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Dance Fortress 2

Hey, decided to keep things in 1 thread rather than make a new one for my latest WIPS. I'm doing an immersive 1st person scene set in a fictional segment of half life 2 gameplay. Here are the 2 videos so far:

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NS4DzHHgejE[/ame]

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KODg-6wTzY[/ame]




OLD dance fotress OP below this point

OK guys, I finished it, and I feel it warrants a new thread :)

For people who never saw the old thread, I started a project to make a little short film where the team fortress 2 cast, you know, dance.


And it's done! I urge you to go watch it fullscreen HD, but here's the embed :)

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nds1T7U9FqY[/ame]

Hope you think it's cool,

Jay

Replies

  • Monkeez
    I liked watching your original WIP videos, but I don't know there's just so much going on at once it's hard to know where to look. I'm not sure how you'd fix it :S.
  • blankslatejoe
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    blankslatejoe polycounter lvl 18
    seems to me like they should all stop/idle and watch each other as the camera zooms on each one, almost dance-off style.

    Really fun stuff though.
  • urgaffel
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    urgaffel polycounter lvl 17
    This is made of win. And I love the wip videos. Maybe you can polish up the indivdual dances and put them up separately so we can enjoy the detail? Or we can just watch the wips and marvel :)
  • PLing
    I too feel that giving each character their own spotlight moment could have worked better. Besides that, I can only marvel at the quality of the animations.
  • achillesian
    seems to me like they should all stop/idle and watch each other as the camera zooms on each one, almost dance-off style.

    Really fun stuff though.

    definitely, it goes by too fast as it is right now, too many things to look at.
  • PatJS
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    PatJS polycounter lvl 9
    Man I just watched that thing over and over
  • Cerulean
    Awesome, I had to watch it several times to focus on each character. Heavy and Medic are perfect!
  • Malus
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    Malus polycounter lvl 17
    They aren't really choreographed to work well with each other in one shot so it gets a little busy.

    Its also a pretty uninteresting angle to pick, far away and straight on isn't used to do a lot more than establish shots, even then there's some camera movement and its only temporary.

    You could do wonders with some camera editing as you had in the start.

    Great idea though and I definitely think it s fun and has a lot of potential. :)
  • sltrOlsson
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    sltrOlsson polycounter lvl 14
    I like it! What bean said is true thogh, i had to look at it like 7 times to get what happend :P Like someone said, maybe zoom in on the characters interacting with each other.
  • Stromberg90
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    Stromberg90 polycounter lvl 11
    Agree with the others, the zooming you had in the beggining was realy nice, no reason why you shouldnt cary on with that ;)
    Animation is great btw :)
  • Neox
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    Neox veteran polycounter
    i dunno i kinda like that you have to watch it several times to see whats happening, listeing to the song at the end, its part of the concept and i like that!
    lovely stuff man, so much to see in there so many small details, really really nice
  • ıomeen
    It's great! It forces you to watch it again and again.
    Nice smooth and creative animation work.
  • kypo
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    kypo polycounter lvl 17
    I love this, had to watch it a few times to catch all the great animation!

    Well done man!
  • James9475
    Hey a lot of VERY valid criticisms here, the truth of the root of these problems is this:


    I specifically wanted the content to be as short as possible so ppl were more like to link/watch the whole thing. I very much wanted people to watch it over and over again to see everything (obviously this focus on NOT having a core central structure creates a host of negative issues).

    I animated the main middle chunk before doing the intro/outro and while that's just because I wasn't really sure what was gunna turn out with this project from initial proof of concept (it was kind of foggy if I would actualyl mange to make the necessary like, 8000 frames of complex animation) it definitely made it harder to realise the vision I had with the comic timing in the sort of 'transitions'.

    The camera was a case of wanting everything in shot (double edged sword) and a sort of panic near the end of 'oh fucking hell, can I actually GET everything in shot). A concept like a dance off, where they are individually shot, would make MUCH more sense from a storytelling perspective, but I didn't want to make people watch a 3 minute long video and get fatigued, and I had already gone so far with the stuff I had done that I could really switch concepts even if I had decided I wanted to.



    Will prob post more problems with it later
  • Stromberg90
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    Stromberg90 polycounter lvl 11
    Well i can see your point, but in my opinion i would rather watch a 3 min movie where i get to see everything, than a 1 min movie several times.

    I think it can be good to discuss this actualy, might provide some usefull info :)
  • Emil Mujanovic
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    Emil Mujanovic polycounter lvl 18
    Well i can see your point, but in my opinion i would rather watch a 3 min movie where i get to see everything, than a 1 min movie several times.

    I think it can be good to discuss this actualy, might provide some usefull info :)
    THIS!
  • Monkeez
    I guess it depends on the the viewer and what they like, but when you take into account that people have to watch it multiple times to see all the dances wouldn't it add up to the same amount of time to watch a longer video with the dances in sequence?
  • James9475
    Yeah that's definitely true. I think the difference is this:

    I think 90% of people will finish my video, where as I think 90% of people would not have finished a 3 minute video, even if they thought it was good (it's INCREDIBLY easy to click through things on the net, even good content).

    People are more likely to link smaller videos, or embed them in emails (a specific goal of this video was viral popularity). Giving the impression that something is packed with hidden depths is often deemed more impressive than a clear, well executed idea.

    I guess I wanted to play to the strengths and constraints of internet entertainment, where you're never a click away from a newer, more interesting thing. I genuinely think a 3 minute dance battle would have many ppl turning off half way through.

    Just giving you my thought process, I was in no way fully sucessful or correct in my decisions.
  • crazyfool
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    crazyfool polycounter lvl 13
    just saw this on Kotaku, flipping awesome :D
  • Noors
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    Noors greentooth
    gawd it's tf2 smash melee !
    Looking ace. Yeah the format can be debated but, assuming it's an animation demo, i think it's better to watch everyting than an editing.
  • roosterMAP
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    roosterMAP polycounter lvl 12
    simply amazing!!!

    downloading in HD and saving to my movie library. :)
  • Malus
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    Malus polycounter lvl 17
    James9475 wrote: »
    I think 90% of people will finish my video, where as I think 90% of people would not have finished a 3 minute video...


    I think you are selling yourself a little bit short man, its a fun idea.
    Hell I've watched dogs dancing the Samba on Youtube for longer than 3 minutes.

    ...it was funny because the dog...the dog was in a dress...and he...well...er... I digress... :poly144:


    My point is if someone can't give your work a mere 3 minutes are they the people you care about viewing your work?

    I guess it depends on your target audience. If it's for a job then go for quality over anything, if its to get famous on you tube then just wrap a cat in tinfoil. :D

    ...goes to find tinfoil...
  • doc rob
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    doc rob polycounter lvl 19
    I think it's great way of putting together the dances. If you had cut them together in sequence you would have needed to think of transitions and some sort of flow that brings it all together. This way, it's more interactive, you can click back through the video and try to discover new, fun little details.
  • Mark Dygert
    I think I'll press refresh and start again. Hot shit, nice work!

    EDIT: I think it's better to leave them wanting more, then to watch them leave you early...
  • James9475
    Malus wrote: »
    I think you are selling yourself a little bit short man, its a fun idea.
    Hell I've watched dogs dancing the Samba on Youtube for longer than 3 minutes.

    ...it was funny because the dog...the dog was in a dress...and he...well...er... I digress... :poly144:


    My point is if someone can't give your work a mere 3 minutes are they the people you care about viewing your work?

    I guess it depends on your target audience. If it's for a job then go for quality over anything, if its to get famous on you tube then just wrap a cat in tinfoil. :D

    ...goes to find tinfoil...

    Tbh it's for jobs too. In my experience people really don't want to wade through minutes of you, they want to know in about 15 seconds how good you are (in animation at least). Which was another part of the process (since this is now my showreel)
  • bern3d
    lol, they don't let the bazooka guy dance in peace :poly121:
  • VidGameDude
  • JFletcher
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    JFletcher polycounter lvl 13
    Watched it quite a few times, so damn awesome. Will have to watch it some more to catch all the stuff. :)
  • konstruct
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    konstruct polycounter lvl 18
    awesome dude! cool to see this come to an end result like that. Impressive indeed.
  • adam
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    adam polycounter lvl 19
    I love that I had to watch it multiple times and that its so short that this is an OK thing to have happen.
    AWESOME.
  • n88tr
    music was a huge turn off but I like the originality of the concept.
  • ikke_998
    Its awesome!
    You can watch it like 7 times and still discover some funny moves you haven't seen before!
  • Mezz
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    Mezz polycounter lvl 8
    I've been really enjoying watching the progress on this entire project, and really awesome to see it come to an end!! Congrats, this must have been a mind-blowing amount of work!!

    I agree that it would be nice to see them individually or a little closer, but it does succdeed in getting me to watch the video over and over again! I do wonder about the spot where they all hear the music and break into dance right away... it feels pretty unmotivated to me, like I don't understand why they're all dancing now. The awesomeness of the dancing certainly makes up for that, though :P

    Overall, I think this project came out a really huge success!! Amazing work, and all nitpicking over camera angles aside, I'm sure it'll get you a lot of great notice! :D
  • aeryis
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    aeryis polycounter lvl 10
    This is really cool! Love the animation. Would love to know your rigging style. :D
  • James9475
    aeryis wrote: »
    This is really cool! Love the animation. Would love to know your rigging style. :D

    Everything in this clip was animated with the standard max 9 biped, warts and all. I actually love the biped b/c it's so insanely fast to work with. Other than that, props were just a few bones, or just animating the geometry itself. Basically everything was done as simply and non-technical as possible b/c I had a LOOOOOOOOOOT to do, and I didn't have time to sweat a lot of tech stuff, every second needed to be spent animating.
  • AGuyCalledSpyke
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    AGuyCalledSpyke polycounter lvl 7
    The Soldier and the Scout were amazing, and the Engie - GENIUS!

    So... when's the Counter-Strike Version coming out ;)

    I kid, I kid
  • A-Train
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    A-Train polycounter lvl 15
    Man. You are awesome. I love this
  • XenoKratios
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    XenoKratios polycounter lvl 12
    Your the man now dog.

    (trust me this relates)

    [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ek60x4FWN3k[/ame]
  • snow
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    snow polycounter lvl 8
    my only concern, not sure if its been mentioned, but i don't like how they're already dancing before the music starts. maybe i'm going crazy?

    love it however, can't stop watching!
  • VidGameDude
    you have no idea the inspiration your putting into all of us.

    must...work...harder >_<
  • Behema
    Two versions plz!

    The short one is just too far away. IMO

    You could make everyone happy if you did a long version. It would also take it to a more professional level. More Cinematic.
  • James9475
    Hey, decided to keep things in 1 thread rather than make a new one for my latest WIPS. I'm doing an immersive 1st person scene set in a fictional segment of half life 2 gameplay. Here are the 2 videos so far:

    [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NS4DzHHgejE[/ame]

    [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KODg-6wTzY[/ame]
  • GoodDreams
    James9475 wrote: »
    Hey, decided to keep things in 1 thread rather than make a new one for my latest WIPS. I'm doing an immersive 1st person scene set in a fictional segment of half life 2 gameplay. Here are the 2 videos so far

    You know, Half-Life 2 was already amazing. I remember deeply anticipating it since I had loved the first one so much, and I think that if it featured this style of 1st person immersion from the beginning, it would have broken the universe. It feels very much like Mirrors Edge. I like how you brought the revolver out from the left hand and then aimed with both, it felt very fluid.
  • zxcman
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    zxcman polycounter lvl 10
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