open-source, production-quality CG agents
NO!

if strictly closed source with an NDA to do free dev/licensing, then fine...

or unsavory favors with chili.

... you know me too well... thats scary...

this sounds really cool. hope you do it.

as a demo and practical test application, what about trying to tie this into co-open-publishing producing some super-duper animated startrek episodes, especially if the enterprise revival effort doesn't fly.

surely, the global trek community could pull that off -- lot of peoplepower for the programming to in that, eh?

Thanks! I've decided that I will.

wonderful!

mentioned this to my CGI/CGA class today and there was some interest.
Pure animation is difficult...

but consider the global talent pool

You'd be surprised how little interest there is in producing open content as opposed to open source

what about wikipedia?
there is not lack of interest in generating articles there. the thing is to...

break it down: perhaps invite groups work on the fav characters and scenes/worlds -- modularize those over into multiple scenarios/stories. one could make it a role playing game (open source) that works through very sophisticated avatars, which just happens to double as world creation for animated films, shorts at first. (i guess this would almost be creating the framework for a visual aspect of cyberspace, eh)

and hey, thinking of wikipedia, write various articles about this on wikpedia -- and then link to the cyberspace and a.i. and media stories.

just keep putting the word out all over. problem: need a few organizers and editors to live with and network pieces of the project(s) and keep up directories of stuff.

um: i'm not a trek fan especially. i'm a media person. i wonder what the copyright issues are. if those aren't a problem: this just seems like a potentially very big wave that could be ridden, if consistent outreach (to trek organizers and info/news spaces) were made. if trek copyrights are an issue, there must be some themed scifi or fantasy world that is big enough to snowball with effort.

Had I the program skills to code beyond that of making my errors look dern pretty, I'd be happy to help.

But I do remember an interview with the dudeheads doing that program, and they showed a fight clip...everyone was running towards the whatever monster thing, except for one little dude running the other way. The reporter commented "Hey, he has the right idea!" To which the programmer grinned and said, "No, he just opted to run around the planet to get to the monter/poopie/whatever." I love that man.

Do it man! This is a dream come true for people like me. I need a low-cost, efficient renderer for beeeeeg stuff! Independent filmmakers all over the world are counting on you man...don't let them down!!!

Oh, and my CG programming mad skillz are severely limited (read non-existent) but I'll be more than happy to abuse, test, and push the limits of whatever you might produce and tell you how to make it better, faster.

--
Pickles

Can't program worth beans, but if you need a tech writer to explain it when it's done, call me.

Any ideas?

None that don't involve cold hard cash at the moment. Although I am easily bribable by copies of rare documents at Harvard & Hawaii...

Have joined the Techwriting community. I used to be a techwhirler, but that got a little too drink-from-a-firehose.

(Although I did have it play taps. And I had a hand waving bye-bye at the end. Wanted to animate a butterfly, but there was too much flicker in the rendering, and by the time I realized that I needed to animate only the stuff that changes in each image, I was out of time.)

Anyway, I'm not sure how much direct help I can be, but since this sounds like a way-cool project, I will offer my services as a secondary tech writer (after neadods) and tertiary UI critic (after those who actually know how these programs should work make their comments).

I'm not volunteering her, but if you decide to do go ahead with this project, let Morveril the Lurking Nazgul know. I remember talking this over with her when the films were coming out, and she was discussing potential applications of this type of program in other areas. (The details are fuzzy. It was a while ago. And we were at the Restaurant of Many Margaritas.)

Intriguing. [I favor open-source licenses that do not poison commercial reuse, such as the MIT license.]