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3D Computer Generated Movie From France
An anonymous reader submits a link to this Computer Graphics World article on a French-made film to be released in June. "A film by Xilam, Kaena is a full length feature film, entirely made from Off the shelf software. The previews looks amazing."
Beyond that little insight, judging by the available clips, this movie is looking damn good (albeit remaniscant of old cut scenes from Play Station 1 games like "Legacy of Kain" - just cleaner). While it's premise doesn't appear to be completely original, it is certainly going to be a great piece of fantasy in of itself. It's style of art is also a rather refreshing departure from the main stream stock of CG films, which tend to be rather "cartoony" (not that this is a bad thing, but it is nice to see something new).
Using just off-the-shelf stuff, that's really amazing. I wish I could be that good with Bryce =/. It looks like the storyline could be equally amazing, but I'm wondering if there will also be an english release around the same time. It looks that way from the site, but I hope to see this in a theater near me.
- Sherman
I think the term is "Freedom film."
...but still impressive nonetheless.
:-)
Nice to see creativity from France. This is a nice addition to this upcoming French anime series ("Molly Star Racer").
Check out the trailer, it very neat.
The ENIAC Demo Competition
What are you talking about? I read the summary as follows:
"An anonymous reader submits a link to this Computer Graphics World article on a Freedom-made film to be released in June."
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to finish my Freedom Fries, and Freedom kiss my wife who's dressed up in a Freedom Maid outfit.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
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Well, pretty much all animation/sfx is founded in "off the shelf software".
Maya, Softimage/XSI, Lightwave...I'm sure all of these packages are on a shelf SOME where...
Of course, when you read about movies that use such software, the fx houses always add "combination of Maya and XSI...with special software written by us". This usually is tacked on because they don't want ordinary people thinking they could do the same thing. They want to keep the apperance of wizardry like the old days.
But the custom software is usually written in Maya script language and such...which is very powerful btw.
"Music is everybody's possession. It's only publishers who think that people own it." - John Lennon.
Their server is withstanding the initial onslaught, attack, attack!
The limitation is talent. Few people can drive these tools competently.
I've done software for high-end animation. I can run the tools myself, but I can't get the results that the people with real talent can. Watching a good artist running an animation system is striking. They work quite differently from amateurs running these programs. They draw far more than they edit. They're fast. They have a clear picture in their mind of what they want to see on the screen.
There aren't many people like that, which is why most amateur 3D animation sucks.
...a l'Effect Slashdot, mes amis.
There are two kinds of people: 1) those who start arrays with one and 1) those who start them with zero.
You are seriously comparing Kaena to Final Fantasy and Spider-Man?! Yes, the animation in Kaena looks, as you put it, "very ghetto" in relation. But I think you need to consider the following.
Spider-Man budget: $139 million
Final Fantasy budget: $137 million
Kaena budget: $27 million
Kaena is also (supposedly) the first European CGI feature. You really shouldn't expect animation perfection in a first release like this.
And, to be honest, a lot of the animation in "Spidey" wasn't that good either...
Finally; why won't the story be the draw? What about Toy Story or Monsters, Inc.? I found the stories for those CGI features (among others) to be quite well done and entertaining. Just because a film is 100% CGI does not mean that it has no story. I'm not saying there will be a great story in Kaena; just that the two factors are unrelated.
I'm surprised that no one posted the imdb link yet. And as someone stated, the voices did sound familiar, both in french and english: Kirsten Dunst, Richard Harris, Anjelica Huston...
Non-Linux Penguins ?
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So what happens next? Does the girl meet up with an bunch of itenerant "circus bugs"? Do they build a giant mechanical bird to try to frighten the villians away? Inquiring minds want to know!
Nothing for 6-digit uids?
I just watched the fourth movie clip they made available on the site -- there's a creature that's helping her who has a very warm rich voice... with a slight British accent. Listen to the "if you had the chance, would you leave Axis?" to hear it clearly.
...Whoah, I just looked up his bio to make sure he is, indeed American (confirmed; grew up in NJ and Florida), and it seems his father (a bar-owner) was murdered in '68. His sister was murdered in '75, and 2 half brothers died while scuba-diving in '80. Ouch.
It could be that they're working off the stereotype that the elite (evil or not) speak with British accents. Think also of what's called the "mid-Atlantic" accent (the accent spoken partway between the US and Britain...) taught so carefully to Julliard drama students -- you know how "Frasier Crane" talks? Yup, Kelsey Grammer is a Julliard grad. He's got it down pat.
He also spoke the role of the villainous but brilliant Sideshow Bob on the Simpsons.
There are only 10 types of people: those who understand decimal, those who don't, and, uh, 8 other types I forget.
I looked at the trailer, and, like a few other people have mentioned here, it's okay but not great. The animation lags behind Pixar and the other big boys, and the plot is pretty generic (and bears an unfortunate similarity to A Bug's Life). But what gets me is that, for what seems to be the umpteenth time, a movie (or t.v. show or book or video or whatever) is anonymously submitted to /., almost certainly by someone involved in the production. If you think about it, considering the zillions of page views daily and the profile of the site (heck, google news uses /. as a source), /. has to be an easy source of free marketing for anyone selling any kind of SF. "News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters" indeed.