Announcement #6: Final Presentation Premiere!
Announcement #5: Conceptualizing the Final Animation
Announcement #4: Closing Post
Announcement #3: Blog, Syncing Saga & More
Announcement #2: Updates & Loose Ends!
Announcement #1: Collab2021 has officially begun!
#Collab2021 is focused on stylized, low-poly, fantasy environment creation! Specifically this gorgeous illustration by Vadim Zaitsev:
You can find more from Vadim on artstation.
Through April we will be creating a comprehensive 3D version of this environment and we need a committed team to make it a reality! If you’re not sure what this Collab format is all about, check out the blog article first. If you know what you’re getting into, continue reading about how to register and what the schedule will look like.
Collabs are open to all Citizen members (membership is required to participate). You need to be subscribed by April 5th and remain subscribed through May 4. You're welcome to subscribe earlier so you can access the recommended courses listed below. This option could be helpful for focusing on learning from content before the collab begins at which point you can focus primarily on applying what you've learned.
Collabs don’t have an official web page or system built into our site. Instead it’s facilitated through the Forum, Live Streams, and Google Docs. Fill out this form to register for the Collab. This will give us insight into how many people are interested, the skill levels involved, and some other info that’s helpful before we get underway.
The last day for registration is April 5th. After April 5th the team will be closed! [evil laughs]
As with any production, one can only plan so much before unanticpated things come up. That’s to say we will be at the mercy of the project and the content could change as needed. Schedule should remain the same though.
Goal: Since we’re working within a low-poly, stylized (simplified) genre I think we could finish all the modeling in the first week. For most assets in the scene the modeling is straight forward. For trees and bushes it’s a little different. I highly recommend using the Sapling Addon included with Blender) as taught in the stylized forest course. Similarly clouds will be a unique asset to tackle; something we will need to brainstorm as a team.
Stream 1: April 6th @ 1pm US central time
Helpful Content:
Week 1 Homework Due: April 11th by midnight
Goal: It’s possible that sculpting will be the next step for some assets (ex: rocks) and not for others (ex: trees). If your asset doesn’t need sculpting then your task this week is UV layout and texture painting a color map. If your asset needs sculpted detail, you can do that in addition to the UV layout and texture painting. By the end of the week we all should have our completed model painted with a color map and sculpting done if applicable.
Stream 2: April 13 @ 1pm US central time
Helpful Content:
Week 2 Homework Due: April 18th by midnight
Goal: This should be an easier week than the first two. Since the style is simplistic, the material can also be simplistic. It can also be more complex if one is so inclined. Things like procedural texture accents, procedural water, randomization of the same material across multiple objects, etc. Additionally we will dip our toes into lighting. At the very least we need to implement lighting in a way that informs our material qualities. At the most I want us to light our asset in a standalone presentation, as if you were presenting it to a supervisor for approval.
Stream 3: April 20 @ 1pm US central time
Helpful Content:
Week 3 Homework Due: April 25th by midnight
Goal: As with most productions, the last stretch is the most unpredictable and often results in a lot of problem solving. I expect this week to be a smorgasbord of tasks from catching up / putting final touches on assets, assembling the final environment together, polishing lighting and atmosphere, and who knows what else.
Stream 4: April 27 @ 1pm US central time
Helpful Content:
Week 4 Homework Due: May 2nd by midnight
With the project officially complete, this stream is meant to be a celebratory bookend. We will revel in our hard work and discuss a post-mortem: What worked well, what could be improved next time.
Of course communication is key for effective teamwork. To facilitate this we will utilize a network of forum threads.
Discord: Our resourceful Team Leads have setup a discord server for us! The server features channels for each team including audio + video capability.
Discord is best for LOW LEVEL communication since it’s the easiest, quickest way to communicate. By “low level” I mean casual, small-consequence discussion. The main negative of persistent chat is its brief nature; comments appear and then immediately get buried. This is fine for the majority of our discussions (let’s say 75%) but we want to avoid important info getting buried.
HIGH LEVEL communication is the important stuff that shouldn’t get lost in a persistent chat. Please keep high level discussion like protocols, announcements, lengthy troubleshooting and idea pitches on the forum threads listed below.
HQ Forum Thread: This thread is the foundation of our communication structure as denoted with "HQ" in the title. Discussion here should be broader in context; having to do with the project as a whole. It's the place I will be posting important announcements for everyone involved. It's also ideal for general questions about the project and light-hearted "water-cooler talk" for the team. Things like encouragement, inspirational info / artwork, relevant memes. I love memes.
It's NOT ideal for *specific* things like questions pertaining to a certain part of the environment, WIP of individual parts, or person-to-person discourse.
Team Threads: If more than 30 members register for this project we will divide into sub-teams. Each sub-team will collectively tackle a group of related assets and will be lead by a member (most likely contributors from #collab2020). Each team will have a dedicated forum thread for specific discourse pertaining to their parts. Same guidelines as the Central Thread but with a specified topic.
Individual Homework Threads: Each contributor is required to create a thread for themselves for posting homework confirmation at minimum. This is also where any discourse about your specific part happens. You're encouraged to treat it as a work-in-progress (WIP) thread, posting updates about your work as you go.
Direct Contact: Tagging is ideal for directly contacting me or anyone involved with the project. Tag me (@theluthier) with questions or advice in any of these threads. I guarantee I will be checking my notifications regularly every Monday-Thursday throughout the duration of the project.
Of course the more people that register the less accessible I will become for direct / lengthy conversation. This is where sub-team leaders will be invaluable. If we break into sub-teams please contact your leader first, then me second.
Livestream Chat: The realtime interactivity of streams is another great way to communicate. Taggin works there as well along with an additional tool: Typing "[Q]" in the chat adds a blue "question" label to your post. This makes it easier for me to spot direct questions for me to answer while streaming.
DISCLAIMER: These guidelines are only intended to streamline the challenging task of communicating globally across the internet. They're not meant to create a tense atmosphere of rules! We're a relaxed, reasonable bunch of Blender heads. If you don't know where you're supposed to ask a question, go ahead an ask somewhere and you'll be answered or kindly directed to the right place if applicable.
Everyone working from the same project directory is important for a production like this. From linking models back and forth to sharing texture maps, it's a must for a smooth working experience. Further protocol like file naming conventions and saving files in the right place is necessary to avoid a confusing mess.
The following instructions are depending on you syncing the project's Google Drive folder to your local computer. If you haven't done that yet, please check the Announcement 2 post for instructions.
For this project I want to make the process as simple as possible for participants. To achieve this I've come up with a "plug-n-play" system. Basically I will save a placeholder .blend file in both the WIP and MODELS folder for each participant by including their username in the filename. Once the placeholder is present, each participant saves their work into the MASTER collection within the scene and that's it! I take it from there.
I covered this concept in the Week 2 stream but here's a set up step-by-step instructions as well:
How much time am I expected to commit to this project?
We stress commitment because it's the best to ensure A) the project succeeds and B) lasting skills are learned. We only expect you to commit as much time as you can. DO NOT commit full-time hours to this project (8 hrs a day). As the instructor, I should be the only one doing this.
Everyone else (sub-team leads and contributors) shouldn't need to apply more than 2 hrs per day to the project. It's all relative depending on your availability and skill level. If you can't afford 2 hrs per day you can pick a simpler asset. If you have more time to contribute then perhaps choose a more complex asset. It's up to your discretion.
If you only have 2 weeks available in April, that's OK! Just let me or your sub-team lead know and it's all good.
How do I tag someone?
Like twitter and instagram you simple type "@username" to tag someone. Tagging fires a notification to this person. Everyone's username is either A) in parentheses beside their display name or B) substituted if they don't specify a display name:
What service do we use for syncing files as a team?
We used Google Drive last year and it worked pretty well. Syncing our files to the cloud proved to be a crucial way for everyone to stay up-to-date conveniently. Since we lean heavily on library linking, it's imperative that we all be up-to-date. Google Drive is very accessible too; most people have an account anyway.
If you don't have one, sign up to get 15GB of storage for free. That should be plenty of storage for our project.
I know people are hesitant to sign up with Google but a burner account just for this project isn't too invasive, right? Otherwise Mega drive could be a good alternative since it offers 50 GB for free.
What if I'm not available at the time livestreams are broadcast?
Unfortunately the stream time can't be ideal for everyone. If you're not able to watch the stream live, I will post the recording within 24 hours of broadcast.
When is homework due exactly?
Homework is due every Sunday @ midnight each week. This means whenver your midnight is; relative to your timezone. This gives me each Monday to review homework internally before streaming on Tuesday. Please adhere to this deadline as late submissions can really stunt the flow of the schedule.
Can multiple people volunteer for and build the same part?
Yes! Early volunteers will have the best chance at picking a unique part but eventually parts will be assigned to multiple people. Of course we can't feature multiple of the same part for the final scene so the best execution of each part will end up in the final.
Are we bound to also 1 asset or if there is spare time can we even go for a second or third piece?
You're not limited to 1 asset. I'd love to see contributors challenge themselves with multiple assets, as several did last year. This gives contributors the ability to define their own scope of participation: If someone is newer to Blender they can choose one asset. If someone is more experienced they can choose multiple assets.
Who “owns” the final project?
Technically CG Cookie owns the project but the final project will be released freely as Creative Commons (CC-BY-4.0).
Can I feature my work from Collab2021 in my online portfolio and / or demo reel?
100% yes! Contributors are welcome to use/share visuals from the project to social media accounts, online galleries / portfolios, and featured in demo reels.
We need to figure out how to get into the head of our concept artist/creator and into this Spice Vendor World in a big way if we are going to pull this off the way you envision it.
I might as well start off by studying spices and spice vendor world and old carpentry/masonry (for my teams part anyway)
It just so happens this particular artist describes how he goes about creating such immersion:
https://80.lv/articles/joel-zakrisson-mastering-3d-art/
I don't think everything applies in this project but I learned some important takeaways reading how he goes through the main process and then builds on it later.
Thanks!
A way to directly jump to the Answer would be really really helpflull here.
Just spend about 10 Minutes searching for this post....
Hello Cookies
You are all extremely motivated and communicative.S o much power in this thread :).Not very easy to follow here.
So I guess the communication will be my biggest challenge.
I am not a native speaker, so I guess I need a lot of time for reading all these stuff ( and understand).
Communication and Questions will also be a challenge because sometimes I´m even not be be able to describe a Blender problem in my own language.
There are way too much to read- my poor brain - so I hope there will be some time for blender.
I like the stylized theme very much and did the seashack tutorial recently.
But especially I`m very exited about the teamwork and communication and I have no experience with google drive so far.
With wise foresight I decided for the assets accessories, so I hope I can handle blender and communication;)
So this is going to be an interesting project for me.
See you at the live stream:)
rrstich Agreed. I'm also having frustrations with the "New Reply" notifications and a few other quirks of the CG Cookie website. You're not alone.
Not really very useful, because when you have to look up a shortcut, then that is very slow of course, but a lot of people ask for something like a cheat sheet for shortcuts....
So here's a secret tip:
Download 2.93 (experimental!) and in the Preferences > Addons enable Testing and scroll to the bottom:
Not yet complete, but fun and it seems to respect your Keymap Settings (luckily, wouldn't be of any use otherwise...).
Ill leave my fate in the hands of the great wizards to decide what part i get assigned to :D really look forward to the stream today. See you all soon
I think you all nailed it with the details and as 
ullreym say's the camera angle.
For me the icing on the cake is the detailed colour (proper spelling), notice in the lower image from 
dostovel the roof tiles, the variation in colour, also on the wall, the rocks etc. etc. whereas the other is blocks of colour, the leaves on the trees are one shade of green, the rocks are all the same base colour. The first image's texturing highlights the low poly look, the second is a combination of low and high poly, the building is fairly low poly (I'm not entirely convinced it's even classed as low poly, we would need to see the wireframe), but the trees with all the leaves are high poly. It actually works to serve the purpose of conveying high detail in the overall image.
The cherry on the cake is the artist's passion for their art and vision when starting a piece, so two cherries on this cake.
I'm not much of a fan of blanchsb 's example. The use of image textures in this example in particular looks to me like someone has cut images out of a magazine and made a collage. I know this is a style in itself but it's not for me.
I think in that first example you linked dostovel that the modelling is sweet, but as the others have mentioned the presentation could really bring it to life. The biggest thing that stands out to me is the lighting - it seems very sharp shadows from probably one light source? but the reference isn't lit like that at all. I see a shaft of light highlighting the centre hut, and there's a nice warm glow from the lanterns and the hut itself - I fee it conveys comfort and cozyness.
It got me thinking to Kents forest course, do you remember the lessons where the lighting and atmosphere are added - and you go from quite an unappealing scene to something quite incredible.
Birds in the sky, leaves fluttering through on a windy day, some atmosphere - maybe things like this can help with our piece.
You will be fine, any problems just ask and we can take a look via the google.
Have you seen the thread on how to drive the google and blanchsb 's explanation, if not you can FIND IT HERE
Thank you for the link. yes, I found it and it is very helpful.
(As I said-lots to read ;) )
@theluthier I'm processing the approach to use for the background and was wondering on the texturing and shading stage, are we to be texture painting or are we free to use procedural shaders?
I thought of your livestream series Creating simple EEVEE environments in Blender the one with Melvin on the beach with his surf board, when you created the islands in the distance, I feel this approach gave a perfect effect for the distant background, but I do remember you trying to use real world scale and the islands where some way off from the focus of Melvin and the beach. Are you ok with a large scene? And the procedural approach, adjusting the shape of the island on the fly with the 'dynamic' procedural shader updating with each adjustment.
I'm thinking about mountains in the far distance and the background bushes and trees in the mid distance and then spikeyxxx team with the foreground, but I am concerned of the effect of the end result of any camera fly through of the scene. It maybe ok if the camera stays low to the ground.
Any thoughts from anyone?
Silly idea, but maybe we could invent some kind of LOD system and combine procedural techniques with hand -painted textures.
Like hand-painting a seamless texture, making it into a 3D texture and then scaling it according to the Camera distance, something like this:
jakeblended Dude I got you covered. How's about working on the walls (I'll assign you now but just DM me or @ me if you want one of the other options today)?
That's an advanced task according to SpiceFather Trammell
vincav81 and rrstich your pains are definitely felt by the community. We will roll with the punches but y'all are always welcome to offer up new options for your own teams if you find better ways to collaborate as a group.
We had similar issues last collab but it didn't stop us. Just about every production pipeline has to overcome similar communication challenges. Ours is very similar. We are voicing our concerns as a community and Nick is trying to figure out how to make it better I hear. Just may take some time trudging through the mud. Don't let it stop us though. We'll get into smaller channels once the production kicks off and things will be more relevant for each member in their teams.
Spikey thinks brilliance is silly. I guess that's what you get when you grow up in Einstein's backyard.
Good thing there is google translate (to help with the easy stuff). I admire you wanting to cross language barriers to be apart of this mmonaloren
Due to an apparent sudden interest in a discord server for this collab project I wonder if people are interest in at least interacting on dedicated team channels there.
I have the know-how to set something up but I would need a good amount of votes to set something up "unofficially but officially"
If you heart the idea of chatting on discord as you work out ideas then give a heart. I think I need to see a large amount (30-50 hearts) to consider this a community interest.
This would not replace the dedicated channels on the forum for each team. But may help with some real-time communication that the forum cannot provide.
Cast your votes/hearts and we'll see how many people are interested in this. I'll leave voting up through Thursday perhaps?
Is there any way to get varying levels of detail in the geometry without firing up the game engine from Blender 2.79?
