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glacial906
* Dog in the Sand *

USA
1738 Posts

Posted - 07/10/2006 :  00:07:34  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
Those of you interested in CG should definitely check this out:

http://www.elephantsdream.org/

It's a 10-minute animated short using all open source software. Blender 3d is the main tool used, which is a totally free and really good 3d animation/game design app. The GIMP (an open source equivalent to Photoshop) was used for creating and editing textures, and Inkscape (think Illustrator) was used for vector creation. The only thing that was proprietary about the whole deal was for sound editing, I think.

What's really cool about the whole thing (besides the movie itself) is the fact that all of the source files for the project (3d models, sets, textures, sounds, score, etc...) are available for the public to use, too! So, assuming you had the 3d knowledge, you could make sequels or other kinds of derivative works.

That being said, I did notice a few issues with the movie. For one, the movement in some places wasn't very good at all; I don't know if they used motion capture for the whole project or not, but there are some scenes where the characters looked like marionette puppets. Another thing was the fact that the movie wasn't coherent at all (although, intrinsically, it was made as more of a demonstration of what open source software is capable of). It is supposed to be that the two characters (Proog and Emo) are in some sort of stylized, surreal computer. If you look at it in that regard going in, you can at times see the analogies, but it still doesn't really make it crystal clear. And, finally, Emo's voice is really irritating at times. (Although I guess that's more of a matter of personal taste...)

All in all, it is an impressive display of what open source software is capable of (although they did have to write some custom scripts to handle hair, lighting, etc...but these same scripts are now going to be built into future versions of the program...) Definitely worth checking out.


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Carl
- A 'Fifth' Catholic -

Ireland
11546 Posts

Posted - 07/10/2006 :  05:51:42  Show Profile  Reply with Quote
It was taking a ice age to download, so I quit.

I downloaded Blender before, but found it too complicated to learn, so uninstalled it. :)


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