8baller

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if you're a predominantly digital heavy artist, I'd suggest going back to basics and get some good card stock, a mechanical pencil and a kneaded eraser - and go to town...

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Very interesting idea. I'll give that a shot as well.

Hehehehe, nice one TA.

OMG how I now need a lobotomy to remove the past two hours of "Clone Wars" from my memory.

If you're between the ages of 5 and 10 then knock yourself out. However, if you're any older, have an IQ above 70, or are a Star Wars fan RUN AWAY as far and as fast as you can.

I rank it up there with the "Droids" animated TV show or the Christmas special.

Todd

You guys moved on me

I wondered why it got so dang quiet over there in the Matrix forum.

Anyhow I don't think it's been added here so here's 8's trailer on youTube:

Infinite Dark - movie trailer

See you guys on Sat.

Todd

LOL. Ok, I definately have to try that

...for research of course.

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You should do what I do and make a lego image of my main, Light-speed!

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LOL thanks....add one more thing to the list

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Interesting advice Des. I'll ponder it for a bit.

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In a creative spike now, so ha ha ha! :P

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You're evil.

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Thanks for all the great replies and advice folks. I'll take them to heart.

For tonight, it looks like break time. Time to take our 5 year old to his first movie tonight "Clone Wars".

That should definitely provide a new and unexpected experience

Anyone else ever fall into a really odd place where you can't seen to do anything creative? It's not that I've got a lack of ideas, it's the actual PROCESS of doing...dang near anything creative.

I know what I want/need to do but then in sitting down to do it...it's like hitting a brick wall.

Anyone else ever get this?

Todd

Baller will tank it up.

I'll be headed to the Austin Game Dev conference in Sept and possibly the Wizard World Dallas (whenever that is...it just depends on how proud they are of their tickets this year).

Todd

Wow, I step away from the boards for bit and you guys really get to talking.

About the judging/user votes I wouldn't worry about it at all right now. Hopefully they'll 0 everything out when the final 5 get decided. But I'd really like to see the go to a voting system instead of a rating system to prevent the submarining that's going on right now. There's a number of people that seem to be running around awarding 1's. It showed up much more at the beginning but you can still tell it's happening.

A vote system (one user/one vote) would seem to prevent that, at least a little. But hey, fingers are still crossed on the final 5, one step at a time right.

8's lvl 32.

If 8 Baller can get into the TF, then I'm cool with the test server. But if he can't then I vote new toons on virtue.

Todd

I don't care which TF we do. 8's lvl 30, so he'll need a sk.

As an either/or, I'm also up for the 'create new toons' somewhere...just not Justice or Liberty I'm outta slots there.

Todd

DUDE! 8 may have gone dark...but he'd never be pure evil

Saturday evening sounds good to me.

Can 8 get a sk up to (whatever level we'll need). If so, I'll bring him along.

Todd

Please not Saturday morning. Other than that I'm in.

I may have to bring Ipo though....poor 8's only 32.

Todd

Sorry Knight, nah I wasn't talking about yours.

Didn't mean to throw ya off. Initially I was just looking at the ones I hadn't seen before.

Todd

Well I'm glad they're posting videos. At the same time I'm in a "lets see what happens next" attitude about the whole thing.

Any way it goes....great job to ANYONE that submitted an entry. It takes a lot of effort (more than I ever thought) to put one of these movies together and there have been some really spectacular ones submitted. And thanks to all that helped to 'clarify' and 'decode' the rules and regulations along the way.

Nice job all and best of luck in the contest.

Todd
a.k.a. 8 Baller

Wow, ok.....a bunch of videos are up. My initial reaction was Whooo Hooo!

But then as I watch them one by one (through about 7 of them) I notice that I have YET to see a new one that would be considered "legal".

I've seen videos go over the 4:00 mark, cussing, the Hulk, a number of production company logos, more outside sound effects and music than I can count....so I'm wondering...as crazy as this may sound...but is it possible someone at GT posted the wrong batch of videos. Meaning, the ones that had been DQ'd?

I think I'm done watching for now. Taking a break.

The good news.....I think....is that they're still posting videos.

Todd

...Starting to wonder if lawyers played a trump card on this one.

Man I hope not. I can't even begin to draw the scale of how uncool that would be.

Todd

Stone - I agree with your understanding (and frustration) of just about every other video contest I've ever seen...heck on the Star Wars Galaxies contest they didn't even discourage copyrighted music. For one reason or another, they're just being VERY careful about all this. Example: they shot down the use of royalty free music loops early on. Then again, their contest, their rules.

Zloth I used Vegas for the editing (same as DR), and After Effects for the compositing stuff, and Maya for the camera work and fluid effects clouds.

The more 'special' camera shots were done by plotting out key locations from CoX, then transferring those coords to Maya for reference, then animating the camera, then exporting out the camera coords (POS and PYR) to CoX. Yeah, I spent the first two weeks writing the export tools and path and crowd generation tools.

After all that math I felt like a dang zombie. But it all pretty much worked

Oh, and thanks for the Kung Fu comment

Todd

Hey Stone, welcome to CoX community. Nice job on the film, I think the best part was the voice acting, very nice.

One thing though man, Game Trailers/Toyota/MTV have imposed some pretty....mmmm...interesting rules on this contest. Not sure if they're going to show it on Spike TV or what but they're being VERY careful about copyright elements including external sounds and music not pulled directly from the game.

That may give ya problems. Which is a shame, cause it's a very nice piece.

We'll let the legal folk decide.
Todd

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Another way that I did it before I found that plug in was an effect that found edges and darkened them while making everything else white. So that it had the same color I would blend it with the original and then adjust contrast and brightness so it looks similar to the image while still having the dark lines.

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Full marks Doc! I duplicated the original layer, ran levels on that (which I used to control the next step), then "find edges", then "Hue Saturation" (to kill the saturation almost totally), then set the blend mode of that layer to "multiply".

Most of the time I could leave it at that, but occasionally it was to much and I had to pull back the opacity.

Originally I also posterized the original layer...but that seemed a little over the top so I killed it before I was done.

Todd

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How the hell did you get that mushroom cloud??

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Hehehe, that's my nod to Mr. Speilburg. I always loved the effect in Close Encounters and Poltergeist. I did it very much the same way he did...just digitally. He dropped dye into a glass container filled with water and shot the whole thing upside down with the camera. I used a fluid system in Maya in a 3d container...and shot the whole thing upside down with the camera. I figure he can't be wrong

Then I composited it into the city scene and added lightning and bounced the levels of the cloud around to 'show' the flash off the clouds. Then ran the whole thing through the same series of filters to get the art effect I wanted. It was the same 'look' I used in 8 Baller's comic...it just made sense to stay true to that.

Actually that was a lot easier than the "Zombie Road" shot. My head still hurts from that one.

Todd

p.s. there's also a couple of inspirations from Roland Emmerich's "Independence Day" in there.

Welcome Mirahj. Better late than never

I'm glad they contacted you about the voice, I hadn't caught that (I wasn't aware there was any in-game voices in CoX. None come to mind.

I loved your video, very funny stuff...and very nicely done on top of that

Good luck in the contest.
Todd

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Hey, I'm just glad the thing is done.

Now I can get back to work on my eleven other video projects.

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Ditto on the it being over part, but I think I'm going back to drawing stuff. I'll say this, after playing with MovieStorm I think I'll definately add that to my tool list. It's a lot of fun, and free.

For those that don't know, feel free to check out my CoX art at my DeviantArt site ToddWorld's (8 Baller's) DA site.. I ususally hang out with the fanart crowd.

Todd

I don't think I've heard anyone get past the compressing stage on the site this weekend. My guess is something's hung up on there side. The fact that the videos are 'compressing' on their side should mean you guys are perfectly save (since ya know, the files are on their servers).

Todd