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Mango open movie project "Tears of Steel" releasedThe Blender Foundation has released "Tears of Steel," the short film produced during its Mango open movie project. As with previous open movie efforts, the production process was used to develop and implement new functionality for Blender — this iteration focused on the visual effects pipeline for compositing with live action. The short is available via YouTube or direct download now (as are source files); DVDs are still to come. (Log in to post comments)
Blender Foundation Movies Posted Sep 30, 2012 11:00 UTC (Sun) by ldo (subscriber, #40946) [Link] I think it’s fair to say this one is more of a technical than an artistic achievement. The effects are great: run this as a demo on a large screen in a public place or something, and watch people’s jaws drop; tell them where it came from, and their jaws will drop even more. In terms of art, the top two Blender Foundation movies, I think, still remain Sintel and Big Buck Bunny. Of course, all of them, including Elephant’s Dream, work great as demos, too. Which, considering the primary reason they were made—as “shakedown cruises” for new Blender functionality—shouldn’t be too surprising.
Blender Foundation Movies Posted Sep 30, 2012 12:18 UTC (Sun) by tialaramex (subscriber, #21167) [Link]
Historically most of Pixar's movies were likewise intended to showcase new work in Photorealistic Renderman and other Pixar technology. I think this is to some extent inevitable in a fledgling industry. There are new horizons to explore in the artform, so why shouldn't every new movie be about exploring them as well as telling a story?
I haven't found time to watch Tears of Steel yet, I enjoyed Sintel a great deal and it's amazing how far Blender has come even since then.
Blender Foundation Movies Posted Sep 30, 2012 15:28 UTC (Sun) by reedstrm (guest, #8467) [Link]
While I agree that Sintel and BBB are more engaging as stories, this short (Tears of Steel) has more plot than some big budget Hollywood shoot'em ups. From a cinematic point of view, agreed there's no new ground here, but I don't think that's a negative, really: by this time anything truly new is going to be very challenging for the audience.
Blender Foundation Movies Posted Oct 5, 2012 14:49 UTC (Fri) by pboddie (subscriber, #50784) [Link]
I think the independent movie "Star Wreck" showed that the main obstacle to independent film-makers was no longer the production of "big studio quality" computer-generated visuals, but was instead the practice of the fundamental trades of the theatrical business: storyline, script, acting, soundtrack, and location.
As the likes of Lucas and Bay have demonstrated, no amount of "visual pinball" can compensate for flaws in the fabric of the work itself. Thus, the playing field is perhaps as level as it has ever been for those without repeated franchising opportunities and a good team of artists and writers.
Blender Foundation Movies Posted Oct 1, 2012 2:20 UTC (Mon) by ThinkRob (subscriber, #64513) [Link]
I agree wholeheartedly. The effects are very, very good given the budget and the fact that it was produced with stuff that (in theory) anybody can do on their home PC. But it's not *that* great as a film...
The acting was so-so compared to Sintel (I absolutely love Sintel both as a demo and as a short film) and there were one or two effect shots that had some visible flaws (although considering that I've seen quite a few Hollywood movies with sketchy tracking and the occasional bad composite shot I can't really say that makes them any less professional...)
Still, all in all this is an excellent demo and is pretty incredible when you think about it: everything you need (software-wise) to make something like that, you can get for free. And you can run it on a PC that costs a couple hundred dollars. Damn. That's just plain impressive, and a good sign for the amateur film-making community. These are tools that pros would have killed for twenty years ago, and they're both free and Free!
Rock on, Blender.
Blender Foundation Movies Posted Oct 1, 2012 16:31 UTC (Mon) by ovitters (subscriber, #27950) [Link]
<blockquote>and there were one or two effect shots that had some visible flaws</blockquote>
Can you expand on that? Just curious.
Blender Foundation Movies Posted Oct 2, 2012 21:04 UTC (Tue) by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389) [Link]
I don't know about ThinkRob, but the walking animations of the robots weren't fluid enough to jump the Uncanny Valley to me (also when falling from the tower). The eyepatch was really good (though there was a blip of the Valley when the character first showed up). The button also had something weird about it, but I couldn't put my finger on it. I've only seen it once, so it's not like I analyzed it for these things. FTR, I also had issues with some parts of Avatar (mainly with the mechasuits and flying things, IIRC) which I've been told isn't that bad, so maybe I'm just sensitive to such things.
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