Project Overview

Collab 2022 is a return to a modeling-centric team project. Here's the main points:

A spiritual sequel to the backhoe of 2020
We will be modeling a detailed MECH piece by piece, as accurately as possible to its real-world counterpart. However since huge mechs aren't real, the real-world counterpart is a plastic model kit.
In addition to the robot we will be building a HANGAR environment.
To facilitate a more realistic assembly animation we will need to design, model, rig, and animate machines to promote the illusion of our mech being assembled.
Also for the sake of a more compelling assembly animation, we will need to design and create an "endoskeleton" for the mech: the internal bits to complete the illusion.

Timeline

August 1 - September 30

The Collab period will span 2 months in the summer (9 weeks) and will be divided into 3 stages:

Pre-Production (Aug 1 - 14) -- The first 2 weeks will primarily be me and the Team Leads working out details, plans, and protocols for the project. I suspect we may stream some/all of these meetings or any Contributors that want to be in the loop.

Also this is kind of an optional period for Contributors to be a fly-on-the wall of preproduction. Meaning we will likely livestream all or most of our meetings which they can watch. Or they can wait until Aug 15 when production starts.
Production (Aug 15- Sep 18) -- These 5 weeks in the middle will be all-hands-on-deck! Everyone will be working together to create everything pertaining to the project.

Weekly livestreams, weekly homework submissions, weekly grading + feedback.
Post-Production (Sep 19 - 30) -- The last 2 weeks will be like the first, primarily me working with team leads to finalize loose ends of the production.

Contributors will be welcome to stay involved if they want! With collabs there's always a laundry list of left over tasks needed to finish these projects

2 Levels of Participation

For 2022 I initially decided to cap participation at 30. But the application has been live for less than a week and we have 39 applicants already.

So we’ve been brainstorming an alternative that would allow more people to participate. Essentially the pool of applicants will be split into 2 participation levels: Shell Team

They are virtually the same in every way except for one thing: Only Core Team receives direct grading and feedback each week for their work. Core Team is capped at the original 30.

Shell Team is uncapped (within reason) and open to all other Citizen Members interested in joining. Again the only missing component for Shell Team is NO weekly grading and feedback each week.

**Both Core and Shell teams are reserved for subscribing Citizen members.

Applying to Join

This year we’re implementing an application process instead of open registration like in 2021. My goal is to develop a more committed and more refined team.

Last year started with 133 registrations which dwindled to 80 actually submitting completed work. Going forward we want to see less falloff and more thorough commitment from beginning to end.

**Of course we know real life takes priority. Emergency or anything else taking a team member’s availability is completely understandable. We just ask that availability is considered prior to applying with lack of availability communicated rather than simply disappearing.

There will be a certain number of spots available for beginners, intermediates, and advanced Blender artists. For now, lets say 10 of each but those numbers are subject to change.

If you’re interested in applying click on the button below, deadline is May 1st!

Full Library