Chrono Movies: Fleabane Trilogy

[tushantin]

This is a test for anyone doing Gladus.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RII9ceqAoxQ

Damn being sidetracked by BGs....

[jrobot]

I came across this project while researching Synfig, and I must say, I am truly impressed by the quality of all the work presented thus far, especially the visual assets.

I was wondering whether you were still looking for voice actors for any of the male characters. If so, I would be very interested in participating.

[tushantin]

Yup! We're still looking for male AND female voice actors.  For both, the animation and the Audio Drama.

Currently what we need are actors for the Goddess/narrator Gladus, the young Shaman Levant (male, although female voice with a higher pitch suits), and a 30 year old King named Ulfus. For now the most required ones are Levant and Gladus. If I can get Ulfus first, however, I'm willing to do the "Ulfus Flashback" scene first and then the rest.

[jrobot]

Thank you very much for your fast response. I wasn't exactly sure what approach to the characters you would prefer, so I tried several variations in the attached audition audio files.

[tushantin]

Duuuuuuuuude, it's gooooooooood!

You may be too old for Levant, but you've pulled off Ulfus quite well! Still a little more control over the modulation would be good.

Ulfus is usually a calm monk. The voice is perfect, but you'd need to stay consistent with the voice by staying calm in some scenes and angry and rebellious in others. If you can do that then you're in!

I'll send you a scene of Ulfus, from the first part of the script, via message.

[jrobot]

@tushantin: Thank you. I quickly tried two different variations of Ulfus (the youth and adult). Please provide me with any suggestions you might have for the emotion, tone, pronunciation, etc... and I will do my best to accommodate them. I noticed that when I made the voice even deeper, it started to sound a bit flat. You could try shifting the pitch down in a program like Audacity if you want to preserve the maximum emotion while making Ulfus seem older/gruffer.

P.S.
This is post 1 of 2
I split each attempt to a different file to get around the filesize limitation. For future reference, do you have a better way to exchange larger files (like an SFTP server, for example)?

[jrobot]

This is post 2/2.

[tushantin]

That's really impressive for the first time! I'm not sure if Cambyses is pronounced Kam-bee-sees (I've always pronounced it "Kam-bis-is"), but I'm pretty sure Choras is pronounced as "Kor-us". Though, correct me if I'm wrong.

I liked the way you pulled off the young Ulfus bit in 2/2 version, but not as I imagined it. Though no worries, I can always redraw him to suit the voice.

[jrobot]

@tushantin:

Thank you. Do you want me to send you a file with those pronunciation changes?

Also, I saw that you were looking for a system for particle animation and compositing. I don't know if you are still looking for some software for that, but if so, I would highly recommend Blender (which is both cross-platform and open source). While Blender is intended for 3d graphics, it includes a simple video editor; supports billboard animations (camera-facing sprites that have variable position, size, and opacity based on paths and forces that can be animated), cloth, hair, rigid bodies, smoke, boids, etc...; and contains a node-based compositor with similarities to Shake and Nuke.
Website: blender.org

While the Blender does not require coding, it does take a while to get used to its interface. If you provide me with some specifications as to what kind of particles you want, I can make some test footage for you.

[tushantin]

Yeah, that pronunciation changes would be great, thanks!

Hahaha I have known about Blender (Gosh, the little bugger's a celebrity now). I was actually seeking something like Combustion (and Jahshaka is something similar), but then again Blender's much more worth learning than anything currently.

To be honest, I can't seem to figure it out well, so I downloaded a whole bunch of video tutorials from the net. If you know Blender well then that's a bonus we can't afford to lose!

The particles and special effects I'm aiming for is quite 2D in nature; if it looks even the slightest 3D it might not look good with the rendered animation frames. But for the backgrounds that require 3D cameras we could improvise with no-shadow lights and textured flat BG or something.

Currently I don't require particles as of yet, but I'm interested in seeing what you can pull off. Can you make a footage of 2D fire in Blender? Is it possible to have animated textures in Blender?

[FaustWolf]

Whoa, this is some really excellent stuff jrobot! "Our lands...our culture..." The way you delivered the lines in the second MP3 really sent chills up my spine, and the change of inflection from the older version of the character to the younger version of the character was impressive.

Hah, I always had different pronunciations in mind for "Cambyses," "Choras," and other words as well, but the way jrobot pronounces them has a certain unique authenticity. When I listen to this, I imagine myself a student studying these words and realizing I've been mispronouncing them all this time upon hearing the words uttered by a freaking native Choran. Damn! That's hot. Have you done professional voice acting before jrobot, or are you trying to break into the industry? From the sound of it, Tushantin hauled in a real Merlin here.

Thought's short on time these days I know, but I'd love to see him lend a few voice samples to this project down the road too. I believe Thought entered a voice acting competition of some kind awhile ago, and put together a mean sample of a Wise Old Dude.

[Inwe Elanesse]

Oh!

XD This reminds me. A friend of mine recently sent me an audition for Ulfus, too. He doesn't have an account on here, and I see you guys all really like jrobot's take on him (which I really need to listen to! Where did I put my headphones...), but it's just something to consider.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=R3P1JI6E

Personally, I think his voice would be pretty good for it, but maybe I'm biased?

[jrobot]

@tushantin
I will be pretty busy over the next few days, but I definitely get the voice file to you by the end of the week. In the meantime, I did some experimenting with particles in Blender (I've been playing around with the program for several years, and while I have mainly focused on modeling and live-action compositing, I know my way around the interface really well). I have included two versions of potential flame/fire effects in this post, but I really don't know what style you are aiming for - it would be nice if you could send me a link showcasing the kind of special effects you want to use. I also tried out the new smoke simulator in the Blender 2.5 alphas that are in development, but the results I got varied between mushroom clouds and semi-photorealistic fire and took hours to render on my dual-core laptop with 8GB RAM. My last attempt consisted of billboards and sprites, but the ease of distinction between particles made me think of leaves rather than sparks.
I also threw in an interesting ring effect that might be useful for something.


@FaustWolf
You flatter me! I've done some acting and dramatic reading in the past, but the only voice acting I've ever done was for stop-motion animations I made when I was still in elementary school. Though art and drama are my main hobbies, I'm actually planning to study engineering and computer science.

[tushantin]

@FaustWolf: I wonder why Thought ain't interested in Voice Acting for teh movie. 

@Inwe: I guess I've heard that before, but hell we still need the guy. Inwe, would Des be interested in voice acting for Nobu, Sirius, etc.? Of course, he might need to modulate em a "little" differently for each character. XD

@jrobot: Dude, that's fantastic!!  THAT's the flame I've been trying to achieve all this time! Still looks a bit 3D-ish, but there's nothing wrong with it. As for third ring-like particles you've done, that's an awesome idea for some Auras or Miasma. Now if only the particles could have animated textures we could pull off FF7AC like auras (I can send in the animated textures and footage and you can particle-ize em).

When you say 8GB RAM I instantly assumed you're using 64bit Windows/Linux OS, and powered by OpenGL in Blender the rendering should be okay so long as you don't have millions of particles flying at one go (thus the animated textures).

[tushantin]

UPDATE! After a while of my break I'M BACK! Well almost. I'm stuck with a plot block in my novel that seems highly illogical, but what the hell...

Anywhos, the revisions of Act 1 are complete! It's now rock-solid. I'll message every project member the script. Those who haven't got it let me know. Those who are busy, do let me know.