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119 Comments
- decksnfx, on 10/12/2007, -3/+37NNNOOOO! You can't make open source movies! Who gets the money?????? Who makes the mountains of licensed *****???? It just doesn't make SENSE!
- Jerky1312, on 10/12/2007, -2/+21Great program, great project and a great film. Dugg!
- duniyadnd, on 10/12/2007, -10/+25No offense, but let people appreciate the presentation and hard work the folks did by at least visiting their website. Linking directly to the avi file is just going to eat up their bandwidth especially when greedy search bots just keep hitting it over and over again.
- spiderworm, on 10/12/2007, -1/+16torrent is the best way to go.... the elephantsdream.com server is now probably a hulking pile of burning plastic and metal... get the torrent here: http://tribler.org/content/Elephants_Dream_1024.avi.torrent
- halavais, on 10/12/2007, -0/+14Come on, guys: this is what bit torrent was *made* for.
- listrophy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+14"...cluster of 240 Dual-core Xserves to render the movie. XSeed took over 125 days to render the movie, using up to 2.8GB of memory to render a single frame."
And all the .blend files are available on the DVD (and presumed to be CC-licensed). This means that in ~20 years, your home computer will probably be capable of rendering the movie in under a day. - dude3609, on 10/12/2007, -4/+17what if the website goes offline due to a digg effect? Here is a second mirror,
http://xseed.bowiestate.edu/ED/ED_1024.avi - bartv, on 10/12/2007, -3/+16I wrote an article on the background of this project here:
http://www.blendernation.com/2006/05/18/the-worlds-first-open-movie-released/ - tapo, on 10/12/2007, -1/+13Just in case you've never used Blender, it's an open source 3D modelling and animation tool - in the same category as Maya.
However, Blender is kind of like the Dvorak keyboard layout, or coffee for many 3D animators. It's an incredible pain in the ass to learn, but once you've mastered it, you can be incredibly productive. Moreso then any other animation package.
It's available for all major platforms (at a pretty small download size of around 5 MB) from http://www.blender3d.org
Edit: Geez, it seems that Blender3d.org is down now too... - jackjenkins, on 10/12/2007, -0/+12I think I'm too far down the list for anyone to notice if I write anything, but I figured I'd comment nonetheless.
Essentially, the animation itself seems to be superb, period. From iridescent comb-winged birds to all-too-creepy tentacle vines, the environments and the characters seem to be masterfully done.
As it has already been voiced, however, the rest of the film is of a "lesser" quality to say the least. Timing, editing and dialogue are all a bit jarring for the viewer, making for a "less-than-human" experience. One cannot decide whether to be empathetic or annoyed by "Emo" and his older counterpart. Making a complete assumption, one could potentially interpret the "machine" to be a the fantastic depiction of the inside of the human mind, represented by reason (Proog) and blind emotion (Emo), and the conflict between them, but that's a fuzzy assumption.
The fuzziness of this message, however, isn't necessarily because of its particularly perplexing depth. Part of the problem of the message, it seems, can be blamed on the characters inability to express their emotions. Specifically, the characters seem to be neither emotionally engaging or all that rational to the viewer, making it difficult to understand either. Moreover, the somewhat odd voice acting (does Proog really have to stutter all that much?) makes it difficult to understand the emotion one is supposed to be getting from a particular scene, much less WHY they are feeling those emotions. I could be missing some Netherlands culturally-specific cues, but I doubt it. That said, the music is gorgeous, although it also has the unfortunate distinction of being one of the only elements of the film to be made with "closed" software.
Still, the overall end result is that of what could be called a competitive - and beautiful - short film, made almost entirely with software that is open-source. The implications for the film industry - and indeed, for the average Joe - are huge. Ultimately, although I might have irks with the film, I still thoroughly enjoyed it, which is more than I can say for a LOT of big budget Hollywood films. - bartv, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11Sorry, but this is incorrect. Only the music is made using 'closed' software. For the rest, *everything*, including the compositing and editing, was done with Open Source software.
- mikeazorin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10"what if the website goes offline due to a digg effect? "
Torrent Love! - goldenratiophi, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9Been waiting for this for a long time.... dugg!
- templest, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8>> When I get home, I will seed this for a LONG time. I have a dedicated "Seed Machine".
I call mine, "The Ole' *****-n'-Balls"
(No, really... I have a server for torrents, sites, games, etc, on a 100Mbps connection. I'll be donating some b/w too, and it really *is* called that. Someone brought that joke up after I unwittingly called it a "seed machine" myself. It became it's christened name). - o0joshua0o, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9Blender is such a fantastic program. Anyone interested in 3D animation should definitely check it out.
- knellotron, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8The Elephant is only in the title, and the leads are 2 human characters, who have a very stylized design. The only actual "animals" in the film are actually mechanical.
- jpf., on 10/12/2007, -0/+8Make sure to leave your client up for a while, this is a project worth donating some bandwidth to.
- Criterion, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Looks like everybody that's responded so far has had their sarcasm detector switched off.
- snozle, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7The entire purpose of a torrent is to alleviate bandwidth costs, why wouldn't they put their largest (HD) file up as a torrent, but their smaller one? It makes no sense, If anyone has downloaded the movie in HD please make a torrent.
- Vokas, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7You use the word incredible to easily. Getting hit in the face by a meteor and surviving...that's incredible, them using Final Cut, not so much.
- spiderworm, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9I can't wait to play with those production files... dugg!
- artofwot, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6I'm glad that this made it to the front page.
I've been following the development since the beginning - once the sight is back up you can read some of the blog posts they were making during production.
The main benefit from this film has been that tons of new features have been added because of this project - the node editor, hair, etc.
Ton, the leader of the Blender project has already hinted that they may make another movie with only opensource software. - spyres, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6----many blender-files will not open...
You'll likely need to wait for upcoming 2.42 release which includes the features used by the Orange team.
http://www.blender.org/cms/Changes_since_last_ver.727.0.html - superal1394, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7Digg seems to have a way of killing websites...
- templest, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6"You use the word incredible to easily. Getting hit in the face by a meteor and surviving...that's incredible"
Goddammit! You're the second person on this site to make me belly a laugh into the mic while taking a call at work. Bastards. - rimco, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6The website has been changed to nothing but links anyway due to traffic, so a link is no big deal.
- Pakocino, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7Characters looks bad and voice are terrible but the environment is superb. Some scene are really nifty.
- 5blocksfree, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6This quite an awesome accomplishment, and deserves all due accolades. It's a first, and perhaps it might spark the trend for a new way of looking at media. Bear in mind, that you can still buy the DVD (which will help support the Blender Foundation), where you get the entire content that was used to produce the movie - the models, textures, music, everything.
- templest, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6@ Loyke & actorboy,
I have a time travel machine I can sell you for $59.99 each.
The crystals cost extra though. - int19h, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6I bought the DVD, and received it two days ago. However, I was very disappointed, since it's a very short movie, the voices are crap, many blender-files will not open and most of all, the story is terrible. The really cool part about this, is that if you don't like the movie, you can mix all the components, and make a better one yourself. Congrats to the Orange team for having the initative and courage to start this, work on this and finish this. Oh, and many of the 3d-scenes look superbly nice.
- ChiTownHero, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6The Human eye has been trained since birth to recognize human skin and action. In a world where we are close to photo-realistic 3D animation but have an unaccepting audience that yells for Realism Now, studios are forced to use characters that are based in the imagination. Besides, its Animation, why bother using humans when you have have a singing purple banana =P
- tobsterius, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Just watched it.
The rendering, textures, modeling, and lighting were all well done but the character animation and voice work were only OK. Other than that, it was a big undertaking and the team produced a really well done animated short.
But what is it about? I'll admit, I'm a bit confused on what exactly took place.. :)
This is just my opinion, take it for what you will.. - DeckMonster, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Animals are easier to make look "good" in CGI than humans are. Same goes for toys, bugs, cars, aliens, superheroes, etc. The state of the art just hasn't quite progressed far enough to make photo-realistic human CGI characters. Most of them still have a vaguely creepy quality about them.
- dude3609, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5weird..blender is a big site.. didnt think it would go down like that. It might be down for some other reason besides digg.
Cache: http://blender3d.org.nyud.net:8090/cms/Home.2.0.html - datagod, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5When I get home, I will seed this for a LONG time. I have a dedicated "Seed Machine".
- Cheeseness, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5A lot of people may disagree with me, but I believe that Blender's learning curve is significantly less if you don't have experience with another modeler like Max or Lightwave. It doesn't use the same conventions or paradigms, and I feel that in many ways, Blender is more intuitive.
- iSEPIC, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5It's just "odd".
- NotBlaine, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Blender has become a fantastic program. For years I was a Max user and Blender was, at best, a toy. With the last handful of releases it's become a very valid and powerful tool. The addition of cloth/soft body dynamics, static particles (to simulate hair and fur) and fluid simulation has made it very respectable in my book. I've pretty much become a convert.
That said, the built in materials and renderer leave a lot to be desired but YAF-RAY and Pixie and the like give you Sub Surface Scattering, Photon Casting and HDRI support. A very very cool program.
Why the HD link was never made into a torrent... I'll never know. - Cosmosis, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Mirrors of the video:
[AVI, MPEG4 (mp42) / AC3 5.1 Surround]
http://rr.download.xferla.com:65530/mirror/elephantsdream.org/ED_1024.avi
[QuickTime, H.264 / AAC Stereo]
+ 1024x576
http://rr.download.xferla.com:65530/mirror/elephantsdream.org/elephantsdream-1024-h264-st-aac.mov
+ 768x432
http://rr.download.xferla.com:65530/mirror/elephantsdream.org/elephantsdream-720-h264-st-aac.mov
+ 512x288
http://rr.download.xferla.com:65530/mirror/elephantsdream.org/elephantsdream-480-h264-st-aac.mov - kimos, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5It's cause the site's dugg. It didn't send me most of the images or the CSS file. Just some HTML.
Check it later... - slapout, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4If anyone's interested in playing with Blender but is having a hard time with the interface, go here: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Blender_3D:_Noob_to_Pro
Read the tutorial called "Become Familiar with the Blender Interface". It really helped me get started using Blender. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4OK WTF?.. I dont' get it. Someone please explain WTF I just watched.
So their in a machine and emo gets knocked out. Where is the plot to this video?
Am I missing something? - williamager, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I was disappointed with the technical aspects as well - the character animation was horrible, especially in the first scene, where Proog moves around with seemingly no mass. Lipsyncing was off as well. The visuals were very nice, and the typewriter dance was well done, but even some of the background had problems (especially in the first scene).
That said, I liked the plot quite a bit. The meaning of the film is left very much open to interpretation. I saw it as being like the machine in Forbidden Planet, with Proog _making_ all of the dangers in order to make Emo fear and respect the machine, so that Emo will be careful when creating things himself. Proog is also very obsessed with communication devices, making all of his traps involve them, yet is always imploring Emo to pay attention to him, and to listen to the machine, which I still do not quite understand! But I believe there are other completely different interpretations as well - I thought I read one which posited that Proog was guiding Emo through traps he had made long before, and I believe the website said something about Proog guiding Emo to some place in particular. - Ginjeet, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5This is so great! C'mon lets get this 2k+ diggs ;)!
- jbreckman, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6A movie's merit should not be determined by anything other than the contents of the movie.
If George Lucas just made Star Wars: Episode I, without having made the first three movies, Episode I would have tanked in the theaters. Instead it made $430 million. Same thing with episodes II and III. I know most people hated them, but some people genuinely did like them. However, anyone that liked them only did so because of the references back to the original star wars. The movies wouldn't have made any sense by themselves.
If this movie was shown at a film festival, without any fanfare about how it was made, would anyone blink an eye?
I applaud people for creating open source media, however, with the amount of attention this seems to be getting, I wonder if it would have been better to wait, and produce a GOOD movie. - djmiller, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5There are bittorrent files here:
http://orange.blender.org/download
They are multiple sizes to choose from as well different audio options.
Here is a direct link to the largest size video with aac audio:
http://tribler.org/content/Elephants_Dream_1024-h264-st-aac.mov.torrent - spyres, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4----A lot of people may disagree with me, but I believe that Blender's learning curve is significantly less if you don't have experience with another modeler like Max or Lightwave.
Blender 3d is the first and only3d program I've ever learned and I didn't find it any more difficult than say autocad, photoshop, or illustrator. People just get used to a certain paradigm with other programs and then anything that doesn't match that paradigm becomes "hard" for them. - jordan314, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4http://duggmirror.com/movies/Elephants_Dream,_the_Open_3D_Animated_Movie_Released_On-line
- rojaro, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6Why do so many people believe, just because a movie is CG or animated "it's probably for kids". No this is not a movie for kids. Even most 16 year old kids will not understand it. Go, watch it yourself (without the kid) and you'll understand, then go watch "Ghost in the Shell", "Akira" and "Ninja Scroll" (also without the kid).
- E@zyVG, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4http://linux.wordpress.com/2006/05/19/elephants-dream-world%e2%80%99s-first-open-movie/
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