CompuServe Thread

Building A Group 1) Crystal Cave Computers, Inc (or) (either company name is ok) Crystal Cave Animagix 103 Barr Street Carterville, Il. 62918 1a) 38 Yrs of age, name: Merlin G. Farmer 486DX33, TARGA + 16/32, Sony SVO9600PRO SVHS Deck Creative Labs 16-Bit ASP, Sony Hi-8 Camcorder Voyetra Midi Sequencer 3-D Studio r2.01a Tempra Media Author We are freelance 3D artists, and also contract RF Technician (we tune and repair Telemetry UHF/VHF receivers) and also computer consultant. Technical writting experience as well as fiction. 2) We can spend at least 10 hrs a week. 3) Storyboarding and or keyframing, materials, rotoscoping, animated mapping 4) 5) NTSC 512×486 with 1.266 aspect ratio 6) Copyrights are essential 7) access only Compuserve E-mail, and BBS's 8) File size at times would more than likely be cost prohibited at some point over the phonelines. But for starters Compusrve would work. 9) No ideas how to handle the project 10) Right now everything is much too vague for me too come up with a story line. It really depends on what type of "theme" you want to follow. I saw a suggestion somewhere stating that if the storyline could be worked into some sort of an advertisement that could possibly lead to paying work, then this may very well be the route to take. I am particularly fond of science fiction type stuff, but I really do not know what everyone else may have in mind. I can follow most any "prompt". Perhaps we need more suggestions, then everyone gets a copy of the suggestions and take a vote as to what theme to go by. Better yet, everyone gets a copy of the suggestions, then everyone do a short one or two page piece on the suggestion with maybe one GIF or short flic and then everyone gets those to view and read and then take the final vote as to the theme. This is probably going to be the hardest part of the project, (other than coordinating the project). Also, the decision on the theme will make the project either simple or extremely difficult. I may suggest that the theme could possibly be derived from the style of artwork expected, maybe everyone shoud send in a GIF or flic because it would be way to easy to come up with a storyboard that would take too long or be too complicated to animate. Maybe a ride thru space, visiting different planets or galaxies, each planet or galaxy could be one of the participating animators, in this way, there would be different "doorways" leading to different artists and art styles, which in turn could be a advertising demo of the sorts. Someone would need to do the spaceship interior, viewing thru the window over the control panel or thru a monitor when entering the separate galixies or planets. The window should be black so that the ship can be composited over someone elses scenes of stars, planets, etc. I have a fairly decent space scene that is about 10 meg. The scene is several different camera views of a ship traveling, (sides, front, rear and zooming accross a barren planet, then zipping off to planet earth, short orbit around the earth then lands. This could be something like an opening scene or whatever. I have this on video if you care to see it. 10 meg flc is too costly to transport via modem. The video version was all TGA files, about 900 files total. You asked about SMPTE. SMPTE is an acronym. It is an industry standard audible time code established by the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) as a universal synchronization standard used in video, audio and film editing. SMPTE time code is based on Hours, Min, and Seconds, and in the case of Video, Frames. This with a controller, gives the 1/30 of a second of frame accuracy required for laying animation to tape. I am curious as to how long you want the final production to be. 10 or fifteen min ? This is destined for VIDEO for distribution, Have you considered CD-ROM. I am shure VIDEO is cheaper and can be more widely distributed, also, how is it to be distributed. We will need a GOOD soundtrack. Perhaps if everyone contributed 3DS files and TGA files and then extensive compositing, then lay all to tape, where there would be several tapes and all can be edited nicely on a good A/B roll system? I can help somewhat with the music scores. I have a 3 min demo on tape I can send you. Its all 100 percent animated, no A/B rolling or editing, all done thru Video Post in r2.01a. The soundtrack is MIDI, (I wrote it) and its in stereo. The demo has a few flaws, not perfect animation. Oh, and yes, there are two places where I used a digitized image of myself. If we do different planets representing each artist, perhaps we can have a mapped image of each artists face on each planet. I do not know, it seems terribly complicated to me, the coordinating is going to be hard, and if not done correctly, everybody elses job will be harder than need be. Well, Holger, hope my filling out the questionare has been helpful, as for the name of the group, ? perhaps we should come up with a theme first. I do not have a suggestion for a name at this time. Something meaningful, universal and catchy. Merlin G. Farmer Crystal Cave Animagix