Looks like it was briefly restored and then went offline again. I also briefly accessed the site for a short while and can't do so again

Thanks to all contributors on this thread.
Looks like most contributors are familiar with the U.S only?

I am also interested in shipping a car to Nigeria from Calgary , Canada. I'm thinking of a 2000 and up model luxury car and wonder if anyone has an idea of how much it would cost and how to get a good shipping agent from Canada?

Would be grateful for any leads

@2cent.
Hope you don't mind my asking. What kind of commission do you have to pay?
I've been to a few websites including my bank's website since my interest was sparked upon seeing your post but it looks like its so much trouble. The bank charges $28.00 commision per transaction.

Thanks

Layi:
Meeting in person may not be easy as it appears we are scattered all over the world. Is it possible to see any of your animations?

Thanks

@seun:
Left out? C'mon! Thanks for providing this forum in the first place. Do you know something about 3D animation? or any ideas about marketing/advertising a finished product?

By the way, I see you registered on the NVS. Happy new year.

@wilsonhaze:
The next line of action will be to upload whatever materials you have to the forum you created so that people can see it and comment. You also need to let people know how much space is available on the forum as Layi asked. You also need to let people into the back end of the forum so we know how it works, and everyone who is interested has complete access at all times


@4real:
Thanks for looking at the financing. Have you registered on wilsonhaze's forum? Do you have anything to upload?

@Layi:
I thought 2D might be cheaper and easier as I am conscious of costs. There is no advantage in 2D if it is not cheaper or easier to do. As for existence of a market, I assure you there is! I even get unsolicited mail looking for animations/films of Afro extraction. As for budgeting, I think we can count on between N2m-N6m. A clearer picture will emerge as time goes on.
I would suggest uploading whatever materials you have onto the forum created by wilsonhaze and we can take it from there?

@grafikdon:

Forget about 3 months, you cannot come out with a 1 hr animated feature in 3 months unless you want to compromise quality. 6 months will be a more realistic (Not accurate) projection with about at least 10 animators with each handling about 6 minutes of animation.Believe me, 6 minutes of animation in six months for one animator sounds simple but when you really go through the entire process (Storyboard, modeling, texture, animation, rendering, compositing, editing/finishing) you will realise it is no joke.

You are probably right, I'm happy to see us start with something small, say a demo

I have been there, so I know. I 've done a couple of 3 minute animated music videos from scratch and each of them took me a good 38 days. Another 58 minute animated feature I did from scratch took me about 18 months and it was simplified and cel shaded.

Was this a movie? Pls lets know more if it is possible, I really would love to view it.

@c0dec:
Thanks for your comment. I think its important to start things off on the right footing. Are you able to contribute to the work?

ALL:

There's a need to access individual skills to determine assignment of dutuies. A lot of people are very good with modeling while some are good in animation and texture, there are those we call 'generalists' who have all the three vital areas in their finger tips but these people are rare (I mean those who do it very well and can hold their ground in storyboarding, modeling, textures and animation). I wouldn't suggest you count of getting 'generalists' from Nigeria. Get to know what the guys are good at and assign the duties appropriately.

Individual talent is important and from grafikdon's graphic, I can see it will not be a problem, but I think the first goal here would be to test ourselves by seeing if we can as a team work fairly harmoniously together to create a five -ten min animation.
This probably means :-
-creating static icons from scratch and uploading this to the forum
-animating the icons, making them do simple actions
- see how long it takes
- Tallying the cost (time, software,hardware)
- comment on its quality and start planning for a script.
- imagine that the finished demo is a successful film which has/can be been sold for NXm, then think about incorporating a profit sharing arrangement.

Thank you Grafikdon,
I don't mean to be discouraging, if we decide to stick with 3D then so be it. However, I would like to suggest looking into the possibility of 2D animations for the sake of time and cost constraints. If movies like the Lion King are 2D, I don't think 2D is all that bad or subquality.

Just something to think about.

There is a lot involved here so please let me state a few issues

1.I see a lot about of posts with the sentiment; " lets just get on with it. Enough talk-talk" etc. In my opinion, this is the wrong approach. Isn't anyone glad that because of "talk-talk", Layi has revisited his estimate and come up with a more detailed/realistic one? What would have happened if we had just jumped into this with  a cost estimate of 2M in mind? . There is value in doing proper research before leaping into anything

2. Realistically speaking starting from scratch with nothing and expecting to go on to creating a full fledge animation with a budget of 6M within a few months may be a bit much. I think the approach to take is to start out small, move slowly but surely, do demos on the forum created by wilsonhaze, get to know each other, test our capabilities, refine the philosophy/vision and PLAN for the future.
Obviously we are not yet all on the same page. We need to be, as sometimes the human dynamics makes or breaks a project, rather than techinical competence or hardware.I can already foresee personality and philosophic clashes. We need to resolve these issues or else should not even start. Some of us (being sure of our expertise )think of this thing as an immediate money spinner which we should enbark upon right away. This is not an approach I favor. I would rather spend a month planning and putting in place infrastructure, fine tuning our different approaches, expectations and vision.

3. There is nothing wrong in creating another forum dedicated solely to this project even if it is similar to what is already on Nairaland. We should be grateful to the admin of this board for providing a springboard but please bear in mind that Nairaland is was not  custom created for this particular purpose.We probably cannot without permission upload works here assuming we get this thing going.
If we are able to form a workable team, somewhere down the line, we will definetly need a dedicated forum.

Now to specifics:

demmy:

Gentlemen, I don't know but how about contacting the owner of Papa Ajasco comics, Adenuga or something maybe he might be interested in funding a full length feature animation. Or some other nigerian popular comic character out there. what do you think? But it is better we have something ready to showcase.

Good idea but you already said it: It is better to have something ready to showcase. And to have worked out a common direction, goal, philosophy.

layi:

For the upteenth time..i'll say again "I'm down for this". We have the animators and tools to make it happen. All we need is funding/great marketing concept. Ideas are welcome

1.Layi, can you please upload something to the forum created by wilsonhaze. Anything will do.
2.I am blown away by the preliminary  cost estimate. From experience working in Project Management in other fields ,I can assure you that you haven't thought of everything and by the time you end, the costs could easily have doubled!

Would you  consider 2D animation as a cheaper alternative? (By 2D,I refer to cartoons of the Tom and Jerry ilk)
3. What about considering wilsonhaze's idea about working from home with what we have?

smartsoft:

What do you mean i mentioned Bobtv.. i could easly get to bobtv Office and they could buy it.. and again i something like a film.. with Catoon like such thing we are talking about here.. They created the stuff with 3dMax... And the movie will be intresting.. because it 's first of his kind in nigeria.. Number one Animated Movie in nigeria

Not quite sure I get the meaning of your post above.

wilsonhaze:

layi, the money u are talking about is the amount required to open up a multimedia studio, thats a good idea but i think we should start the project from our own homes or workplaces first. the site i created is not just about talk its about work, we will use the site in uploading our work from diffrent places, for example i can upload a 3d model that i created to the site so that ya'll can see it, then the posted 3d work can now be seen from the site, someone else can edit it, e.t.c. please i need u guys to be at the site. layi, 4real, deepthought*{already registered},and others that are ready.

by next week i will post something that i modelled on the site, so u guys can see that this site is not just for more talk.
cheers

Looking forward to seeing whatever you upload.

Secondly, though I would like to thank you for starting this thread and the forum, you will need to give up a lot of control/access to the site if this is to be a team effort.

@All:
We haven't even scratched the tip of the iceberg and I wouldn't want anyone to asssume that this is a small or easy thing. However, with the right attitude, a lot of patience and a willingness to work together, I think it can be done.

Thanks.

@layi
As I said earlier,I've since left the IT field and never did animations apart text. So I appreciate comments from people who know about animations.

Get 3D Max software (from comp villa if you're in Nigeria) and go through the tutorials. It takes time though but you'ld be able to produce SHREK quality animations

.

No,I'm not in Nigeria.So where does FLASH come in?

Secondly, it is probably too early to think too seriously about returns on this project though of course, there is absolutely nothing wrong about wanting to make money from it. We should probably focus at this time upon setting up a framework, unless of course you prefer to go it alone. What I mean without disrespect is that there are a couple of different approaches possible in this issue.
    a) cutting to the chase and starting something right off the bat as 4real suggested.  Nothing wrong with that , if you possess ALL the necessary resources (not just animation skills, but other small things like time, money,scripts, literary talents, connections, insight, e.t.c!)
   b) You may consider working with other people who may slow you down BUT could make meaningful contributions down the road.

If you think option b) makes sense, I would suggest asking wilsonhaze to go ahead with his plan. If we are able to make a good five min demo, we can then start to talk about a preliminary buisness plan. It may not be possible to make money immediately but it will no doubt make money eventually once there is a product and people have been made aware through promotionals. I think the first step is definitely a demo.

@wilsonhaze

i'll start up a forum on a site where we can upload our works in, there'll be someone handling the diffrent sections, e.g modelling, lighting, rendering, environments,character animation, to make the work faster and less difficult.
i'll post the site soon

Please go ahead with this if you please. I will give you all the support that is in my  power to do, but I have limited tech skills in this area for now. However, I would love to get my fingers dirty again and would appreciate more info in this direction in addition to what layi has already said above.

Now let me get into specifics.Who will or can do what? Don't we all have to be on the same page and have similar capabilities including using the software and hardware?
Let me suggest that we organize this thing properly.

1. Get a structure in place. Appoint a sort of "project manager"; someone who knows the technology (Yourself or Layi)
2.Get a story line (I can provide one if you want)
3. Specify the tools you require or will use/ask other to use.
4. Assign a schedule/deadline
5. Assign tasks based on 2 above.


@4real
Are you interested in working with newbies or do you think we will only slow you down?

@Codec
You are right. It may be unrealistic to expect to develop a Shrek like movie in a few months with a few animators. BUT there is nothing unrealistic about realizing the unrealistic if there is the right will and vision. Please stay tuned, hopefully, you may be suprised.

@layi: Thanks for your thoughts on this issue. I knew animations could be expensive but I didn't quite think of it in terms of Shrek type quality.I was thinking more in terms of the cheaper Japanese animie.

@4real:
Your enthusiasm is commendable, but I guess people have different approaches and levels of expertise in these thing. It probably is child's play to you if you've done this before, but others may not have the capability to move quite as fast as you.

@wilsonhaze:
Here are a few things to consider; feel free to add to the list below;

-Concept:
I'm guessing you are talking about a dry run to demonstrate proof of concept rather than diving headlong into this thing. If so, I rather like this approach. It lets us newbies know exactly what is possible and give us an idea of resources.

1-Scope: Lets limit this to a five min animation

2- Budget: Lets estimate an idea of costs before even starting

3- Tools: What kinds of tools do we need and what is avaliable?

4- Skills: What kinds of skills do we need and what is available

5- Assign the task: Who will do what?

I did some programming (OO) languages a few years ago and briefly worked as a programmer/web developer. I'm not in this line anymore and will be next to useless working with Flash/Swish. However, I would love to help out even if it means re-learning. But I'm fairly good at other things such as authoring scripts.

I used to work as a programmer and was fairly good at VB.

I once wrote an email application much like hotmail e.t.c and I used the winsock component.Whatever you do, don't use pop ups. I had problems when I used pop-ups (dialog boxes) to receive feedback and input information. It freezes up/blocks the connection/communication between the local machine and the serves.

I don't program anymore. Haven't done so in over two years so I'm not much good anymore. Still, I hope that helped.

wilsonhaze et al,

Compliments,
I'm interested in exploring the idea of animations primarily as a cheaper alternative to actually making movies and this thread caught my interest. However, I'm amazed at the costs being projected.

layi:

It will all be futile without a definite biz plan.

At least 2Mnaira is needed to create the job...something like "toy story". I can bankrol this ONLY if there is someone to buy the completed project for 10M.
I said 2M if we are going to work from scratch with 4 peeps workin 50hrs weekly for 3 months. We might exceed 2M if we have to buy modelled characters from www.3d02.com OR www.3-d-models.com. That might reduce the duration of the project to 2 months. It takes that long because of the rendering process. A 4 minute scene could take up to a day to render.

Alternatively, If we can get 4-5Millnaira for marketing and promotion then work starts. Note that there is no competition and consequently no struture on ground to tap into. We need to market d product extensively so as not to loose out to pirates.

I don't know how much the so called Nollywood movies are made but I'm not sure if the above cost projections are actually cheaper than a full scale Nollywood movie?

Anyway, I think the way to start is to put up a 3-5 min Proof of concept/Sample/Demo of what you can do.