Elephants Dream

[Maupertus]

This (http://www.elephantsdream.org/download/) is a film project only made with opensource software.

I searched the forum for it and I only found a couple of entries, which were on different subjects or in different forums.

It's a free download via torrent, and as I liked the initiative, and it's Dutch ;) and we are part of an open source community, I thought it would be fun to post.

On the movie itself, it's short but entertaining, the graphics are stunning in a Blizzard 'so completely not realistic that it's more realistic' kind of way. The story however constantly has the feel of something profound to tell, but if the authors wanted to tell something in depth, this film is sadly lacking.
Still, a nice (and free :) ) pass-time of 10 minutes.

[nalmeth]

but:

AVI, MPEG4


what, all OS but not OGG THEORA? :p
downloading now

[DeadEyes]

As a user of Blender since, well since it was able to fit on a floppy, I'd had been really loooking forward to this. The graphics are great, even if some of the animation of the characters was unnatural. The script was terrible, by the end I was so confused by what had happened that it totally detracted from why I watched the film in the first place, that was to see what really talented people could do with Blender.
Still it's a good advertisment for a application that managed to break free from it's commerical shackles thanks to a generous community.

[Jucato]

I wasn't really paying attention to the storyline that much. I mean, the aim of Project Orange and Elephants Dream was to make a concrete proof of how Blender and other Open Source software can be used in such a type of production.

Of course a storyline is a vital part of a film, no one can deny that. But for a first time attempt by people who have little background in filmmaking, it's quite good.

I discovered and planned to use Blender last year, but because of Blender, I discovered Linux. Now I got distracted from Blender and getting more into Linux. :D

[wmcbrine]

Beautiful but incomprehensible.

[The Cosmic Hobo]

I discovered and planned to use Blender last year, but because of Blender, I discovered Linux. Now I got distracted from Blender and getting more into Linux. :D
I never quite got around to getting into either. Then I installed Ubuntu... no prizes for guessing what else is on the list of things to install! ;)

Elephant's Dream is superb - it goes to show just how good open source software is, as well as the technical and artistic talent associated with it. Move over Pixar!!

[niviche]

I thought I had all the restricted codecs installed but, for some reason, Kaffeine refuses to play the .avi file I downloaded from the Elephant's Dream website. Which codec is needed for this movie?

[Kvark]

I thought I had all the restricted codecs installed but, for some reason, Kaffeine refuses to play the .avi file I downloaded from the Elephant's Dream website. Which codec is needed for this movie?
I have the same problem. I have followed the restricted formats page in the wiki. Some packages that page mentions such as mplayer can't be found even though I have enabled universe and multiverse. With the packages apt can find and the w32codecs both totem-gstreamer, xine and vlc refuses to play the file.

Well, at least one thing is obvious. The authors of that movie are definately closed source and closed format fanboys.

[Jucato]

I have the same problem. I have followed the restricted formats page in the wiki. Some packages that page mentions such as mplayer can't be found even though I have enabled universe and multiverse. With the packages apt can find and the w32codecs both totem-gstreamer, xine and vlc refuses to play the file.
Really? I was able to install mplayer with no troubles at all. However, I used VLC to play it, and it went very well.


Well, at least one thing is obvious. The authors of that movie are definately closed source and closed format fanboys.
And you were able to conclude this becuase of the video format? granted they could have chosen a more open format, but that doesn't make them closed source/format fanboys. Everything they have used in the production (except for one part that I fogot, something to do with sounds, I think) are purely open source. That is the fundamental aim/goal of that project.

EDIT: for your reference: http://packages.ubuntu.com/cgi-bin/search_packages.pl?keywords=mplayer&searchon=names&subword=1&version=dapper&release=all

[The Cosmic Hobo]

Really? I was able to install mplayer with no troubles at all. However, I used VLC to play it, and it went very well.
When I viewed the movie, I used VLC (which the official site suggests as one of the applications you should use) under Windows and it worked fine. None of my other media players would touch it, though.

[Kimm]

OGG Theora is still not a very good video format, even if it is making progress. MPEG4 however is a superb format, and I'm saying that as someone who normaly doesnt support closed formats.

I also played the movie using VLC, it worked.

I liked the graphics very much, but the storyline was extremely strange and I didnt even get half of it. Still, very good work!

[OneSeventeen]

I hate to bring up an old thread, but I just saw this and the visual effects were amazing!

I also liked the portion of the credits "Special Thanks to Open Source Projects" which mentioned "Ubuntu Linux".

Maybe the Ubuntu community should do something similar to make a professional Ubuntu commercial...

[stani]

I'd like to see Elephants Dream, unfortunately it won't play.
Neither with VLC

$vlc /home/stani/Data/Downloads/ED_1024.avi
VLC media player 0.8.4 Janus
[00000313] a52 decoder: A/52 channels:6 samplerate:48000 bitrate:448000
X Error of failed request: BadAlloc (insufficient resources for operation)
Major opcode of failed request: 141 (XVideo)
Minor opcode of failed request: 19 ()
Serial number of failed request: 80
Current serial number in output stream: 81


Neither with mplayer

$ mplayer /home/stani/Data/Downloads/ED_1024.avi
MPlayer 2:0.99+1.0pre7try2+cvs20060117-0ubuntu8 (C) 2000-2006 MPlayer Team
CPU: Intel Celeron 2/Pentium III Tualatin (Family: 6, Stepping: 4)
CPUflags: MMX: 1 MMX2: 1 3DNow: 0 3DNow2: 0 SSE: 1 SSE2: 0
Compiled with runtime CPU detection.


91 audio & 204 video codecs
Linux RTC init error in ioctl (rtc_irqp_set 1024): Permission denied
Try adding "echo 1024 > /proc/sys/dev/rtc/max-user-freq" to your system startup scripts.
Opening joystick device /dev/input/js0
Can't open joystick device /dev/input/js0: No such file or directory
Can't init input joystick
Setting up LIRC support...
mplayer: could not connect to socket
mplayer: No such file or directory
Failed to open LIRC support.
You will not be able to use your remote control.
Playing /home/stani/Data/Downloads/ED_1024.avi.
AVI file format detected.
AVI: ODML: Building odml index (2 superindexchunks)
VIDEO: [DIVX] 1024x576 24bpp 24.000 fps 5001.2 kbps (610.5 kbyte/s)
Clip info:
Software: AVI-Mux GUI 1.17.5, Apr 5 2006 18:41:17
================================================== ========================
Opening audio decoder: [liba52] AC3 decoding with liba52
Using SSE optimized IMDCT transform
AC3: 5.1 (3f+2r+lfe) 48000 Hz 448.0 kbit/s
Using MMX optimized resampler
AUDIO: 48000 Hz, 2 ch, s16le, 448.0 kbit/29.17% (ratio: 56000->192000)
Selected audio codec: [a52] afm: liba52 (AC3-liba52)
================================================== ========================
================================================== ========================
Opening video decoder: [ffmpeg] FFmpeg's libavcodec codec family
Selected video codec: [ffodivx] vfm: ffmpeg (FFmpeg MPEG-4)
================================================== ========================
Building audio filter chain for 48000Hz/2ch/s16le -> 48000Hz/0ch/??...
alsa-init: 1 soundcard found, using: default
alsa: 48000 Hz/2 channels/4 bpf/65536 bytes buffer/Signed 16 bit Little Endian
AO: [alsa] 48000Hz 2ch s16le (2 bytes per sample)
Building audio filter chain for 48000Hz/2ch/s16le -> 48000Hz/2ch/s16le...
Starting playback...
VDec: vo config request - 1024 x 576 (preferred colorspace: Planar YV12)
VDec: using Planar YV12 as output csp (no 0)
Movie-Aspect is 1.78:1 - prescaling to correct movie aspect.
VO: [xv] 1024x576 => 1024x576 Planar YV12
alsa-space: xrun of at least 4.140 msecs. resetting stream?,?% 1 0
X11 error: BadAlloc (insufficient resources for operation)


MPlayer interrupted by signal 6 in module: vo_check_events
- MPlayer crashed. This shouldn't happen.
It can be a bug in the MPlayer code _or_ in your drivers _or_ in your
gcc version. If you think it's MPlayer's fault, please read
DOCS/HTML/en/bugreports.html and follow the instructions there. We can't and
won't help unless you provide this information when reporting a possible bug.
alsa-uninit: pcm closed


I am quite sure I have all possible codecs installed.

My laptop has 768mb internal memory of which 64mb used for graphics:

Section "Device"
Identifier "Generic Video Card"
Driver "i810"
BusID "PCI:0:2:0"
VideoRam 64000
EndSection

What could it be?

Thanks for any help,

Stani

[sal_veya]

I don't really understand the story but it was very visually impressive. I've shown it off to several other people who also found it incredibly impressive, that is without mentioning it was developed on free software.

[stani]

You might want to read this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elephants_Dream#Storyline

Anyone knows how I can play it (see my previous post)?

Stani

[malcolmb]

On the homepage of the film, there are some links to commentaries that are on Youtube, plus there's a 30 minutes "making of" documentary that's really good for anybody who's interested and which blender users should definitely check out.

People are missing the point bashing them for using closed video codecs, they did a big job with the open source software + distributing files and how they went about getting funding.

I used Automatix after I installed dapper to get a few things I thought were useful, video support was one of them.

[aysiu]

For some reason, it took me an hour and a half to download (over broadband), but it was worth it to see that kind of polish. Even my Mac-loving wife was wow-ed by it!

Excellent work, even if I had no idea what was going on...

[deception]

I always thought the film was symbolising the internet.. am I way off? :confused: :D

[towsonu2003]

apropos why they used non-free codecs: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=186193&cid=15370202

From that, I guess it was an important but missed opportunity for the ogg video compression format to get some warm love. Also a missed opportunity to better the usability of both audio and video formats together... a shame.

I watched the AVI, MPEG4 / AC3 5.1 Surround 1024 425MB (USA #2) (http://xseed.bowiestate.edu/ED/ED_1024.avi) with mplayer and windows codecs installed without problem.

I really liked the movie. The symbolism was so rich I couldn't grasp everything (watched 3 times). I would really love to write a post-modernist content analysis of this movie... What can it be about? Hell, the movie itself is post-modernism alive (post-modernism says that what is important for an analysis is what you see in a text, not what its writer sees in it)!

I am not sure whether Proog was a supporter of capitalism (vs Emo as let's say Marxism, machine as "the system"), religion (vs Emo as atheism, machine as "the belief system"), thesis (vs Emo as anti-thesis, machine as "the outer shell for their conflict" -see Dialectic Materialism-), patriarchy (vs Emo as feminism, machine as, again, "the system"), etc... Or maybe proog was an old programmer trying to resists the new programmer's (Emo's) ways to interact with the machine. Or may be they were (so simple) a newbie and a savvy user inside a computer which was online (remember the modem sound in the active phone line).

Maybe it was an attempt to show how one with more experience would oppress another by deceiving him/her even about the reality of reality.

Or maybe it was about how unimportant we are as individuals inside the machine (Emo and Proog conflicted with each other as individuals, unable to challenge the machine's nature of doing things).

This is what I really liked about this. It was't just a "let's show them our graphics" movie, unlike a Pixar movie with just amazing effects, it forced to think creatively (to make sense of it all).

[shining]

I'd like to see Elephants Dream, unfortunately it won't play.
Neither with VLC


Neither with mplayer


I am quite sure I have all possible codecs installed.

My laptop has 768mb internal memory of which 64mb used for graphics:

Section "Device"
Identifier "Generic Video Card"
Driver "i810"
BusID "PCI:0:2:0"
VideoRam 64000
EndSection

What could it be?

Thanks for any help,

Stani

I had the same problem.
Check the CacheLines option there:
http://xorg.freedesktop.org/archive/X11R6.8.0/doc/i810.4.html

Or the -vf scale option of mplayer for scaling the video down:
mplayer -vf scale=<width>:<height>

[patwack]

the problem i had was that the resolution was too high for my computer to handle and none of the video players i tried were able to scale it down properly, i tried the lower res one and it worked flawlessly.

maybe there was some other reason it wouldn't work but that's the only one i could think of