ice coffee, Duration 1 minute 17 seconds
This is a very short film I made back in 2002 for fun, why else would you waste 3 months.
Made on no budget whatsoever with a free demo version of Strata 3D and a $34 editing program. It did not start with a story board, part of the story board was done after the film. Why? For fun. It started with a Zeppelin as this was a relatively simple shape to make. Then I made a number of trial fly around's moving the camera and the zep (keep in mind this was my first play with 3D modeling and my first play with producing a 3D animation so many a try and render went in the trash.)
Now I needed other characters and at the time I knew little how to put bones in a model and the free 3D program did not have that facility. So, solid simple models. Some time later I modeled the two subs and decided to put it all together.
Yes there is meaning in there and that was not random and the name does have a connection with the film. So what I am saying is that my haphazard approach is not so haphazard in my head, keeping it in my head keeps it flexible and it can develop, yes you do trash a lot as you change direction but it's way more creative so why not.
Don't worry, if your money is involved I do a proper story board first. I don't experiment with the client's money
The Zeppelin only plays a short part in the film above. I put it here as it may be of interest, not that it is particularly great but simple as it is it works well in the movie above.
If you look at the canvas covered engines below I'll explain a little trick with the prop. It is supposed to look like it is spinning but the basic 3D free program could not handle that. Solution, make a stationary glass disk but put a few groves in it so it catches the light and give it high reflection. Then all you have to do is move the camera, zep or lights and you will see a moving high light that makes it really look like it is spinning. Don't believe me, have a look at the movie. With engine sound you would not even question it(sorry no sound here)
Click here to see zep movie. it will open in a new window. File type is FLV,size is1.08mb and requires Flash 9 to view. Will auto play, if it appears to be doing nothing just wait for it to load first.
More info regarding the Ice Coffee movie above.
All backgrounds where painted by hand using a wacom tablet and a combination of Painter, Corel Photo Paint and Adobe Photoshop.The underwater ice is made of 3 or more layers so that the different distance ice can move on its own. The moving of the layers was done in the Film editing program. The moving subs were put on top but in some cases under other layers such as the bubbles which were on top and the scene of the escaping sub on the ocean floor had transparent layers over it and a lot of morphing effects to get the water above to move.
Noise
A lot of noise was added to the film to try to make it look more real as the models looked way to much like plastic and it was a crude way to add some atmosphere
The light of the head on sub was faked in Photoshop as was the lens flare and morphing to get the in between shots.
Laser shots where also produced in Photoshop by hand.
Sound of the Laser (purple) shots is actually a sound track of a women screaming played backwards.
Every frame was put in by hand (about 1,200) and in some parts you can multiply it 3 or 4 layers not to mention experimenting with an effect for a day or 2 and not liking it and starting again. So now perhaps you get an idea of where the time went. Oh I forgot to mention, at the time I only had a 400Mhz processor in my computer with just 256MB of ram so computer rendering of the 3D models was a little slow, but it still worked. My mind dreamed of a far better film, One is coming, Watch this space.
This time with years of experience, LightWave3D, Silo and a up to speed computer.