Comments on: What is Jill’s Song? Who is Jack?

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By: Chicago mover

Chicago mover — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 10:36:06 +0000

I too agree with “Otto ” that the eyelids were that bad.

By: S&A

S&A — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 01:52:10 +0000

lol.

The two went hand in hand.

By: Combine 017

Combine 017 — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 22:12:24 +0000

Or when your drunk.

By: Zachariah

Zachariah — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 11:27:33 +0000

I think you of all people know , I can only be philisophical on those long drives down the back roads of Altha.

By: S&A

S&A — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 03:13:37 +0000

Damn Zach, between our emails and this page, you’ve been the midwife of a semi-philosophical debate on the very nature and purpose of art.

Take over the reins and drop in on it sometime.

Peace

By: spartan117ak

spartan117ak — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 15:16:33 +0000

I don’t know what the fuss is with the eyes… Maybe if you would have given me a chance, I could have fixed the skin… If it is a texture problem.

I loved this film…But damn, I never knew some people had such short attention, one friend did not even watch it, to boring he says… :/

By: Mystfit

Mystfit — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 03:02:11 +0000

It would have been a little hard to have multiple shots of Jack, all excluding the top half of his face because people didn’t like his eyelids.

It would look even worse if he didn’t blink at all, that’s something that you would unconsciously pick up as being much more unnatural than a few growths of his lids.

Frankly, I didn’t even notice the eyelids the first time round and I usually pick apart these guys work looking for ways of improving my own filmmaking. Benchmarks and all that.

By: Tom Jantol

Tom Jantol — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 16:31:23 +0000

Phil, I was under impression that their professional job is connected to Source. That they MUST work in Source. (loose track who working for whom, in what company, in what engine, sorry)
So I guess I must take my apologizes back? And what about my mum now?
Just kidding.
Of course they have no time to build new model, it is close to impossible to make one in Source but - and here lies my misunderstanding because they talk about Source as absolute must - there is no need to abandon engine or to reprogram one to correct some mistakes.
What about composting, different camera work, close ups of just mouth, over shoulder from back side of talking character shots, … and many other DIRECTING stuff and tricks, right to this unholy point: if your tool can’t do something, don’t do it.
I have enormous desire, not to mention full draw of materials, to shot car chase scene or massive medieval attack on castle, but my engine and my present knowledge of Anymation techniques cant provide this - so I want do it.
For now.
In my Wizard that submarine was under the water in first iteration but water looks bad so I made flying one - weeks of work went to garbage.
We, the authors are in charge, we are the bosses. No instructions to viewers what to and look what not, no “blame something else”, just… well… movie. If something isn’t right with our movie, it is only our author hand to blame.
I am feeling little uncomfortable talking about this as consequence of something in this movie, because I don’t see any problem in this movie, I wouldn’t change a thing - but come on guys,
it is also little uncomfortable for me to talk this basic, obvious stuff over and over and in same time sound like some exotic self righteous ass from another planet.
Are we entered - and I didn’t notice - atmosphere of “Every author have his own priorities” planet or “Author’s freedom under Engine Empire” universe?
OK, I am fine with that. Just point me in right direction so I can back home.

ah, I am so poetic, and this lousy English… blame the keyboard. :)

By: Zachariah

Zachariah — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 11:26:11 +0000

yes , that’s an accurate assessment

By: Overman

Overman — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 06:37:24 +0000

Hi Tom. :) You’re too hard on yourself sometimes. I think you’re being understood here, and I’m not getting the impression anyone’s upset with your comments.

I do have a question for you though. You’ve been saying the pro issue is a reason you should maybe retract your comments. I’m not sure I’m understanding what the pro thing has to do with this particular situation; I don’t think the two things are connected (them using Valve’s model, Zach and Rob getting jobs at Bioware). Or are you alluding to the fact that they want to try to get this done before they make the move? Thus no time to create new model from scratch?

That *MAY* be the case, but I suspect the decision would have been the same regardless of job offers on the horizon, because it was a matter of making a choice in favor of efficiency rather than perfectionism, and they desired that efficiency of production long before Bioware came along. (Not wanting to put words in anyone’s mouth. Am I being accurate here, guys?)

By: Tom Jantol

Tom Jantol — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 05:44:49 +0000

Eh, about my mum: she is real, of course, but Slique was right, she was used by me as metaphor for all non Machinima people.
Nobody is offended here, I even like clarity of statement: “I don’t care about outside of Machinima viewer”. I couldn’t disagree more, but this is your opinion and OK, fine by me.
As I said, this professional or semi professional thing makes my first comment obsolete, almost stupid, but - let imagine we talk about making movies in general, let take for a moment some outside view - how this really sound to you: “Don’t blame me, blame tool”?
Can you imagine dentist saying this when he make some mistake? Why is anything different with movie makers? Or to give instructions to viewer what to look, what not? Come on…
I didn’t notice any eyelids problem, I am talking about principles.
And it is very, very important subject, never mind I picked wrong moment, wrong crew or wrong movie.
As usual.:)

By: Chuck

Chuck — Sat, 31 May 2008 22:08:09 +0000

Demon eyelids from hell aside, the video itself was really good in my opinion. I can see there’s a lot to look forward to here. If you have time in between being professional machinimen!

By: Zachariah

Zachariah — Sat, 31 May 2008 20:58:16 +0000

those brits have no sense of tact!

By: Slique

Slique — Sat, 31 May 2008 20:48:45 +0000

Just thought that I would clear up that I wasn’t trying to insult Tom’s mother. My ‘I don’t care about your mum’ comment was simply a tongue-in-cheek remark to what I thought was just a random example of someone who might come across our videos without any pre-existing knowledge of what Machinima is.

So yeah, my apologies, Tom’s mum!

By: overman

overman — Sat, 31 May 2008 19:45:23 +0000

Just a point of clarification re: slique’s first comment, and this might just be a matter of semantics, but it wouldn’t require reprogramming the engine to fix the eyelids.

What it *would* require is a new character model with the rigging tweaked to their liking. Ironically, I think modifying the engine would be an easier task! Rigging a character to work properly with Faceposer (including all the face muscles) is excruciatingly hard. Maybe someone out there has done it, but I’ve not seen it and know many who’ve tried. So I can respect that at some point a decision has to be made to live with a particular flaw in order to get the project finished before our sun burns out.

As Tom pointed out, the IDEAL which I think we all cherish here is that no such compromise should EVER be made. But sometimes practical matters trump the ideal.

By: Zachariah

Zachariah — Sat, 31 May 2008 18:06:49 +0000

don’t worry tom! your opinion is not offensive. you’re just holding us to a higher standard than we hold ourselves. where we make compromises, you would rather have us go the extra mile and develop new models and rigs or have us work with some other toolset. Thing is, we like source, it’s comfortable for us and we know how to use it pretty well, we’re willing to let a few small technical issues slide, as we know that we can make up for these in other areas.

also, I can’t really go with a “proffessional” title just yet. Till I actually start work, which could take a little bit of time.

By: Slique

Slique — Sat, 31 May 2008 16:43:09 +0000

Wait, you mean your mum actually watched it? Ha. I thought you just threw her in as a random, off-the-wall example.

By: Tom Jantol

Tom Jantol — Sat, 31 May 2008 15:51:48 +0000

I just learn that you work professionally as Machinima maker. If that is what you mean by given tools, then I understand and apologize. Didn’t know that. Sorry and keep up with excellent work.