11 Second Club - Forums

oakcee · 10-06-2010 12:37 pm

"What are friends for?" is a personal 6 minute short film.

My name is Darren Oakes, for the last 10 years I have worked as an animation generalist. I work in both CG and digital hand drawn, the majority of my work is character based. Examples of which can be viewed here www.darrenoakes.co.uk. Over the last 4 years I have been developing and slowly producing a 6 minute short film. Although I have persevered with this on my own over this time. That was never really my intention, people have been involved in the past. Yet all have found it difficult to give up there personal time, which is understandable.

I have no funding for this which is one of the reasons I have tried to carry on with this on my own. I could really do with some help to get this into animation production. I have done all the story development, character design, development and art direction so pre production has been finished for the last year or so.During the last year I have done the 2 character models, I have modelled all the sets and done all the development for the look of the film.

The area I need the most help with is on the technical side of the characters. I have some knowledge of rigging and facial setup due to the commercials I have worked on and produced. I understand this is probably the most difficult area to get people involved but I really need some help.There are 4 characters in the film although 3 share the same rig there are only 2 unique rigs to create. I have an autorig for the body that, with the tests I have done, would be usable for my characters. I basically need a Maya technical artist/rigger with some knowledge of facial setup and character deformation to get the characters ready for animation either using the autorig or a rig created for the characters. I would also be interested in speaking to texture artists who would be able to help out. I am not looking for animators for this project.

All I can offer in return is credit for the work done. Hopefully the examples above are enough to intrigue people to get involved. I have a full hand drawn animatic of the film which I'd be happy to show people with serious interest in helping me out. I know this is'not the busiest part of the forum but if I don't put this out there it may take me forever to get this finished.

Thanks for taking the time to look.

Last edited by oakcee (10-10-2011 7:25 pm)

michaelcawood · 10-10-2010 2:00 pm

Looks interesting Darren.

Of course you're trying to recruit in two of the most difficult areas to attract volunteers. You'll find it really helps to build up momentum across the board on the production before you are likely to get a lot of help in those areas (i.e. start to recruit in easier areas as well). Plus I found that most people want to work with other talents that are going to support their work and make it look good... so my top tip is to do at least 10% of the specific technical tasks you have in mind yourself. I find that most of the volunteers in any given category arrive after you've done the job for them or at least got it started (which is the hardest part). So you may just have to bite the bullet and learn a few things in areas you want to recruit.

Good luck though, I'm curious how you get on.

oakcee · 10-11-2010 3:09 pm

Thanks Mike,

I have waited a long time to start asking for help. I'm in a good position, in that, If I never get anybody to help I can do every part of the process myself. I have to do this for the commercials I work on and am comfortable doing this. The film has everything in place. All development is done including story, characters, art direction and a pretty much fully animated rough 2D version of the film. All modelling, UV's and body rigs are done, as well as all the look development.

The major reason I've done this callout is just to speed up the process. I'm happy to pass on things like character deformations and even facial rigging. Although I can do this myself I would rather spend time on some other things if possible. The few technical tasks and some texture painting are the only things left that I could get help on.

I've had a much better response than I thought I would get. As you know yourself that may not materialise into anything, but it's been really positive. My main problem is a lot of people are TD's and want to create things from scratch. I have pretty much everything in place, rigging workflows etc. so it's probably more Technical Artist type work. I know you've used TSM and TFM, which you have developed further for your needs. How did people react to that, did you find some resistance to using autorigging stuff from TD's? Luckily I have some people who are willing to to work within these constraints.

Thanks for all the advice both here and in your podcasts.

You never know, we may cross paths on the festival circuit in the future.

michaelcawood · 10-12-2010 3:32 pm

A few TDs did want to do everything themselves, and even make their own autorigging system but I had to look at it from a wider perspective. If they let the project down in anyway then it could either have delayed the project significantly or worse still shackled us with bad or inconsistent rigs. It just wasn't worth the risk. At the end of the day I did most of the core body and face myself with TSM and TFM and relied on custom additions from key team members and some other tricks I learned along the way myself. That kept the risk managable.

I still made the mistake of waiting way too long for some team mates to deliver (or fail) before taking it back myself and doing it (I'm too nice). Ultimately modeling and rigging took most of a year, largely because I'm not a modeler and I didn't start out as a fully fledged rigger either. I just wish I'd not waited so long for others to try and fail, but you can never tell who are going to be the super-stars so you have to take the risk sometimes and give them their space.

ankitgokani · 11-16-2010 11:12 am

oakcee wrote:
Thanks Mike,

I have waited a long time to start asking for help. I'm in a good position, in that, If I never get anybody to help I can do every part of the process myself. I have to do this for the commercials I work on and am comfortable doing this. The film has everything in place. All development is done including story, characters, art direction and a pretty much fully animated rough 2D version of the film. All modelling, UV's and body rigs are done, as well as all the look development.

The major reason I've done this callout is just to speed up the process. I'm happy to pass on things like character deformations and even facial rigging. Although I can do this myself I would rather spend time on some other things if possible. The few technical tasks and some texture painting are the only things left that I could get help on.

I've had a much better response than I thought I would get. As you know yourself that may not materialise into anything, but it's been really positive. My main problem is a lot of people are TD's and want to create things from scratch. I have pretty much everything in place, rigging workflows etc. so it's probably more Technical Artist type work. I know you've used TSM and TFM, which you have developed further for your needs. How did people react to that, did you find some resistance to using autorigging stuff from TD's? Luckily I have some people who are willing to to work within these constraints.

Thanks for all the advice both here and in your podcasts.

You never know, we may cross paths on the festival circuit in the future.

well i can help u in texturing part especially bg part if u wanna c my wrk here is 1 of them
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=6 … =636177501
http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak- … 7745_n.jpg

#1 10-06-2010 12:37 pm

Technical Artist needed for short film.

#2 10-10-2010 2:00 pm

Re: Technical Artist needed for short film.

#3 10-11-2010 3:09 pm

Re: Technical Artist needed for short film.

#4 10-12-2010 3:32 pm

Re: Technical Artist needed for short film.

#5 11-16-2010 11:12 am

Re: Technical Artist needed for short film.

oakcee wrote:

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