₦airaland Forum

That must be the best naija movie ever, in terms of quality, story, action, everything. I have been telling these naija folks that u can't make a movie in three weeks and expect to come up with a Lord of The Rings look alike, movies ain't like shoving pop corn in the microwave, it is an art form that requires a lot of patience and dedication. 30 days is everything MOST(90%) Nollywood movies are'nt.

I hope the other kpa kpa kpa pop corn poppers movie makers will borrow a leaf from the makers of 30 days and spend a little more time in post production fixing horrible audio and not leaving some guy pooping in the background or a microphone sticking outta the freaking screen, or some fatigued crew ripping out a deafening fart,

I am impressed with 30 days, kinda restored my faith in Nollywood.

codec, see if you can grab abything from the download section of my website while I try to figure out the possibility of making the rest available. Sorry I didn't get back at ya, was kinda tied up at this end.

hee's the link, enjoy

http://www.mayhemproductions.org/Downloads.htm

Whoa!

That's one huckuva long list, dude, wish you'd told me earlier. I will try to come up with some of stuff before the end of next week. The airplanes, you will have to make do with MIG-17s unless you're looking for a specific warplane, I will also try to come up with a low poly battle tank and the running soldier, really have to dig into the whole md2 conversion 'cause like I told you before, I have distanced myself from game developement,

The fire and particles won't be a problem, just have to figure out how to optimize 'em for whatever game engine you're using (Quake2, right?). The terrain, hmmmm well once you get the other stuff, the terrain won't be much of a headache.

I'll send ya something before the weekend expires.

Hey codec dude, I have a Lee Enfield No.4 MK 1 rifle. If you are gonna use it for game related stuff then you have to do a lot of polygon reduction 'cause that one is made for film/TV. I also have an MIG-17 readyto go, you're probably looking for current weapons but if ya need a good ol MIG-17, you're going to get it.

Okay, the only catch is they are not textured, you gotta do that yourself.

If I get back on time I will load it on my website and give ya the download link, or I could send it through e-mail (not sure about the size though). I also have a Saladin Armoured car and Saracen Armoured Personnel carrier, those are intended for the free download section of my site but I will let you have 'em as soon as I am done (assuming you don't need 'em ASAP).

Haven't seen it but I read  a lot of good reviews about it (which is not really a surprise). I guess I will get it before the end of february. Fullmetal's always been a good show, an eyecandy galore, rich in story, animation and character development.

The Simpsons

Cartoon is just another medium of entertainment, just like live movie some are made strictly for kids, some are made strictly for adults (Japanese anime, anyone?) while some are made for anyone who cares to watch.

Kids are drawn to cartoons because they love to identify with things extraordinary so a lot of animation directors cash in on that and come out with something that is completely soft so that they can milk the single adults and the adults with kids...it is all about the Benjamins. The Japanese are the only ones that are true to the art because of the diversity of their products. This is the reason why I value Japanese animation more than all the razzle- dazzle- softie -softie- Burger king -Mcdonald American stuff.

If oyu love cartoons (very good ones 'cause I just stay away from the too soft ones) like I do, you better tune in to cartoon Network's Adult Swim block. That's where they have the real goodies... or you can some of the following DVD's:

Akira
Ghost In The Shell2
Kaena: The Prophecy
Ninja Scroll ( kinda filled with blood and guts but a very interesting story and convincing characters)
Appleseed
Cowboy Beebop: The Movie
Watership Down (kinda old but the story nearly made me cry)
Titan AE
Final Fantasy: Advent Children
Sky Blue (Fantastic Korean Animation)
Lion King (This's gotta be my favourite animated film of all time)
Anastacia (Comes in Second after Lion King on my top ten list)
Kirikou
Heavy Metal
Fire and Ice
Spawn ( The animated TV Series)
... whew! The list is just endless.

Prison Break (Dang! I can't wait til March)
King of the Hill
The Simpsons (I am sure this is my favorite TV show of all time)
Charmed
Supernatural
Smallville (you gotta love this one)
American Dad
Family Guy
South Park
Samurai Champloo
Full Metal Alchemist
The War at Home
That 70's Show
Friends
The Parkers
My Wife and Kids
Half N' Half
Girlfriends
Seinfield
Futurama
Trigun
Ghost In The Shell


....whew! There's so  much to add....

DeepThough:
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.

I am not exactly a big fan of 3D, especially if we are talking about the Nigerian market. To me it is just a big band wagon where every Femi, Obi and Musa is diving. I am more of the Akira/Ghost In The Shell/Appleseed/Ninja Scroll/Lion King/Pokahontas/Anastacia kind of guy, that is why all my 3D works are cel shaded (emulating the 2D look). I love the diversity of the Japanese animated films and value them more than any US production because they are true to the trade and don't follow any particular pattern. We should try to emulate the Japanese and I am not tallking about the blood and gut part, just the diversity and the rich visual quality.

You can forget about those who give you the 'No market for animation' because that is just a load of crap. Your best bet is to give everyone of them the middle finger and come out with a good animated movie. With enough publicity you will have it doing more than any live action movie...yes, there is a market for animation in Nigeria...heck, in Africa... a very HUGE.

@DeepThought, if we are talking about 2D in the real sense (Hand drawn animation, frame by frame) believe me, fella, it could be more expensive and more time consuming. It requires people with excellent drawing skills and people with painting skills. Such a feat is near impossible in Nigeria... not beign negative here but yes, 2D is not an every Tom Dick and Harry affair like 3D. If you can't draw (VERY WELL) forget it. Do you know that a one hour 2D animated feature will require at least 100,000 drawings you're going to need about 50 GOOD artists that will handle 2000 drawings each.

I love 2D animation more than anything 3D but I gave up on 2D long ago because as an indie animator, was a very tedious process and almost impossible for a one man squad. What I do instead is do everything in 3D and then use a toon shader to give the characters a 2D look (I attached an image to prove my point). There's a lot of work involved, modeling animation textures...etc but it saves me the trauma of running my pencil on thousands of papers...the trauma doesn't end there...cause you have to scan those thousands of drawings and then paint them You can see that it is a no go area for a one man squad like me.

2D is not a cheaper alternative, though the cost of production could be at the same level with 3D but 2D is much more expensive in terms of skill and time, reason being that anyone without traditional art skill can be a good 3D animator while a strong (Almost perfect) traditional art skill is a basic requirement for 2D animation. You don't have to be a Leonardo Davinci to texture in 3D (Basic knowledge of color concept helps) but if you cannot paint a realistic background, you are not getting anywhere near creating backgrounds for 2D. There's always been a situation where 3D is integrated into 2D (Wildebeest stampede in Lion King, Some of the battle sims in Mulan) but these are just on areas that would be too difficult to manage in 2D.

The best bet will be to resort to cel shaded stuff if you guys agree on it. Once you have a good story, fluid animation and lots of eyecandy that will make the people go "WOW!"...everyone watching will forget about the razzle dazzle of Shrek and go...(You guessed right!) ''WOW ".

Not trying to join you guys or anything 'cause I am already committed to some projects and may not be able to squeeze out time but I will not hesitate to drop in some valuable hints because I really love the whole 'NIGERIAN ANIMATION INDUSTRY'.

c0dec:


yeah BSP trees can be scary. but nowadays, a BSP scenes can be done by the 3d artists (if map building is your thing). http://www.ogre3d.org/wiki/index.php/Bsp_making

i'm actually trying to add a BSP or Quad tree to a demo, i'm did. it's quite inefficient because the whole world is being rendered at once (it's a heavily tessellated labyrinth)

i came up with an algorithm to render the world. no models involved since i don't know how to model 3d. so everything is code level.

i was hoping you could model the world for me and also add the BSP tree automatically. just wishful thinking.

To be perfectly HONEST... I have distanced myself from anything related to game development/programming 'cause to me it is asking  too much. Animation (film/tv whatever) is a handful...that beast is way too vast to have my hands on any other angle. In this biz, you either have one leg in hell or heaven (errrr....not literally)...you can't shove both in the two kingdoms without getting flamed.

;DI must say those cool cars in Grand turismo and errrrr...the well executed backgrounds in Resident evil games pushed me further into computer animation, apart from some of the old Disney animated movies (before they started to suck) and animated films by the Japanese legend Miyazaki. Sad that I have to abandon that field (game dev) but I feel more comfortable with the whole Film/TV animation.

Who knows, maybe I could model the world in Lightwave but going thru any game related tutorial...man, that's like forcing me to sit through ten episodes of [insert the worst TV show ever]...that's murder, I tell ya.

Kinda lost here, what software industry? You mean the marketers of pirated softare? I need a little education on this 'cause i am completely lost.

c0dec:
hey grafikdon. are u familiar with BSP trees?

BSP... as in Binary Space Partitioning...oh hell nah! Anything that has to do with codes/programming/java/whateva gives me the creeps...I don't even look at them twice.

One could gather a team and start with game developement/publishing for the PC format. They could start climbing from there and if they have good products and a streak of luck...they could rub shoulders with the big boys. The truth is the world of game development is harsh and highly competitive in that only the best (and the lucky) survive. It is tough but not impossible.

Wouldn't advise a small timer to shoot for Xbox/PS2 development... seriously, good luck laying your hands on a game engine (Yes, you're gonna need a truck load of luck).

This a great idea but there's more to making an animated movie than meets the eye. The N6.M budget no doubt will do the job as long as everything is done in Naija 'cause let's face it, no animator ouside naija in his right mind will settle for N60.K monthly even if it was the only way to get into heaven.

Starting from scratch (Script, storyboard, modeling, texture, animation, rendering, compositing, editing/finishing) could take a while even if you have 20 animators. These elements have to be considered during the planning. 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. 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.

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.

That's just my $0.02.

Kudos to you guys. Nice to know there are some guys who think this way. Our development shouldn't be one sided, every sector should be exploited, just like in the US. If we are successful in building an animation industry in Nigeria (Please someone mark my word) Nigeria will become another animation outsourcing heaven...now u know that means more money and lots of employment... I am not sure you guys are aware of the magnitude of the effects of  a successful animation/video game industry in Nigeria... it could bring a lot of positive changes.

olex:
Maya appears easier than Lightwave, though some claim that Lightwave has a better rendering machine.

What are you learning a 3D software for? Creating digital pictures, animation? Just asking.

On the contrary, Maya has a steep learning curve. I am not sure about Lightwave having a better rendering machine but is sure has a good renderer, no doubt about that, heck it can rival a lot of commercial renderers out there. It's been used in lots of hit Hollywood movies and TV series (Serenity, anyone?).

c0dec:
nice man! nice! but i no longer need a modeller (at the moment though). i'll holler at you when i need ya

and i just saw the movie appleseed last night (it's a cel-shaded anime). keep it up, man.

LOL.... actually I thought you were just trying to find out if there were 3D modelers in the house...I didn't really think it was a job placement ad...just my way of saying 'present sah!'

Appleseed is definitely cool and I love that style . I've been doing the cell shaded stuff since 2003 and I am luvin' it.

Yup... here's a modeler in the house (Lightwave 8.3).

check out one of my human models:

She's one of the lead characters in my upcoming animated feature. The image on bottom right is the final render. Trying to emulate the 2D style by applying the unreal toon shader.

There's also a Hummer2 screen grab (Still a Work In Progress though).

Maya has a very steep learning curve. Max is easier to learn if you have the patience to go thru the tutorials that ship with max, you'll be doing wonderful things in no distant future. You can get the demo of both appa and check 'em out and stick with the one that 'feels right'. The truth is you can do anything with both apps, the only difference there are things that coulb be done with great ease in one than the other but at the end of the it all boils down to how willing you are to push the creative enveloped.

I have fiddled with both Max and Maya in the past but I actually use Lightwave (modeling and non character work) and Softimage XSI for character animation and particles. With these two, I have no need for any app.

It's your call dude, whatever rocks your boat. Check them out and try them and ignore those who will tell you app X is better than app Y 'cause it is all a load of crap.

elphem:
3D Modelling, I really want more knowledge about it, can anyone give me a clue please!

You can start learning modeling by going through the numerous online tutorials dealing with the software of your choice, be it Lightwave, Softimage XSI or 3D  Studio Max. If you'd like to get into organic modeling like humans and so on, a little knowledge of anatomy can help. there are a lot of reference out there...people, magazines...heck, you can even use your anatomical structures for reference.

Mastering modeling takes time and could be completely overwhelming when you try it the first time. I remember the intimidation I got staring at the Lightwave interface back in 2003...heck I was completely overwhelmed but I had the zeal and the drive and never stopped until I saw myself deep into the modeling process. Now I can model just about anything with ease using Lightwave of course (My primary modeling application). Took me about two years to get where I am now but it was well worth it...heck I was doing a full time job while learning 3D modeling./animation starting from 2003.

On the other hand, modeling isn't always about humans and orcs and beautiful girls...if your aim is broadcast graphics and architectural visualization...you may not bother yourself much with anatomy. It helps though 'cause no knowledge they say is a waste.