Full Page Replies - Why?

[brianthainess]

3 hours ago, kwak250 said:

Hey! It’s been a while since I’ve posted-

Now, I have a consistent problem where I open my mouth intending to add just a sentence to a conversation and a nine-volume encyclopedia pops out instead. Accordingly, my attempt to answer the poster succinctly turned into a post-long response that I decided might as well just be a post, so here it is!

Thanks for your comment! You may be right that Spider-verse isn’t the best example, and certainly I wouldn’t hold it up as an example of the kind of production I intend to create--just as a very good example of stylized CG. I suspect that rendering in a stylized way, and making this style work with their existing methods, was quite expensive for SPI! I recall an artist who worked on Paper Man describing it as twice the work of ordinary CG. That's certainly a danger with stylized approaches--but I think it's an avoidable one.

The problem, it seems to me, is that you really can't approach this sort of production as if it were conventional CG, with a conventional methodology and pipeline, and expect to reap the cost benefits I think are potentially realizable with it. You'd have to treat this kind of production very differently.

For instance, you mention simulation as something that would be difficult with non-continuous motion, and you're quite correct. So simulation itself would be the first thing on the chopping block for the production, outside of the occasional FX shot. It's one of the many steps that gums up the works of CG production and prevents us from getting to that an-artist-can-sit-down-and-just-make-something state. Plus I generally don't like its results on an artistic basis (at least in this stylized context). When traditional animators animate clothed characters, the clothing takes part in the character's silhouette and becomes a part of the performance. They never had any difficulty animating cloth by hand.

Yes, I am actually claiming that hand-animating cloth would be faster then simulating it, and I know how insane that sounds from a conventional CG perspective. But stylization completely changes the game. Consider the monkey test I posted a few months back.

The monkey is unclothed, of course, but there definitely parts of his body that require secondary animation, notably his hair tufts and ears. The hair tufts at least would most likely be simulated if this shot were approached in a conventional manner. The way I approached the shot was not only to animate them by hand, but to animate them from the very beginning--the very first key poses I put down already included the ears and hair tufts as an inherent aspect of those poses, already contributing to silhouettes and arcs. It’s pretty difficult to get an accurate idea of exactly what percentage of my time animating the shot was devoted to them, but I’m going to guess it was only a few percent.

This is only possible because the stylized look allowed me to ignore the “higher frequency” details that would be required for a fully rendered character, and I expect these same details would also be unnecessary for character clothing. I’m much more interested in character silhouettes then I am in wrinkles and clothing detail, so some simple secondary that’s really just part of the character’s pose would actually be more effective.

The idea here is that this isn’t just any form of stylization--it’s a specifically chosen set of stylizations that support each other in the goal of massively reducing the amount of work involved. And that means choosing subjects that work with the grain of those stylistic choices. For instance, you may be wondering how I’d approach a long flowing cape or a long coat. The answer is...I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t generally put characters in long coats or capes. There are about a million stories you could tell that don’t require anyone to wear a cape. Creating low-cost CG in this manner would be about making the design choices that let you get the most bang for your buck production-value wise while maintaining the essentials of character animation, a very different goal then that which I suspect drives companies like SPI and Disney to create stylized CG.

This also applies to the NPR rendering. There are a lot of ways to approach this problem, and some may be very time consuming! The two-tone methods I’m using here aren’t, though. I was able, as an individual with some understanding of the problem but no custom tools, to sit down and do the shading for the Monkey test without much trouble. Partly this is again choosing the most direct path to something that both looks good and is efficient to create. The simple two-tone present in the monkey test carries far less detail then the more painterly frames from Spider-verse, but I think it wouldn’t have any difficulty supporting emotionally engaging characters or exciting action scenes.

That said, the efficiency of this process could be improved a lot, and there’s a lot of room for R&D here--there’s still a required level of manual tweaking that I’d like to get rid of, and the two tone shapes could be improved. I’m hoping to tackle some of those problems this year.

There’s still the question of how that process, however reasonable on a small scale, would scale up to a large production like a feature film. In many ways, it may help to think of the look development for such a production as being less like a conventional film production pipeline, and more like a game. Ideally, except for certain FX shots, such a production would not even have a rendering/compositing stage--what you would see working on the shot would simply be the shot. It might be quite literally “in-engine” if using a game engine as the hub of production turns out to be the right way to approach it (this is something I’m getting more and more interested in). While this doesn’t remove all potential issues with scaling the approach to feature film size, I think it does drastically simplify the problem. Of course, we haven’t actually produced a long-form project using these techniques, and I’m sure there are going to be unforeseen roadblocks, so we shall see!

In any case, thanks again for your comment! I hope this illuminates how I envision this production process being different from the way I imagine that Spider-verse is being done, and why I think that the immense cost gains I’m claiming here are achievable.

I didn't read a word.

[BigStar]

22 minutes ago, richard_smith237 said:

Some of us (myself included) type extremely quickly, thus longer replies may be normal as we are thinking and typing at the same time and filling half a page takes a matter of seconds. 

 

Very true. Me, I had an excellent typing teacher in the 10th grade: Mrs. Brown, bless 'er. Hated the course, but it was one of the most useful I ever had. Of course, I have a proper mechanical keyboard connected to a PC. 

 

Before posting via phone became ubiquitous, the average post was longer anyway.  Now most of our members have only a phone and peck while sitting on a barstool. I'd only type one line as well in that circumstance. It's the new norm.

 

Furthermore, the same topics always recur; there's very little new here. Having posted for years, I can easily copy an old post and paste it in. One tab on my online notebook contains references to old posts and standard replies going back years.

 

 

 

31 minutes ago, richard_smith237 said:

Conversely, there are others, perhaps many, who have a two second attention span and won't read posts longer than three lines - it usually these posters who end up with multiple posts which have to explain what was 'meant' in their previous two liner because they couldn't be bothered to make their comments clear.

 

Agreed. Short attention spans, low literacy, cognitive decline, meds.

 

Now we do have a few obsessive, garrulous posters with TDS; Global Economics bloviators; and the victims infected with the dreaded, brain-eating Whither Thailand? space monkeys. Takes time to address and to laugh at a dump of wrong-headed assertions AND to pre-empt their predictable weak counter-arguments.

 

However, it's a waste of time, so I also TRY to avoid reading long rants. Tempting though it is to have a laugh, a reply turns into a sort of denial of service attack on your attention. Endless bickering usually results.

 

 

 

[brianthainess]

46 minutes ago, Dolf said:

I gave up after 2 lines.

You did better than me. 

[Fat is a type of crazy]

47 minutes ago, Dolf said:

I gave up after 2 lines.

No probs. The post was about you not for you. 

[Dolf]

1 hour ago, Fat is a type of crazy said:

No probs. The post was about you not for you. 

Writing 200 words about a stranger is a sign of ...

 

 

[n00dle]

7 hours ago, EVENKEEL said:

You guys know who you are.

 

Hey guys, why do some of you think a full page reply is necessary? Are you so wrapped up in yourself that you imagine anyone cares to actually read all of it.

 

Then we have the guy who double spaces each sentence........

why would anyone feel the need start a topic about how others choose to interact online? 

[scottiejohn]

5 minutes ago, n00dle said:

why would anyone feel the need start a topic about how others choose to interact online? 

why would anyone feel the need to respond to start a topic about how others choose to interact online?

OOPS, I just did!

😆

[EVENKEEL]

15 minutes ago, n00dle said:

why would anyone feel the need start a topic about how others choose to interact online? 

And, here you are. See you replied with a one liner, good for you.

[HugoFastor]

One can easily state that anyone who writes a meaningful reply to this inane topic, either long or short, is both bored and lonely. Who can be arsed? Check yourself.

Edited March 3 by HugoFastor

[Gecko123]

The Johnny one-liners who clog up thread after thread with twenty to thirty "clever" retorts are far more annoying.

 

 

I always picture them with a bottle of beer in one hand.

 

 

Invariably they have low forum reputation scores.

 

 

Some of the "long-winded" posters the OP is complaining about have enviably high forum reputation scores.

 

 

How do you explain this discrepancy?

 

 

Some of these stylistic preferences have to do with ease of scrolling and typing on a desk top computer versus an i-phone.

 

 

Bit of an anti-intellectual book-burning vibe emanating from this thread, don't you think? 

 

 

Triple spacing between sentences was not done in order to annoy anyone. Honest.

 

 

 

Edited March 3 by Gecko123

[Fat is a type of crazy]

58 minutes ago, Dolf said:

Writing 200 words about a stranger is a sign of ...

 

 

Not about you solely. There's lots of people with fairly extreme views on this site that I don't see in my normal life. It's full on if you think about it. What's a little bit odd on this site is highly odd in Australia as you know.  

[Dolf]

2 minutes ago, Fat is a type of crazy said:

There's lots of people with fairly extreme views on this site that

Mostly just old guys letting off steam. I wouldn't take it seriously.

[Fat is a type of crazy]

7 minutes ago, Dolf said:

Mostly just old guys letting off steam. I wouldn't take it seriously.

Hope I don't become like that. No I know I won't. 

[still kicking]

6 hours ago, EVENKEEL said:

The gym is good for 2 hrs 5 days/wk

I don't think many 75- to 80-year-old go to the gym.

[Wobblybob]

7 hours ago, SAFETY FIRST said:

Maybe they should put the keyboard up for an hour a day and go to the gym. 

 

The daily gym routine is different at first, quite difficult to get use to but once you get in the swing of things it's so rewarding. 

 

 

Quite right and it help stops the brain going ting tong. 🏋️‍♀️

[Bangkok Barry]

6 hours ago, Dolf said:

50 words is enough. If you can't express yourself in under 50 words then you are just posting crap.

 

I guess you must be one of the 10-second attention span generation. Just imagine how uninformed we would be if all the stories we read in on-line newspapers only gave 50 word reports. That suits a lot of people, I guess. Just brush the surface. (45 words) I'd write more, but that would offend.

[Dolf]

Just now, Bangkok Barry said:

 

I guess you must be one of the 10-second attention span generation. Just imagine how uninformed we would be if all the stories we read in on-line newspapers only gave 50 word reports. That suits a lot of people, I guess. Just brush the surface. (45 words) I'd write more, but that would offend.

Who reads newspapers? 

[Bangkok Barry]

2 minutes ago, Dolf said:

3 minutes ago, Bangkok Barry said:

 

I guess you must be one of the 10-second attention span generation. Just imagine how uninformed we would be if all the stories we read in on-line newspapers only gave 50 word reports. That suits a lot of people, I guess. Just brush the surface. (45 words) I'd write more, but that would offend.

Who reads newspapers? 

 

Well, that would explain why so many on this site make fools of themselves by commenting on something without reading the full story via the on-line newspaper link first. (29 words)

[richard_smith237]

8 minutes ago, Dolf said:

Who reads newspapers? 

 

Those with more than a primary school standard education...   

[MangoKorat]

9 hours ago, EVENKEEL said:

You guys know who you are.

 

Hey guys, why do some of you think a full page reply is necessary? Are you so wrapped up in yourself that you imagine anyone cares to actually read all of it.

 

Then we have the guy who double spaces each sentence........

This is a public platform - without limits on post lengths. People can post as they see fit. You have the option not to read so I'd suggest your topic is pointless.

 

If you feel a post is too long, don't read it - simples!

[Dolf]

11 minutes ago, richard_smith237 said:

 

Those with more than a primary school standard education...   

You might want to follow the news (how ironic)

 

https://www.forbes.com/sites/bradadgate/2021/08/20/newspapers-have-been-struggling-and-then-came-the-pandemic/?sh=482533d12e64

[Mike Lister]

10 minutes ago, MangoKorat said:

This is a public platform - without limits on post lengths. People can post as they see fit. You have the option not to read so I'd suggest your topic is pointless.

 

If you feel a post is too long, don't read it - simples!

Exactly

[Dolf]

11 minutes ago, MangoKorat said:

This is a public platform - without limits on post lengths. People can post as they see fit. You have the option not to read so I'd suggest your topic is pointless.

 

If you feel a post is too long, don't read it - simples!

He did post as he sees fit. He won't be reading any long replies and neither will the majority. 

[MangoKorat]

Just now, Dolf said:

He did post as he sees fit. He won't be reading any long replies and neither will the majority. 

So what's the point of his post? Does he want to advise us of our freedoms? Or simply make pointless posts?

[richard_smith237]

1 minute ago, Dolf said:

He won't be reading any long replies and neither will the majority. 

 

Perhaps, people with such a short attention span and incapable of reading no more than two lines don't have anything intelligent to offer either...  

... just dumb links they don't understand because they also lack the attention span to read beyond the headline in those articles. 

[MangoKorat]

7 minutes ago, Dolf said:

You might want to follow the news (how ironic)

 

https://www.forbes.com/sites/bradadgate/2021/08/20/newspapers-have-been-struggling-and-then-came-the-pandemic/?sh=482533d12e64

Newspapers have been in decline for quite a while but its nothing to do with the length of their reports.  The main reason is that people's sources of news have become more readily available elsewhere - the internet!

[GammaGlobulin]

10 hours ago, EVENKEEL said:

Then we have the guy who double spaces each sentence........

 

 

Old habits....

Hard to break.

 

 

 

American PSYCHO Association, that is....maybe?

 

 

Edited March 3 by GammaGlobulin

[Dolf]

11 minutes ago, MangoKorat said:

Newspapers have been in decline for quite a while but its nothing to do with the length of their reports.  The main reason is that people's sources of news have become more readily available elsewhere - the internet!

The decline includes digital newspapers. People don't care anymore. They look at facebook or whatever.

[Dolf]

16 minutes ago, MangoKorat said:

So what's the point of his post? Does he want to advise us of our freedoms? Or simply make pointless posts?

He is saying if you write long posts most won't bother to read it all.

[EVENKEEL]

19 minutes ago, MangoKorat said:

So what's the point of his post? Does he want to advise us of our freedoms? Or simply make pointless posts?

If I can save just one human being from making a long boring post I feel it's worth it. For the sake of mankind. Brotherly love, no not the kinky kind.

 

 

35 minutes ago, MangoKorat said:

This is a public platform - without limits on post lengths. People can post as they see fit. You have the option not to read so I'd suggest your topic is pointless.

 

If you feel a post is too long, don't read it - simples!

You answered yourself in the first sentence, it's a public forum. You can thank me later.