.  3337                     Australia
       v

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"Rohan Bernett" <rox### [at] yahoocom> a écrit dans le message de news:
web.3d50b4bc9fdfa9aad02c7b870@news.povray.org...
> Thank you for your email sent today regarding your proposal to make a
> raytraced animated version of the Harry Potter books.

Well at least it's refreshing that they took the time to actually read you
post and answer it, considering the fact that they probably received
hundreds of requests a day about HP material...

G.

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Alex McMurray wrote:

>Aside from the copyright side of it, which is discussed in depth by
>others, the sheer scope of the books, and the speed of todays computers,
>a project of this magnitude would take longer than any of has available,
>in this lifetime or the next.

Rendering time would depend on the resolution of the footage, and if it was
distributed it might be possible.

>As for the size of the file, even a single book would run into 100's of
>mb, and who would want to tie up their phone lines for days on end
>waiting for the file(s) to download.

Well... the file size would depend on the resolution of the video, For
example 320*180 would be a lot smaller than 1024*576, especially if it was
compressed. Maybe there could be a low detail version to download, and a
high detail one to buy on CD or DVD.

>Remember, even the studio who produced the film, spent years on the
>computer graphics alone, and that was scan line rendering, not ray
>tracing, which is faster to produce on a frame by frame basis.

Wouldn't the studios have done their rendering at a really high resolutions,
say 16000*9000 ? The studios would only have been using a few hundred
machines to do the rendering, a distributed project could have thousands.
Hell, if enough people joined the rendering team, they could be rendering
frames faster than the asrtists could make the scenes for rendering.

Rohan _e_ii

Nice to see someone else from Australia in the newsgroup.

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Rohan Bernett wrote:
> 
> Rendering time would depend on the resolution of the footage, and if it was
> distributed it might be possible.
> 
To make it watchable, it would have to be have to be at a reasonable
resolution, I doubt anyone would want to watch a postage size image for
any length of time, running full screen would be preferable.

> Well... the file size would depend on the resolution of the video, For
> example 320*180 would be a lot smaller than 1024*576, especially if it was
> compressed. Maybe there could be a low detail version to download, and a
> high detail one to buy on CD or DVD.
> 
In your original posting, you said that the animation would be word for
word as in the book, the Harry Potter film left out a lot, and even that
run into 147 mins (info from DVD).
I would imagine that animating the whole book word for word would run a
lot longer than that, thereby increasing the overall file size, even at
modest resolution.
You would still be looking at 150 - 200 mb per hour of veiwing time.
(based on other films I've downloaded).
EG.
Star Trek - Hidden Frontier do their show in Quicktime.
X-Files - Graceland is in Real Video.
For the majority of the audience, DivX would preferable, as this is what
most of the group post in.
> 
> Wouldn't the studios have done their rendering at a really high resolutions,
> say 16000*9000 ? The studios would only have been using a few hundred
> machines to do the rendering, a distributed project could have thousands.
> Hell, if enough people joined the rendering team, they could be rendering
> frames faster than the asrtists could make the scenes for rendering.
> 
Agreed, Star Wars - The Phantom Menace did this, but they also used the
office PC's when the office staff went home, augmenting their own PC's
by another 100 or so.

The group has a movie project going at the moment, is started (many)
years ago. using the idea that you proposed, I have heard nothing about
it lately.

> Rohan _e_ii
> 
> Nice to see someone else from Australia in the newsgroup.

There a quite a few in the group from Australia, I live about half an
hour's drive from Chris Cason (turns and bows), in the Western Suburb of
Melbourne.

-- 
  ,-._|\  Alex McMurray
 /  Oz  \ ale### [at] melbpcorgau               Melbourne PC User Group.
 \_,--.x/ Melton. Vic.  3337                     Australia
       v

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Alex McMurray <ale### [at] melbpcorgau> wrote in
news:3D52EE42.48ADA129@melbpc.org.au: 

> Rohan Bernett wrote:
>> Wouldn't the studios have done their rendering at a really high
>> resolutions, say 16000*9000 ? The studios would only have been using
>> a few hundred machines to do the rendering, a distributed project
>> could have thousands. Hell, if enough people joined the rendering
>> team, they could be rendering frames faster than the asrtists could
>> make the scenes for rendering. 
>> 
> Agreed, Star Wars - The Phantom Menace did this, but they also used
> the office PC's when the office staff went home, augmenting their own
> PC's by another 100 or so.

I have an idea: why not make a POV-Ray screen saver, like the Seti@Home 
one, or those use to break a cryptographic challenge or to decode genome?

A server would send scenes to render, the home computer would render the 
scene and send it back to the server.

While the scene would be of reasonable size (unless using huge meshes), 
the rendered images would be big, which make a less practical idea than 
Seti, where exchanged data is rather small...
Perhaps it will more usable when most people will have broadband 
connexions to Internet.

Actually, I believe that the current POV-Ray licence doesn't allow such an 
idea, but perhaps it can be done in the 4.0 version.

Regards.

-- 
--=#=--=#=--=#=--=#=--=#=--=#=--=#=--=#=--=#=--
Philippe Lhoste (Paris -- France)
Professional programmer and amateur artist
http://jove.prohosting.com/~philho/

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Philippe Lhoste wrote:

>I have an idea: why not make a POV-Ray screen saver, like the Seti[at]Home
>one, or those use to break a cryptographic challenge or to decode genome?

BRILLIANT!!! Why hasn't anyone thought of this before?

>While the scene would be of reasonable size (unless using huge meshes),
>the rendered images would be big, which make a less practical idea than
>Seti, where exchanged data is rather small...
>Perhaps it will more usable when most people will have broadband
>connexions to Internet.

You're right there, it would only be practical for broadband users. All that
uploading huge files would take weeks over a snail pace dialup connection.
:-(

However, this could be handy for when you want to render a really slow scene
or an animation, and you don't want to have your computer tied up for hours
(or even days) at a time. Maybe you could have a way to link the saver to a
file on your hard drive, and it would store a temp file containing the
pixel it was up to and which calculation it was on (oh yeah, and the frame
if doing an animation).

Hey POV-Team, why don't you make something like this to go with POV-Ray 4.0?

Rohan _e_ii

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> >I have an idea: why not make a POV-Ray screen saver, like the
Seti[at]Home
> >one, or those use to break a cryptographic challenge or to decode genome?
> BRILLIANT!!! Why hasn't anyone thought of this before?

Technically, there's no problem, it's just that POV would have to go into
pause when the mouse moves or someone presses a key on the keyboard.

> >While the scene would be of reasonable size (unless using huge meshes),
> >the rendered images would be big, which make a less practical idea than
> >Seti, where exchanged data is rather small...
> >Perhaps it will more usable when most people will have broadband
> >connexions to Internet.
> You're right there, it would only be practical for broadband users. All
that
> uploading huge files would take weeks over a snail pace dialup connection.
> :-(

I'm working on a LAN POV server for personal use (well, me and my brother),
but I'm not sure how such a system would work over the internet - images are
quite big, you know, and if you're uploading a lot, you'll spend maybe more
time transmitting than raytracing...

> However, this could be handy for when you want to render a really slow
scene
> or an animation, and you don't want to have your computer tied up for
hours
> (or even days) at a time. Maybe you could have a way to link the saver to
a
> file on your hard drive, and it would store a temp file containing the
> pixel it was up to and which calculation it was on (oh yeah, and the frame
> if doing an animation).

Why not just press the Pause button on POV, work, then press it again?

Personnally, I set the Render priority to its lowet setting and the GUI
setting to the highest priority when I work, and when I go home, I leave the
computer running overnight after changing the settings the other way round.
And if I've got some hefty work to do (batch stuff, mainly), I put POV in
pause.

> Hey POV-Team, why don't you make something like this to go with POV-Ray
4.0?

This is do-able - I'll see what I can come up with tonight... (screen-save
rendering...)

Chris TRIBBECK.

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The best way to do it over the web could be a program working like those
napster-clones enabling the sharing of large files.
So a user could start rendering an image (lets say a block of 10 pixels for
example) while the program is looking for other users rendering the same
picture. Blocks in work will be locked until they are ready or the user
logs out. The blocks already rendered are made available for download to
other users (and could be sent to a central server, too). Transfering 10
pixels wil not be a bandwith problem and the picture will soon be ready if
there are enough users rendering the same scene.

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