A couple of weeks past reaching Save Point pipeline 1.0, and I thought I'd post a collection of clips from the first set of final output templates being developed. I talked a lot about snowballing speeds once we completed the pipeline. This is the very beginning of that snowball. As the number and refinement of shot templates grow, it will become possible to do things like assemble a half hour animated show in a few days for 1% of studio cost.
I suspect some will question whether this visual style is an improvement on just using the single engine method. There's a few major reasons why an illustration look is stronger for this project.
1. The Uncanny Valley
People have trouble connecting emotionally to 3d characters. It's much more difficult to get people invested in a storyline if they don't care about the characters, so, it's kind of a big deal.
2. Speed
This stage is where the immense speed advantage of the Save Point system actually takes effect. 15 hours to create and render a cell becomes 15 minutes. This is where it becomes possible to do interactive fiction as film in a streaming economy.
3. Flexibility
Unreal Engine looks great, but ultimately, it looks one way. The twin engine route means that visuals can be in any style we need, without rebuilds, including just UE5 style. The big deal though is that the visuals can be constantly improved over years, and it's built so improvement is "built in" and requires very minimal rebuilding of the pipeline. Layman's terms - we can build this into photorealism in a few years and we don't have to keep rebuilding the engine.
Tech research never stops, and we're always looking for ways to improve, but this is essentially the point in time where Save Point stops working on tech, and starts producing films for public consumption. Tons of work left, but this month was the turning point. Just a few months to get the hang of using the new system, and I can probably launch the smaller "Labyrinth" project (the cat project), and fire up production on Save point episodes.
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