Tuesday 23 April 2013

Armies of the Fallen FAQ

Almost every day I receive emails and comments asking one of the questions answered bellow. I hope you will find this article useful :-)

Important links:

What is it all about?
The story continues several years after the events of Shadows of the Past. Betrayed by his Master, the main hero Fallen is now leading a revolution against Master's Empire. Together with his followers, who once suffered the same fate, they march across the galaxy with a sole purpose in their hearts - to end Master's rule once and for all.

For more info about the story click here.
For more info about the characters click here.
To watch Ep. 1: Power of the Dark Side click here.
To watch Ep. 2: Shadows of the Past click here.
To watch the AotF concept teaser click here.
To watch the AotF Retrospective video click here.















How long is it going to be?
We still can't give you an exact number, but we aim at 30-45 minutes.



Is it a part of Lucas' Star Wars universe?
No, this is a parallel SW galaxy, ruled by a single Sith Master. The Jedi Order is extinct and Fallen's forces are the closest thing to "good guys" you get.















Are there going to be real actors or is it all CG?
We want to use as much CG as possible, for the main characters, however, we plan to use real actors with digital doubles.



Why create new teasers, why not create the whole movie?
My vision is very ambitious. In fact, some might call it insane. At this point I don't even know if everything written in the script is possible. But with each new teaser, we learn more and more things and break more and more boundaries. In the first one I showed the basic concept. In the upcoming Invasion teaser, we tackle the huge space battle scenes. After that, we will focus on the animation and the creation of huge armies fighting on foot on the Akuss' surface. Each new teaser brings us closer to the final product, and nothing will come to waste...















When is it coming out?
When it's done.
We all have our day jobs and some of us are still students. Free time is a rare commodity, but we do our best to deliver all the new content as soon as possible. Sometimes, though, it is simply not possible and delays occur. Pleaser, bear with us... :-)





Why don't you try Kickstarter?
As mentioned before, we all have our jobs we can't really give up now and starting a Kickstarter project would mean a huge responsibility and we probably wouldn't be able to keep up.

It doesn't mean, however, that we won't try to start a Kickstarter campaign sometime in the future...
















How many people are there working on the project?
I do the main portion of work (concept art, script, 3D, 2D, compositing, editting), other artists help as much as they can. Scott Needs delivered some wonderful ship models, Scott Richard created gorgeous matte paintings of the planets Raffia and Akuss, Benjamin Delaey helps extensively on the creation of Akuss surface, Fynn Große-Bley is responsible for character sculpting, Kyle Fox helped with UVs, Petr Utinek helped with modelling. We have of course Tomas Zemler for the music, Mikkel Nielsen for sound design, and our awesome VO team, led by Austin McComb (Fallen) and Ed Khoo (Master).



What software do you use?
We use a wide variety of tools. My personal workflow is Photoshop for all things 2D, Maya and ZBrush for 3D and After Effects for compositing, with Premiere taking care of the editing.  The rest of the team uses also 3DS Max, Blender and other tools.















How do I start my own project such as this? How did you learn all this?
I can't speak for other members of the team, but in my case, it was simple. LOTS of video tutorials. Buy Gnomon DVDs and subscribe to Digital Tutors. For After Effects, learn from Andrew Kramer. That's pretty much all you need. Apart from patience, of course.














Do you plan to sell any DVDs?
We don't plan to sell AotF - it is a fan project from fans for fans and we don't plan to charge any money for our videos. Everything will be free on Youtube. We might however create DVD or BR discs eventually and charge for the cost of the discs and shipping.












If you have more questions to ask, please, ask them here. Thank you and stay tuned! The Invasion is coming.

- Martin Klekner, the director of AotF