What?
Snow Fall is my 3D animation fan film, based on the events in chapter "Snow Fall" in
Iain M. Banks' novel "Against a Dark Background". This chapter tells a story of a
young space pilot who is trapped in a badly damaged spaceship after a battle. I am
attempting to recreate this story in a computer generated short film.
Why?
I am a fan of Iain M. Banks' work, and I wanted to create a short 3D animation movie
within the sci-fi genre. Combining these two interests resulted in the idea for Snow Fall.
As this is my first computer graphics animation project I did not want an overly complex
scenario, yet I wanted the story and settings to also have a human element besides just
space ships flying about. I also wanted to try all aspects of computer graphics, including
character animation, lip syncing, etc.
How?
The modeling (except the pilot's head, which is a Poser object imported into C4D), texturing,
animation and rendering is all done using Cinema 4D software by
Maxon. In the teaser I also used Cinema 4D
for all the editing as well (I don't own any true video editing/post processing software,
and even if I did, I'm too lazy to learn other programs when C4D can do this as well,
if somewhat more awkwardly).
I also purchased AT&T Natural Speaking text-to-speech software, which I plan to use for the
voices of the main characters (yes, I am trying to keep the movie purely computer generated,
including the human voices!). For audio editing I use Cool Edit Pro, and for compression,
video/audio muxing and other technical stuff
VirtualDub.
When?
I have no deadlines planned for my project, it will take as long as it takes. I only work
on it during weekends and on my holidays. It might be ready in 2006, or so. I have now
been working on the project for about a year, and I only have most of the models created and
some animation clips rendered for the teaser.
Who?
My name is Patrick Aalto, and I am a programmer (or "software engineer" or something like that)
by profession. I have not had any training related to creating movies, I just one day (about two
years ago) decided that this is something that I would like to try. I have been searching for
information and references, purchasing software etc. since then.
If you have any comments or questions about Snow Fall, feel free to send me email to
ap@co.jyu.fi.
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