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Storyboarding / More on cinematic animations / Intro Animation

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Destructavator:
I thought about what Sitters said, about concept art, and did some research on planning methods the pros use when working on animations and movies, etc.

I did a little work on an intro cinematic kinda like the last partial one I put together, starting out with the Earth in space, becoming a display on an alien screen with a hand, here is part of it:

http://www.destructavator.com/public/IntroStart1.avi

...but before continuing work on it (yes, this one doesn't have a hand yet), I think it would be a good idea to plan what the whole intro should be like, and then continue working on modeling/animating/rendering it.

What many professional film-makers use is a technique called storyboarding, making a primitive cartoon-like series of frames (quick and simple drawings) with notes, arrows showing what will move to where, etc., kind of like a script with pictures.  I also studied this a little in college in a media creation class, and it really does work quite effectively for making animations, long and short films, and cinematics.  The Wikipedia doesn't show a good example (a tiny, hard to make out ugly graphic), but some good examples are on this site:

http://www.storyboards.co.nz/gallery.htm

I think this might be a good idea for planning cinematics in the game, proposing ideas with quickly-drawn pictures, just with a pencil on blank paper even, along with notes and then discussing them before trying to render something only to have to make extensive changes down the road and re-work the renders.

This is where I really need input from the developers, especially Winter - I think once Winter approves a storyboard sequence - one others put together or one he makes himself - then anyone wanting to contribute can pick the parts they will try to model/edit/render and we can actually get a good number of working cinematics in the game with RoQ playback.

Again, this planning technique really does work and works well, and has a much better chance of getting some cinematics really done and finalized as opposed to how it's been going so far, and so far the "videos" pk3 in the game directory doesn't have anything in it, last time I checked.

I'll also add that I'm very close to getting some working animations in Blender for the soldiers and the existing maps with the models already created, but I don't have any planned storyboard "scripts" yet.

Psawhn:
There was that bit of a mock-up storyboard that I made in flash, with my almost-nonexistent drawing skills. One of the advantages of the computer age is you can take the previously static storyboards and partially animate them, giving a sense of time and not just visualizing the shot.

http://ufoai.ninex.info/forum/index.php?topic=1623.15

Maybe one of the awesomer ways of doing things is to find some online collaborative drawing software and some VOIP software. Then we could set a date and plan things out in more of a realtime environment.

Destructavator:
I took a look at that thread, as well as the SWF storyboard - Back then I didn't have the skills or know-how to start rendering something like that, but now I think I do if I have the time and all the components necessary.  Looking at the quick script that Winter wrote:


--- Quote ---Okay, I've written a very simple opener script that I think would make a nice lead-in to the game. More extensive animation can be easily tacked on after the logo is displayed.

Script:

   CLOSE-UP: Taman face, eyes slightly narrowed, on a backdrop of golden afternoon sky. Gradual zoom out to see the whole body, holding a plasma rifle, and a landed Harvester UFO behind it. Before fully zoomed out, camera circles 180 around the alien to reveal the human city in front of it. For two seconds the city is pristine. Then blue light flashes against the buildings, and a pillar of smoke starts to rise into the sky. Sounds fade in of plasma and gunfire, explosions, human screams of terror.
   The Taman hefts its rifle and starts to walk towards the city. It suddenly pauses and assumes a relaxed shooting stance; screen fades to black as plasma firing sounds and human screams commence. UFO:AI logo appears.

Regards,
Winter
--- End quote ---

If Winter is happy with this script he wrote back then, I could start work on it at some point soon (right now I'm working on re-doing music tracks and a few other things), although I would need help with a few things:

- I would need a model or picture of the attacked city (Mumbai?) as it is 80-some years in the future in the story's setting.  A model would be better, but I might be able to make do with a graphic.

- Regarding the explosions and screams, I might need a few additional sound effects to insert, I know we have some sound effects already in the project that I can borrow and manipulate, yes, but I might need more to make it convincing.

The sky shouldn't be too much of a problem, I have a version of Terragen 2 that can render beautiful skies free for non-commercial use that look photo-realistic, and already have some skyboxes and other graphics I made from that program that look nice.  The terrain shouldn't be too hard either, I have several ways of doing that.

I await Winter's input, specifically whether or not he wants that same script still, or something else.  (If it is to be something else, it of course must be something realistically possible with the resources we have or can acquire.)

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