Moonlight Reckoning: Help Wanted

I’m not too sure, but this might actually be the second major project (first being Morevna) where the primary animating tool would be Synfig. But since it’s BIG I might need some help. Hopefully this is the right thread, but if it’s not please move it to somewhere suitable.

Project Goals: 1) To promote Synfig as a choice as professional grade animating tool.
2) To help gather people to develop Synfig after making the world realize its potential.
3) To promote OpenSource tools for Major Multimedia Development projects and let the world know that it doesn’t take money to build a good movie; just skill of small studios.
4) To set a new record of quality for fanbased movies.

[size=150]Fleabane Trilogy: Moonlight Reckoning[/size]
You can read about it here.
chronocompendium.com/Forums/ … 278.0.html

The poster of the movie can be found here.
tushantin.deviantart.com/art/Awa … -149891039

The plot sketch is done, and the script is halfway. I was initially planning to do the animation all on my own, but of course, to actualize this dream project I may not be able to do it alone, thus I require…

  1. Storyboarder / Conceptionist
  2. Pencil animator (Traditional pencil/pen, but one can use GIMP/Pencil software too)
  3. Sound FX artist
  4. Video guy (the one who clips and combines videos / Chroma Key thing)
  5. Blender artist (for 3D elements and particles)
  6. Background artist (Mostly, which is the most time consuming of all)
    8.) A couple of more voice actors.

Please do reply and feel free to ask any questions.

Hi tushantin!
It is great you have started this project using Synfig!

I’m not sure I can help on artistic side but you have all support from the staff and anything you need from us (private forum, downloads, etc.) please ask us!
Maybe you can write an article for the forntpage of the website. I would love to publish it! :slight_smile:
Good luck!
-G

Wait, what kind of article? XD You mean film production using Synfig?

I do need some help on Linux multimedia though. Stopmotion doesn’t seem to export video for me on Ubuntu (I almost NEVER use sudo apt-get since I have no net) but Avidemux works wonders with video sequences. I have heard a lot about Cinelerra and KDenLive, but I’m having issues with it; audio in Cinelerra doesn’t seem to work, nor is it exported, and both crash. I was wondering if Jahshaka would be better though, but Blender does have a pretty good video tool although it’s not meant for composting.

Any Video processors/Multimedia distros you’d recommend? That’s actually the only problem I’m facing gravely. :laughing:

As I progress I’ll ask for some tips and advice. Thanks for the help!

EDIT: Oh yeah! And a good way to integrate Synfig animations with Blender? Chroma Key is good, but getting the 3D elements in position with an already done 2D animation is kinda… difficult. Some tips/tutorial would be great.

My children see “Code Lyoco” on TV. It’s a French animated television series featuring both conventional animation and CGI. But you have not 2D and 3D at the same time.
I think you can have a background in 2D and the characters in 3D. Is this that you think about?

I mean that you can write an article (a summary of the project and the intentions) to be published on synfig.org. I can do a review too but I don’t have so much time lately. :slight_smile:

I think that there are some tips on Blender-Synfig integration at morevnaproject.org.

For video composition I think that Avidemux is good enough to produce master material. For video edition maybe you can give an opportunity to Openshot video editor. It looks interesting and simple enough for basic audio/video edition.

-G

Wow, I hadn’t heard of OpenShot. I’ll have to give that one a test drive. :smiley:

Matt

sounds like an ambitious project - and a fine one at that :slight_smile:

I’ve used ubuntu and mandrake for several years, the best video editor I’ve found has been blender’s compositor. There’s a few interesting plugins you can download for it too. Cinellera, as you said, doesn’t work (ten points for trying though).

integrating blender with synfig… in blender, you can add a background image in the 3d view for reference, this can be a video or an image sequence… in 2.5, press the N key in the 3d view and scroll down to background images, tick the box and click on “add image” and then on the little triangle next to “not set”, and then on “open image”, and then browse away. If you want to use an image sequence, go to the folder with the images, press A to select all of them and click on “open”. There will then be some options for your start and offset and so on.
This won’t affect the background in the render at all, that will still be what you set it to in the render settings. (Personally I would render the 3d stuff with no background as pngs (rgba) and composite it all together after)

hope that helps-

I’ve actually made videos with Cinelerra, so I wouldn’t say that it doesn’t work, but it’s neither as easy nor as stable as the Blender VSE - especially when working with image sequences.

Matt

@Genete: No problemo! XD I’ll get one done as soon as possible.

Thanks for Openshot! I’ve downloaded the dependencies and DEB packages and I’ll check it on my comp today. Hell so long as it doesn’t crash it’s WIN!

@saorsa: Ah, so what plugins do you recommend? And thanks for the Blender input, I’ll try that out.

yeh you’re right, I should have phrased it more carefully… cinellera is (was?) a promising project. I made some nifty things with it too and it seemed to work ok, but it fell apart as the projects got bigger

The blender plugins I was thinking of are these:
www-users.cs.umn.edu/~mein/blend … uence.html
( and I’m sure there are others scattered about the web : )

Ah thanks! Those plugins are awesome!

I guess I noticed this late.
synfig.org/en/news/latest/78-mor … nd-blender
Awww man, that was my idea! Guess Morevna’s gonna beat me, especially since I’m doing the whole project solo… :cry:

EDIT:
@Genete: It seems the article has a demo released. I suppose I’ll have to wait until I too have a demo ready before writing the article so people might know the promise of quality.

You can do a small article first and then a better one later. Even if you need I can create a user account as redactor in the website. :wink:

-G

Hello im Alessio from italy im new to the forum,id like to help i can draw,i have also the program manga studio,let me know news,cy a :smiley:

@Genete: Haha alrighty then. A bloke has just given me valuable feedback on the plot sketch so I’ll be able to flesh out the story soon enough. After that I’ll hand you the article.

@Wolverine82: Nice to know you’re interested, but if you’ve read my post you’d know I’m mostly encouraging Opensource, so Manga Studio just isn’t good enough. XD If you’re experienced with GIMP/Inkscape lemme know.

i know but manga studio is the best for draw manga it has lot of tools stuffs and so much more,i havent those free programs cause always i use that program.Let me know if you would like to see my example of artwork,or if you like more do rough sketches and after i will draw yours with my style,cya soon :smiley: (however i have also artrage 2.0 so good for coloring and do artistic work)

Ah, okay then, do show me those examples. 8)

Wolverine82,
use privative software is not any problem for us. The only problem is that the aim of an open source movie project (and tushantin correct me please if I’m wrong) is that the source files of the program can be shared with the rest of the community of people that is contributing to the movie.
So if you use Manga Studio for your artwork it would probably produce a privative output format that will be only read by people that have Manga Studio (like Gimp does with its XCF format) so only you can modify the source files. You can argue that you can produce raster output files that can be read by anyone. Yes that’s good but there will be always something lost in the output that cannot be restored unless you have the original source file and can edit it (i.e the layer order, blend mode, saturation or other internal application effects).

I’m not discouraging you to contribute because, even in pure bitmap format, the drawings are welcome (it doesn’t matter from where they are coming from - they can be even scanned hand made pencil drawings), just explaining why privative format software is not in the main preference of an open source movie.

Also, and this is just a philosophical issue, use free open source software in a featured movie, is a way to promote that software usage when the movie becomes famous. Promote privative format software is not in general in the aim of a Open Source Movie Project.

This is my opinion and maybe is not shared by the movie project leader :wink:
-G

Yeah, Genete’s got it right. The goal of the project is to promote Open Source tools for user-based productions, but the project also promotes the artistic abilities of volunteers and freedom of creativity regardless of what. The problem is that using Manga Studio (I admit, it’s a pretty awesome tool) kinda conflicts with these goals in a way. Although, if your creative genius screams out to make art then I’ll be damned if I don’t encourage ya! :laughing:

Since you say you’re good with manga drawing I’d like to see your artworks, and based on your abilities I can say how you could support the project. It’ll be a good exercise for you to develop your skills beyond your current level.

And indeed, the source files will be shared with the communities unless they’re too big; thus most will only be available on demand (but they certainly will be). Although I will be writing a documentation after the completion of the movie on how it was made.

@Genete: I’ve finished a small article. I’ll send it to ya by PM.

EDIT: Ah nevermind… It seems I can’t send personal messages. Hmm now how do I send the file…

EDIT2: Quick question. I know it’s a little too much to ask from a netbook (I’ve got HP Mini 210, 1GB Ram and no idea what graphics, Intel Atom) but would Synfig work fine on that configuration or would it take too much load on the processor/graphics?

There is a email button on each one of my posts :wink:. Anyway, anyone can have a redactor account in the website (synfig.org). it is just a question of ask to me, Zelgadis or Pixelgeek.

I started to use Synfig Studio with an Athlon XP 2000 (1600 MH). The ram is important but not a bottle neck. 1 GB is more than enough. Graphics card is not the bottle neck as Synfig doesn’t make use of its capabilities.
-G

Er… I don’t see an email link in your post. :exclamation:

Anywhos, can I have a redactor account then?