Toprocking Hillbilloodle

Technically, this isn't actually done yet. There are things that still nag me, like the new condition of an old TV, or the slight loop on it. (We've all been there, and we will be there again, right?) These will be easy to fix. Ultimately, a lot of this is going to be reorganized substantially anyway, as this is part of a short I'm doing with, given that he's able, a musician friend.

This began as a Blender project just to get the hillbilly poodle with the gum in its hair dancing at all. Once I had that, convincingly rendering, in Workbench mode, I added the fur using Cycles and generated the TV static with udev on my Linux box. The SMPTE bars were spit out for me by ffmpeg.

I wish I could tell you that the compositing was done in ffmpeg too, and lord knows it could've been, but I'm not familiar enough with it as a script and wasn't sure where all of my beats would be in the final product. So, I dropped it into the compositor in Blender, and developed a second video phasing back and forth between SMPTE and static with an alpha overlay on the dancing poodle.

After that, I imported the MKV video as a texture over the TV screen and added the final touches. Things I would like to address are, for example, the brand new condition of a CRT TV with a freakin' VCR attached (when was the last time you saw one of those?) and the absence of any kind of environment; but the general idea is to have everything rendered compositor-ready in OpenEXR files. Once I have a proper beat, and we've thrown our ideas against the wall to see what sticks, I'll be ready for the final short. It may well end up taking up a decent chunk of a terabyte on a hard drive before it's done, but so be it. I am doing this.

I've already got the stick of gum stuck in its hair, but the dog also thoroughly needs to be dirtied up! No self-respecting poodle, in the environment of Tennessee or West Virginia, allows itself to be that clean; luxury fur-do or no. Also I think the seam on the nose could use an artist's touch, or at least an interpolation for the material, even if it's a tight one.

Stay tuned for the final video.