Tiki Update #6

[@davebrainvfx]

The preview is looking gorgeous and I'm excited to see more. Hope people continue to be nice about the transition from an open movie - I'm sure most would just want to see another finished feature made in Blender!

[@davebrainvfx]

Mad motion blur at the cut at 8:48 - in case it's not been spotted yet 😁

[@ianmcglasham]

I think this is an excellent decision. Such ambition to create a communuty feature. You have been such a great driving force behind this project which I think is reflected in the decision of your backers to continue their support through this change. To retrospecitvely reward all of the contributors who have worked on Tiki so far is outstanding. They will always be recongnised as part of the team which created this project. I will look out for all of their names. Now that Real By Fake have such a solid base to work with, I am sure that their professional structure and experience will make Tiki an historic moment in blender's development. I hope that you keep some involvement as a producer alongside your directorial role as that is arguably a more difficult task at which you have clearly excelled. Congratations succeeding at the monumental task of keeping this project alive. I very much look forward to seeing Tiki and wish you every success with this adapted direction.

[@PhotiniByDesign]

Thanks for the update and honesty Robert, I am sure "Real By Fake" will do a fantastic job of Tiki. It is a shame that you couldn't find any animators, but in the same breath I guess it was quite a big ask. Either way, you haven't given up, you've adapted and sought a good route to take Tiki forward. All the best to you and the team, I really look forward to seeing the completion of Tiki.

[@BlenderBob]

Always have a plan B. I had it from the beginning. That’s why I wanted the team to sign a contract with the clause about them getting paid if one person gets paid.

[@PhotiniByDesign]

@@BlenderBob It's a good and fair plan too, salutations.

[@JesseHendersonProductions]

I’m stoked to see the finished project of this Bob! I think it’s overall better to have it as a finished movie than for it only to be a community project no matter what.

[@SubsurfaceTalks]

Way to go! The open communication si really appreciated. All in all, money is the means to achieve goals, and the goal is to get Tiki done! I feel this is a nice lesson to learn for the Blender community as well (remember the feature film project that the Blender Foundation had in mind - not so easy to get such a thing done). Blender is free but it still needs money and support to be developed.

[@HakanYilmazAbstractizm]

The power of honest communication.

[@askNK]

Congratulations and keep going, we are together! 🎉 We love the shots so far. Great Job!

[@FireAngelOfLondon]

I think what matters most is that the project gets finished, the Blender world will benefit from yet another finished movie a lot more than from something that died from lack of available resources. The way you considered the human factor and decided to pay everybody who contributed is outstanding.

[@hugo54758]

Good decision. The shots look VERY uncanny but in a funny way for a short film, the music sounded somewhat convincing

[@francoisgermain7574]

Bravo Blender Bob. La réalité étant ce qu’elle est, il est préférable de terminer le film plutôt que de suivre un idéal impossible à réaliser et de tout faire planter. Tes capsules sont toujours intéressantes. Continue comme ça. Bonne chance pour la suite!

[@arch.blender1178]

get it done Blender Bob, good luck

[@davidvideostuff]

The Tiki team rocks !!! Can't wait to see the whole movie !!!

[@virtualgamingnl8776]

Good luck and thanks for keeping it transparent. The demo looks nice can't wait for the final project.

[@MikeDBoing]

Love the Asterix and Obelix reference in the clips..... so that's how the potion ended up. Good Luck and Congrats to the team and just awesome people who are making this project Happen.

[@SneakersDK]

I was going to say the samething.

[@4KProductionsFilms]

I think you are 💯 right about negativity online and totally agree with your decisions there. Glad you are able to stay with the project with less stress. Looking forward to it.

[@BlenderBob]

Technically Real by FAKE Blender users are part of the community… so… still a community project (ok I’m stretching here)

[@KendisFX]

"... but when it was time to actually do the job..." (02:00)... these are the heroes of everyday life.

[@rogper]

I saw this video from start to finish. I for sure will give my best to see the movie once done!

[@danielrowley8409]

Hey Bob- big fan from the start , then kinda tuned out for a while but noticed the Tiki Project. Good on you for all the work you did. And a Montreal accent to boot-

[@AdamEarleArtist]

I would love to see your test comparing houdini to blenders water and Firer. Are you still going to be comping in Blender? or are you guys going to be using Nuke?

[@BlenderBob]

There’s no comparison between Blender and Houdini for water sim. I talked about it in one clip I did about Flexseal. Even Flip Fluid addon is not as good.

[@BlenderBob]

We’re going to comp in Nuke.

[@muneebkhaki]

I knew it from the beginning, Tiki project will be awesome. Keep it up.

[@binyaminbass]

I bet YOU'RE the one who is frustrated. How hard it must be to see this project take such a turn. But still, so much better than dropping it! I hope it comes out looking better than you imagined.

[@BlenderBob]

Yes and no. It was too much to handle at this point. And with Real by FAKE team we will end up with a much higher quality project

[@GaryParris]

Great, thanks for the update. Looking forward to seeing the finished project. good luck Bob :O)

[@MrKezives]

This sound's great, now the movie will fly!

[@johntnguyen1976]

This is amazing news actually. I'm so glad the project gets to live on! Also just have to mention...and definitely call out how amazing of a leader you've been for this project. Just the business/management side of this and how you've had to pivot so many times has been quite impressive to see. Keep it up Bob...I have no doubt this is going to be an amazing film! 🙌🏽

[@michaelblume6729]

I find it brave, honest and showing great integrity to post the update 😊. But even more amazing is this great recovery sorry. Finding and convincing professionals to take this over is no small feat. Congrats and looking forward to the movie

[@ianmcglasham]

Agreed. Bob's integrity has been demonstrated wonderfully in this video.

[@Everyday_Foreman]

Great job with the video. I am always looking forward to your presentations, Thanks so much

[@valleybrook]

Looks very promising!

[@JasonKey3D]

exciting news! 👍

[@antgib]

@BlenderBob Hey Bob, just saw the hair sim test of the girl (yeah, little late I know, I just don't do Twitter). Any chance of more details, video of how it all works, etc?

[@BlenderBob]

Actually check out Munorr3d on Twitter. He did the setup using an addon he wrote. I has some videos explaining the process.

[@antgib]

@@BlenderBob Thanks, I will have a look.

[@philipprapp9356]

Crazy development. It sounds promising. How high is the budget for this production? If I understand corretly it's now impossible for "outsiders" to contribute to the project anymore?

[@BlenderBob]

Budget is not done yet but it will be more than I ever dreamed on. No help for outside Quebec except for rare exceptions

[@swordofkings128]

Thanks for the transparency about everything going on with the movie and congrats on Real By Fake taking it on! One question though, how are you handling the hair sim? I thought that hair sim hasn't been implemented yet with the hair curve system. Is it some physics based surface deform method? Is it a custom solution with geometry nodes? Is it the old particle system hair?

[@BlenderBob]

Check out Munorr on X. He did the hair on the characters using his addons.

[@SneakersDK]

Its make me think a little bit on my animation short that I am working on. In the first "What is that" shot. How did you made the hair? And how did you rig it? Because my short relie on hair animation. "Lucky Luke" so you can imagen. The new hair system is was far as I know, not yet rig/animatable. Witch make it hard. And also what is the render format for your project? Keep it up. No mater who are making it, I am looking forward to watch it.

[@BlenderBob]

Check for Munnor on X. He did the hair for Tiki. We render in Cycles at 2048x1024

[@SneakersDK]

@@BlenderBob Thank you for your answer, I will check it out. :)

[@onjofilms]

Hey, at least you tried to do something my friend. The main thing is you and others learned a lot I'm sure. The negative nanny's only know how to type some words in social media. Pay them no mind.

[@samihimas]

Bravo 👍🏽👍🏽👍🏽👍🏽

[@davidcotto8955]

hi does anyone know where one can try to join an open source project using blender? not looking to get paid, just want to join a a group or team to work on somethign together

[@hasanhuseyindincer5334]

👍👍

[@konotori_vfx]

8:48 product placement? In such project? Really?

[@BlenderBob]

Give me 200k to compensate and I’ll get ride of it. ;-)

[@poopiecon1489]

What's wrong with it??

[@konotori_vfx]

@@BlenderBob I mean if you're already ok with using product placement in such project then what was the point of the kickstarter? You could just do more than one product placement and voila you'd have budget for an entire project 🤷‍♂

[@BlenderBob]

The Kickstarter was to get the money to record the actors in order to make a demo for potential sponsors. And even Redbull would not be enough to pay for everything.

[@poopiecon1489]

@@BlenderBob ignore him, go for product placement

[@juliengouz]

IMO this is great news !! carry on and make it happened, what we see is so promising

[@boudewyn]

Okay, wow. Let me fully embrace the 'I told you so' negative Nancy persona by starting off saying that my initial intuition, remarks and questions actually were pretty much spot on (even though they were brushed under the carpet with the same old "don't be a negative X" straw man remarks, as this probably will be too). Let's start of by saying this project can still be helpful to the community if there is actual full transparency and not the matte glass we are presented with now. So: - How much will the people who worked on it get paid? You say their hours are logged but no mention of how much $$. What are the rates you are using for the different positions and how are they constructed/what are they based on? - How much will you get paid? What are/where the negotiations like? How much of what you are making is going to the Blender foundation? - What is the budget for further development? Will you share the entire budget when it's known? - Will the percentage that goes to Blender be known? What does that percentage apply to/why this percentage? - If it gets sold to Netflix, Amazon etc. will that amount be shared? Is the amount that the people who worked on it get dependent on the amount it is sold for? - Will people who have been working on it still be able to work on it? Will you bring some of them to the new team? In answering these questions: be nice! We don't need your "it's all under NDA/Contracts blabla" negativity. Nobody needs your "I can't talk about actual amounts" or "We in the industry don't openly discuss that kind of things" or "you are just being negative, nobody needs that" arguments. Don't keep stuff for yourself! It would actually help the whole world (or at least the creative community) if this stuff is more out in the open. And you are in a position where you can fight for the openness of that information. It makes a lot of sense that you say that you always had a plan B, I sensed it and I'm even considering the option that plan B was plan A all along. In the end it's like the ultimate exit for you. You got yourself a free (pre)production budget in the form of 35.000 kickstarts, used cheap labor and freely provided addons to create the perfect pitch and take off point for your dream project, all under the guise of being a community project. And now that main selling point is gone, something you probably have seen coming for ages. Then you used the result of all that to sell the project to a production company and now you can delegate everything to a capable team, get to have the director credit and position (what you always wanted) plus it might get actually sold to one of the streamers which will elevate your profile and wallet. Masterplan B. On top of that, if someone points all that out they are "negative". I get that you don't "need" criticism, but even a healthy dose of realistic feedback that turned out to not be far from how it went down wasn't appreciated... Don't piss on peoples faces and tell them its raining, it's insulting. Here's plan C: - Answer all the questions and be completely transparent. - Donate the full kickstarted 35.000 straight back into the Blender Foundation. - Pay twice the amount of what the addons cost to the addon creators. If they don't want it -> Blender Foundation - Pay all the people who worked on it so far 1,5x as much as you would now and if they don't want it -> Blender Foundation. Up until that point it was always about Blenderbob and his project, never about community. It's classic exploitative creative industry stuff wrapped in a veil of victimhood. Thank you, bye!

[@BlenderBob]

Wow! Ok... First of all, I will be as blunt as you are. Who are you? You are not part of the staff, you are not one of the kickstarter supporter and you are not a sponsor. And, as far as I know, you are not the official representative of the Blender Community. That being said, I don't owe you anything. I don't answer to you, only to those who are directly involved in the projet. Yet, I will take time to try to answer your questions. Good for you! You are spot on! You predicted it a year ago! Now please tell me were I should invest my money and what are the next winning numbers for the mega jackpot. The staff will get paid according to the price range at Real by FAKE. It's not because someone is in India that we will pay him the salary he would get there. The staff has been split into 4 categories. Junior, mid, senior and supervisor. That is based on what they produced. Also in consideration is the participation to the project. Some people just modelled one prop just to get their name in the credits and were never heard from after. I much will I get paid is absolutely not of your business, or anyone else. This is now a commercial project and I'm not allowed to talk about this. And even if I could, it would still not be any of your business. The budget is in the working now so we still don't know how much the total will be and I don't know if I will be allowed to say it. If we make it for 2 million and it looks like 20, then client will come to us with 2M project expecting that we will do a 20M job. The percentage that will go to Blender will be based on the revenues. If the movie make 500k, it won't be that much. It it makes a few millions, then of course it will be more. It's not in the plan, and never was, that the staff get part of the profits from sales to Netflix or Amazon or whatever. The initial goal was to give everything to the BF. Not it's a commercial project. Staff in VFX never get part of the profits. We are paid per hour and that's it. Only people living in Quebec, there's only four on the staff, will be able to continue working on Tiki. This is because of the tax credit system. We can make some exceptions if it's about a special technic that we can't do internally. Your next point is about divulging confidential information. It won't happen. Real by FAKE is not a charity. It's a privately own company and they don't need to share anything. Plan B was always plan B. I wanted to make the first community driven feature film but I failed. Having a plan B is part of the industry. When we bid on a shot, we do it with a plan B in case plan A doesn't work. It's not cheap labor. Everybody who worked on the project did this voluntarily. Nobody was forced to worked on Tiki. As for elevating my career, that's obvious to everyone. Of course I hope Tiki will open doors for me. There's a big difference between negativity and constructive criticism. I did a clip about this once. Negativity doesn't help anything, it has a negative impact on the production and nothing good can come out of it as opposed to constructive criticism where we keep aiming for getting the best product in the end. About you plan C, the staff will get paid well. A third of the staff don't care about the money as ask that we give it to the BF. For the KS supporter, of more than 500 supporters, not a single one of them ask for their money back. Not a single one of them complained. Only a few asked to give the money to the BF. That money has been used, by the way, for what it was intended for. I don't see any justification for paying 1,5 time the amount. Where's that coming from? And you have to understand that with Real by FAKE behind the production, the end product will be of much higher quality and it will be easier to sell. And at the end, the BF will make more than if we stayed on plan A. Also, for the addons, we only have 1500 worth. It's not that much. And I did my part of the bargain by making special clips for all of them. And I did mentioned to the KS supporters that even if they want their money back, I will still try to honour the promised rewards and everybody will get their name in the credits no matter what. I hope this answers all your questions.

[@boudewyn]

@@BlenderBob Thanks for taking the time to answer. It doesn't really matter who I am. I consider myself part of the blender community so I am part of it. There is no "official representative" who decides who is in it or not, so as much as I am not that, you are neither. But you did make an appeal for this project to be a community project, so there will be feedback from that community. You can take that or leave it, you certainly don't have to answer, but still you do, and I appreciate that. The given answers however are as I had expected them to be. Nothing concrete, nothing transparent. Which is a shame because the creative community could really benefit from more concrete numbers and insights in the production process (also from a business perspective) and you are in a position that could provide them. There are many examples to find on KZbin of professionals in different fields opening up, even though technically "it isn't anyone's business". Also very much a shame that it wasn't possible to bring people on board. I'm glad you mentioned some numbers though, just to give people the idea of the ballpark we are talking about. Perhaps none of those numbers are my business, but you see, the nice thing about Blender for example is that even if I can't see exactly who made what, there is information available that give me a pretty good idea. That is an inspiring example of how you build and treat a community. Blender brings incredible value and they show you where your financial appreciation goes. By contrast, the case of Tiki, to me, is just so uninspiring, so uncool. Now it turned into the regular 'grab what you can business mumbo jumbo' approach with the accompanying empty words. It could have been about setting an example, even in 'failure'. But you choose not to. Sure, in the end nobody really lost, but only one person really won big. And it doesn't look like he's going to share in the win. After all, he's not a charity, even though he got the project to where it is solely by other people's charity. Now I know you do bring value to the community by making the videos you are making and I for one keep coming back to them because the information in them is excellent. It's just that there is still an opportunity here to do something inspiring, to go beyond the baseline 'I held up my part of the bargain'. A bargain that has changed drastically (to say the least) halfway through the course. Out of sheer kindness people don't seem to mind, which is a sign of the graciousness of the community. That's what the plan C was about: doing something or finding some creative entry point that would make this whole thing cool again. Do something to show appreciation, even if you technically don't have to. To me that is what Blender really is about. Helping others for the sake of helping others. You now definitely have the means and the position for it. Like I said, the project hasn't failed, you (being the initiator and 'CEO') made mistakes that made it into a failure for your community, but definitely not for you. I just wanted to point that out.