For Reflections of Style 2, we are doing a fully 3D rendered introduction sequence listing all of the creators names. It looks absolutely amazing and was constructed and animated by our wonderful neighborhood Trythil. However, with beauty comes a price. Because it's all being done in 3D (using an open source 3D graphics application called Blender), each individual frame needs to be rendered. Well, there are 1690 frames in the sequence (at 30 frames per second, equaling out to 56.3 seconds of video), and each individual frame being rendered by Trythil is taking anywhere from 1 to 3 HOURS to complete (like I said, with beauty comes a price). So, this is our dilemma. We have plans to premiere Reflections of Style 2 at Anime Weekend Atlanta, which is in roughly 5 weeks (or 46 days to be precise). So far, Trythil has only been able to render out the first 305 frames. If you do the math, given the amount of time it takes per frame, it doesn't look like we're going to be able to render out the whole sequence in time.
Here's where you come in.
We are looking for ANYBODY who has CPU power to spare. Whether it's your home computer and you don't mind running a render in the background, or if you happen to have 1 or 2 spare computers lying around that you don't use. ANYTHING will help.
Here's how the process would go:
1) You decide that you would like to help us out.
2) You download and install Blender (the 3D graphics application) and YafRay (the special renderer that we're using, also free).
3) You either reply in this thread or send a PM to Trythil, letting him know that you're willing to help. (Once I get back from Otakon I'll be more than willing to be the one to delegate all of this, but unfortunately I'm taking off Wednesday night, but I didn't want to wait until I got back the next week to start doing this, since time is a serious factor here)
4) He will give you the link to download the project file plus basic instructions on how to set up Blender (though really, the project file has just about all the settings set up for you)
5) He will give you a specific range of frames to render, plus how to set it to render them (this way if we have a lot of people helping, people won't end up rendering the same frames)
6) You'll need to render out a test frame of one of the already completed frames, just to confirm that what you're rendering is going to look exactly like what we want our final product to look like (it'd be horrible if some batches of frames look out of place amongst the rest of the video)
7) Once you have your batch done, you send your PNGs (lossless baby!) to either me or Trythil.
Now, in return, for helping us get this intro done, your name will be inserted in the end credits (I haven't talked to Knives about this yet, but oh well. I'm doing the end credits section anyway, so if he has a problem with it, too bad
). I realize that's not that big of a reward, but it's the best I can offer. We're mainly just asking for your generosity and time. Once again, any help will be appreciated.Download links:
Blender 2.37a
YafRay 0.0.7 (this is not the newest version but it IS THE VERSION WE ARE USING. YafRay 0.0.8 will NOT render out the correct image)
Disclaimer:
I know that this should be a given, but if you agree to help us, PLEASE don't make things more difficult by either not going by the guidelines or telling us that you're going to do a range of frames and then don't do anything. That will only set us back :-\ I trust though that you guys (and gals) will pull through and we can get this baby finished in time for AWA!
