Formal announcement of Community Project "Colla"

Manu · Post by **Manu** » Tue Apr 22, 2008 9:58 pm

Well, after a bit of toing and froing, here's the official thread for the collaborative project.

WHAT?

The idea is for AS-animators on the forum here to make a collaborative animation. It is a non-commercial project, intended for people to have a bit of fun and exercise, it's not a competition.

Two things are given: a rigged character and a piece of music.

The idea is for the first animator to do a bit of animation and end on a keyframe that can be handed to the next animator. Ideally, you would end your animation on a keyframe that makes it interesting for the next person to continue and "answer" the question Eg. the hand-over pose might show the character about to open a door, the next animator has to figure out what's behind the door. That's not to say the animation has to be narrative, if you just want the character to dance to the music a bit, that's also fine. Use your precious few moments in the limelight as you see fit.

HOW?

There's an account for this project on xprove.com where we can exchange files and leave comments. Have a look at xprove.com for yourself to see how it works, it's quite neat.
All participants will be given a user account so they can upload and download files. It is possible to look at Quicktimes in the xprove interface, but there's limited bandwitdh and HD space since I got a free account, so we'll see how practical that is. For that same reason, I think only participants should have access, we can post WIP's on YouTube for anybody else who wants to see what we're up to.

NEXT...

Those wanting to participate, please PM me with your name and an email address so I can set you up on xprove. Create a temporary Hotmail account if you feel nervous giving out your normal email.

If you can think of anybody who might be interested in participating but doesn't frequent these forums often or not at all, tell them to get in here.

That's it for now, we'll talk about naming conventions, hand-over times and other practicalities before the weekend when ideally the first animator will start.

Manu

synthsin75 · Post by **synthsin75** » Tue Apr 22, 2008 10:15 pm

I'd only be interested if it were handled in this forum. I check here all the time anyway. Oh well, feel free to keep what little animation I did.

Manu · Post by **Manu** » Tue Apr 22, 2008 10:21 pm

The xprove thing is really just to exchange files as an (hopefully) nicer alternative to using an FTP site. For instance, Xprove wil automatically send out an email when a new file has been uploaded if you set it up like that in your account. We'll still discuss things here I in this very thread.

synthsin75 · Post by **synthsin75** » Tue Apr 22, 2008 10:33 pm

Sounds good, but I just don't need one more thing to mess with right now. If you make it available here, I'm game.

I'm guessing this somehow solves the problem of multiple animators not working from the same point in the project?

Manu · Post by **Manu** » Tue Apr 22, 2008 11:42 pm

synthsin75 wrote:I'm guessing this somehow solves the problem of multiple animators not working from the same point in the project?

Yes. I think it would be a good idea to keep all files in a central place so everybody knows where they are. Scattering sendspace links throughout this thread sounds like a logistical nightmare to me. I've got a daytime job, you know.

The benefits are:

- All files will be in one place in a neat list. No sendspace links scattered around in this thread, half of which have expired.

- No need to compress files in .zip format or whatnot. There's always one person who can't decompress your chosen compression format.

- Participants get notified via email when a new file gets uploaded

- When an animator uploads his .anme file, he/she can also upload a quicktime which can play back straight in the xprove interface. Same goes for soundfiles. So when you receive an email that animator X has finished and uploaded his bit, you can see the result straight away at a better quality than YouTube, I may add. After that, you can come over here and discuss it. We can still upload it to YouTube or anything else you prefer.

- It also allows you to add notes to your AS file when uploading, so you can indicate that it was you who did the last bit of animation on "Colla0004".

Man, I'm starting to sound like I'm getting paid by these people.

synthsin75 · Post by **synthsin75** » Wed Apr 23, 2008 3:39 am

It sounds overly complicated to me. Good luck. I'll look forward to seeing it at the end.

Freakish Kid · Post by **Freakish Kid** » Wed Apr 23, 2008 8:39 pm

synthsin75 wrote:It sounds overly complicated to me. Good luck. I'll look forward to seeing it at the end.

Its not overly complicated at all. In fact it is a very profession way of managing a project. Everything contained in one space for the benefit of everyone else. The last thing you need are bits and pieces all over the place.

GK