[Captain Marl...]

Well, I must have become insane, but hten, my next animation project is to recreate the battle of Tannenberg.


Of course, it is only the very beginning (I have made the historical researchs, and written the screenplay, and am now working on the characters...)


But if you are interested and want to encourage me (I think it will be more than necessary !!!)

Here is a link to the blog I opened this morning where I will show the progress of the project. It is still a bit empty, but hopefully, it will develop quickly...

http://web.mac.com/captainmarlowe/iWeb/Marlowe%20and%20Mary/Tannenberg%20%21/Tannenberg%20%21.html

Last but not least, my homepage will now be bilingual...

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http://www.captainmarlowe.fr

[Roderick Dav...]

Consider this as a BIG thumbs up for encouragement Cap'n M!

It is a worthy subject - The Knights Templar - so keep up the good work, and I look forward to seeing how it progresses!

Kind regards

[Captain Marl...]

Thanks.
We'll see, but I have many ideas.

The most difficult part, I think, won't come from Vue but from Poser. i will try to rotoscope combats and cascades from action movies to create the fights and charges, and so on, I believe.

I also must find the map of the place where the battle occured, to recreate it as accurately as possible. This, I haven't found yet...

Then, the opening scene will occur in a commandery, but I will recycle my existing objects rather than trying to create a full commandery - it would last forever !
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http://www.captainmarlowe.fr

[Christina Ba...]

Awesome project! It will need a lot of patience, lots of work and definitely a lot of time. I did a search and found this website http://www.dbaol.com/3d_maps.htm that offers two 3D maps of Tannenberg. Maybe that helps.

[Christina Ba...]

This website may be of interrest for you too http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/matthaywood/main/Battle_of_Tannenberg.htm because it links to some strategic maps that show you where which troups were located in different phases of the battle. It also should give you some interesting information.

Here is another link http://www.zinnfigur.com/shop/cgi-bin/artikel.asp?suchtext=501%2FRF&vgruppe1=5&artikelnr=501%2FRF04. Here you find maps of flags. It's in German but just search for "Tannenberg" on that page to get flag maps of different armies that participated in that battle.

[Roderick Dav...]

Silly me, mixing up the Teutonic Knights and Knights Templar , however Wikipedia has some nice info for you:

The Battle of Tanenburg is also called The Battle of Grunwald:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teutonic_Knights

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Grunwald

[Captain Marl...]

Well, the Germans call this battle Tannenberg, because they were located near this village, the Polands an Lithuanians call it Grunwald.

After my precedent post, I have also found some of the links you indicated, and detailed maps of the battle, of course on wargamers websites.

Thanks for the links (especially the 3D maps of the terrain), and four your encouragements.

I'm not at home for the moment and thus cannot work on this with my laptop, but summer is arriving, and holidays as well : I will have some time to start this project seriously...

But I think that changing my old mac for a better machine like a Quad would be necessary, if not immediately, when I will attack rendering of most difficult scenes.
I tried ecosystems with several animated poser characters : IT WORKS beyond my expectations !

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http://www.captainmarlowe.fr

[Captain Marl...]

And of course, I have no concern for the soundtrack : Prokofiev's Alexander Nevski will be perfect !
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http://www.captainmarlowe.fr

[Jim Coe]

Bravo Captain Marlowe!
A most challenging and promising project!
Very exciting
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_jc (Vue6i, Intel DX38bt mobo 4GB, Intel Core2 Quad, GeForce 9600 GT 512.) www.art-head-start.com/order-b.html My art skills ebook

[Dale B]

Captain Marlowe wrote:

Thanks. We'll see, but I have many ideas. The most difficult part, I think, won't come from Vue but from Poser. i will try to rotoscope combats and cascades from action movies to create the fights and charges, and so on, I believe. I also must find the map of the place where the battle occured, to recreate it as accurately as possible. This, I haven't found yet... Then, the opening scene will occur in a commandery, but I will recycle my existing objects rather than trying to create a full commandery - it would last forever !

Have you seen the thread at Rosity by yoshi-mocap about the software he's writing for optical tracking motion capture? His system uses the RapidTrak infrared cameras to track the dots on the bodysuit. If the software meets his desires and he releases it, you could have a mocap rig for around 2 grand. Then all you would need to do is shanghai some SCAdians who would most likely be more than happy to beat on each other for you....
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Moderator- Vue Animation
"When someone sees the picture or animation that you have lit, they want to see a complete, believeable picture, not to hear excuses about which program you used." -Jeremy Birn...Digital Lighting & Rendering

[Captain Marl...]

@ Dale,
Well, for the moment, I will use my old mac at home after work, so that I think I will wait a bit before starting thinking about motion capture...

But thanks for the tip.

@Christina : your link was very helpful to create a grey shaded image map to model the battlefield. thanks again.

For the moment, the battlefield has 10 ecosystems, and counts more than 200 millions of polygons, which I try to limit, because there will be in the end one more ecosystem for each unit involved in the battle (that is to say 30 or 40 more...), and I definitely don't want to make my computer implode in my living-room !

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http://www.captainmarlowe.fr

[Christina Ba...]

I'm glad that I could help.

[Captain Marl...]

I have updated my blog, with an entry about the modelling of the terrain :


http://web.mac.com/captainmarlowe/iWeb/Marlowe%20and%20Mary/Tannenberg%20%21/BE0C7A59-5B44-42FC-9846-5664168CE951.html


I will now try to work seriously on the teutonic commandery, then it will be the teutonic knights...
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http://www.captainmarlowe.fr

[Captain Marl...]

I've uploaded on my site an entry about the modeling of my commandery. One part is done only, but I think thefinal result should be OK.
Of course, any suggestion is more than welcome.

http://web.mac.com/captainmarlowe/iWeb/Marlowe%20and%20Mary/Tannenberg%20%21/1AABE923-5B31-4C32-89F1-38FE3D1239EB.html


For the music, I wil send a submission to the disc compagnies which edit Prokofiev's Alexander Nevski. It seems that it should not cost me too much. I hope so, because I've written all the screenplay according to the track "battle on the Ice", and it would be a pity to have to create my wn music instead...

We'll see....
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http://www.captainmarlowe.fr

[Christina Ba...]

WOW! That looks really great!