GCVillager
本帖最后由 GCVillager 于 2021-8-19 13:32 编辑



DEEP DIVES
It takes a Village
举全村之力

Element Animation brings villagers to life!
元素动画让村民有了灵魂!


Anyone who likes a good binge-watch, raise your cyberspace hand! Don’t be shy, I expect an overwhelming majority! After all, it's the perfect pastime to stay entertained during long, boring workdays, er, I mean boring weekends! Because why enjoy a warm summer when you can just hide indoors and watch amazing content such as Element Animation all day?
屏幕前有喜欢刷剧的人吗?请举起你网络空间里的手来!没关系,大胆点,我觉得绝大多数人应该都是这样的吧!毕竟,在那漫长而无聊的工作日,呃不是啊,我是说那不工作的日子里,刷剧是一种很快乐的打发时间的方式。明明可以躲在室内,观看像元素动画的作品一样的优秀内容,谁还去外边晒太阳啊?

If you’re unfamiliar with Element Animation, don’t worry, I still like you even if I have to spend an entire paragraph giving you a crash course! As their name might suggest, this UK-based studio specializes in the field of animation. Over the years, they’ve made many a video with unique interpretations of Minecraft’s universe – its villagers in particular. As most players know, villagers communicate in the occasional “Hrmm”s and “Haah”s, but in Element Animation’s version, they have the ability to talk . Now, before you start yelling “Sacrilege!”, “Unbelievable!”, and “Is this article over soon?!” hear me out. This is done with so much heart and silliness it’s impossible not to love. Don’t believe me? Well, their most popular show “Villager News” has been seen by millions!
如果你对元素动画不太熟悉的话,也别担心。尽管我需要用这一整段内容来给你上一节速成课,我的爱还是不会消失的!正如它的名字似乎要表明的那样,这个位于英国的工作室致力于动画创作。近年来,他们做了许多对 Minecraft 宇宙(尤其是其中的村民)有独特见解的视频。如大部分玩家所知,村民们的“交流”就是偶尔来几声“哼”或者“哈”,但是元素动画版的村民有说话的能力。现在!在你高喊“这简直是亵 渎!”“难以置信!”或者“这破文章要结束了吗?!”之前,听我讲,好吗?他们付出了很多心血和傻劲儿,让人忍不住就爱上了他们的视频。不信我是吗?看吧,他们最热门的节目《村民新闻》已经有了百亿级的播放量!


https://www.bilibili.com/blackboard/newplayer.html?playlist=false&crossDomain=1&aid=370722653&page=1

“The very first Villager News video came about because one of [our] animators was playing around making vehicles out of villagers and they were hilarious,” says Dan Lloyd, co-creator of Element Animation. “We wrote a script based entirely around the idea of turning villagers into an actual helicopter. It was by far the dumbest thing we’d ever made – and it was entirely voiced by me!”
最早的村民新闻视频的诞生,是因为我们的一个动画师在瞎弄,整出了村民做的车子,而且这车子还挺有趣。”元素动画的联合创始人丹·劳埃德说,“然后我们就完全围绕着把村民做成一架真正的直升机的想法,写了一个剧本。这是迄今为止我们做过的最傻的事情——还有,这个视频是由我一个人配音的!”


The year was 2013 when science finally went too far.
那年是2013年,在那年,科学终于走得远过头了。


So why make animations about Minecraft? According to Dan, it all began ten years ago when Element Animation was still in its infancy, consisting only of Dan’s fiancée Chrisi as well as their mutual friend Jason Sargeant, who they always joked would end up living in their attic one day. Together, they were learning everything they could about animation by making fun videos. Well, at least whenever Jason wasn’t busy playing a certain blocky game between his animation sessions. At some point, he even wanted to start making videos about his new experience.
所以,为什么要做 Minecraft 的动画呢?丹说,这得从十年前,元素动画刚起步那时说起。当时团队里的其他成员只有丹的未婚妻克里斯蒂,还有他们两人共同的朋友杰森·萨金特——这人经常被夫妻两人开玩笑,说是这家伙总有一天会住到他们的阁楼上。三人一起,用做视频的方式,学习了所有他们能够学到的做动画的内容。呃,至少是在杰森不上动画课的休息时间,而且不在忙着玩某个方块游戏的时候,他们是这么做的。有时候,杰森甚至想要做有关他最近的经历的视频。

“It didn’t fully click until I’d played it myself,” Dan tells me. “Our next video was late. I spent three days solid playing Minecraft. I'd never experienced a game that gave the player so much freedom and creative control – the same thing that attracted me to animation attracted me to Minecraft: if you can imagine it, you can make it.”
“直到我自己游玩了 Minecraft ,这件事才一锤定音。”丹告诉我,“我们的下一个视频很迟才出。我花了三天的时间泡在Minecraft里。我从来没有玩过一个像这样的,能给玩家这么多自由空间和创意控制的游戏——吸引我去做动画的这一原因,也成为了吸引我去玩 Minecraft 的原因:“只有想不到,没有做不到。”


Jason is normally in charge of crowd simulation, rendering, and vocal animation. “If you see fire or swarms of characters in one shot, Jason made that happen.” Yeah, there's a surprisingly high amount of fire.
通常是杰森来负责人群仿真、渲染和音乐动画。“如果你在哪一幕里看到了火或者是一大群人,那就是杰森干的好事。”确实,这火猛得有点惊人。


Luckily, Dan & co had plenty of imagination! The result was “An Egg’s Guide to Minecraft”, a series about (I’m sure you can guess) an egg’s guide to Minecraft. As of episode four, Element Animation began including villagers as side characters. The problem was that they lacked a voice.
值得庆幸的是,丹和他的伙伴们有丰富的想象力!于是,《蛋 蛋的 Minecraft 指南》,一个(我敢说你能猜到内容是什么)一颗蛋的 Minecraft 指南的系列,横空出世。在第四集的时候,元素动画团队开始加入村民,当做配角。但问题是,他们缺少配音。

“I decided to substitute my voice in for animation,” Dan remembers, “then get a new voice actor to dub over my lines once we found one. The voice was really silly and monotone, and it was never meant to make it into the final video. We didn’t manage to find a voice actor, so we released it with the placeholder voice.”
“我决定先把自己的声音放进动画里,”丹回忆道,“然后要找一个新的配音演员,如果能找到的话,再用他的声音来替换我的。这声音真的很蠢而且很单调,我们从来没有想过要让它留在最终的视频里。结果我们没能找到一个配音演员,于是用我们发布的视频里用的还是用我的占位符声音。”

Placeholder or not, the first Villager News hit one million views within its first week – the biggest video launch they had ever released. People loved it and kept asking for more, which they also got! Ten years later, we’re still getting videos with Dan’s monotone villager.

不管是占位符声音还是怎么的,第一个村民新闻视频在发布的第一周内就取得了一百万的播放量——这是他们发布视频最成功的一次。大家都喜欢他们的视频,催他们赶紧继续出,而观众们最终也看到了他们想要的视频!已经十年过去了,我们还能看到新的有着丹古板声音的村民的视频。



Testificate Man is just like you and me – but better – and also one of Dan’s personal favorites. “I think we will always have a special place for Testificate Man, but the Detective from 'The Giant Problem' is definitely a close second.”
测试侠(村民新闻中的人物)“就像你我一样——但是稍微强那么一丢丢*”——他也是丹个人最喜欢的人物之一。“我觉得我们心中永远会给测试侠留一个特殊的位置,而《村民新闻:“巨大”的麻烦》中的侦探绝对是稳居其次的。”
(*注:在《村民新闻:“巨大”的麻烦》中,众人要求测试侠来解决问题,测试侠想要逃避,说“我就和你们差不多……不过稍微强那么一丢丢”)


Today, Element Animation is sporting a channel close to four million subscribers on YouTube, which I must confess is pretty impressive compared to my four subscribers. We could probably end the story right here with Dan, Jason, and Chrisi living happily ever after in the attic, but let’s not, because there is still a lot to tell.
如今,元素动画在Youtube上主持着一个有近四百万关注的频道,不得不说,和我可怜的四个关注相比,这相当让人震撼。我们大概可以让我们的故事就在这里结束了,结局是丹、杰森和克里斯蒂在他们的阁楼上幸福地生活在一起,但是这可不行,因为还有很多要讲的呢。

As their channel has kept growing, so has the scope of their projects. When they’re not busy helping us with Minecon and release trailers, they create music videos and even short movies . One of their latest, “Villager News: War”, is a whole 14 minutes long and became far more ambitious than Dan and team ever expected.

他们的频道不断成长的同时,他们项目的范畴也在不断扩大。当他们从帮我们制作Minecon或者预告片中抽出身来的时候,他们也会创作音乐视频, 甚至是电影短篇。他们最新的作品之一——《村民新闻:战争来临》——整整有14分钟长,而它的制作过程也比远比丹和他的团队想象的要费劲。


“The original script was supposed to be 25 minutes long and included a huge battle between villagers and creepers,” says Dan. “There was no way we were going to finish it in a reasonable time so it ended up being split into two videos. Each part took around 6-8 months which is far too long for a YouTube upload schedule, but we felt these videos needed that time to make them as good as they could be. We had to learn how to do crowd simulation, voxel fire and explosions, and make lots of fighting animations for the crowds. With every video we try to do something we’ve never done before, to make each one better than the last!”
“最开始的剧本打算是做25分钟长的视频,其中会有一段村民和苦力怕之间的大战。”丹说,“但是那样的话,完成花的时间就长得太不合理了,所以它最终被分成了两个视频。每一段都花了6-8个月才完成,而这个间隔对Youtube的上传时间表来说都太长了。但是我们觉得,这些视频就需要那么长的时间去打磨,这样才能让它尽可能完美。我们需要学习做人群仿真,做像素火焰,还有学习做爆炸场景,接着还需要做大量的人群打斗的动画。做每个视频的时候,我们都会尝试一些我们从没做过的东西,让每个视频都在上一个视频的基础上更进一步!”

元素动画不仅能做动画,还能写音乐,能做惊艳的分镜?真是群多才多艺的狗东西!可恶!




Just thinking about the work and effort that goes into animation is enough for me to never consider a career in the business (unless Pixar can make an animated character of me). This first part, coming up with an idea, is probably the easiest one, as it starts with simply playing the game. “Being in the world itself and interacting with the villagers can spark off lots of ideas. We’ll bring all those together and that will usually spark more. We can end up with hundreds of post-it notes with plot points and ideas. I’ll then go away and start piecing it all together into a coherent story.”
单单动画行 业需要投入的努力,就足以让我望而却步(除非皮克斯工作室能帮我做一个动画人物)。做动画的第一步——想出一个点子——也许是最简单的一步。“身处Minecraft世界中,和村民们互动,就可以激发出不少点子。我们会把它们放到一起来看,然后通过它们来激发出更多的点子。到最后,我们会有几百张写着情节设计和想法的便利贴。然后,我就会离开游戏,开始把它们串成一个连贯的故事。”

Precisely what I’ve been trying to do with this story. Oh Dan, we’re so much alike! Before they can even start animating an episode, there’s a long yet creative process that they have to go through: writing a script, recording voice lines, rigging characters, and building sets. There’s also the shot list, in which Dan – as the director – must decide what will be seen on screen for each part of the script.
这正是我写这个故事的时候让自己做的事!哦,丹老兄,我们真是不谋而合!在他们开始做一集动画之前,他们还有一段漫长但有创造性的过程要经历:编写剧本,录制声音,塑造人物,还有构思设定。他们还弄了个镜头清单,而丹作为导演,要决定清单上的哪些画面要对应各部分的剧本,出现在观众的屏幕上。

At some point, they can start working on the animation itself, which is a lot of work if I am to believe Dan. “Character Animation is a highly skilled job and usually takes years to learn how to do. Minecraft characters even more so, being able to create life and emotion in such unconventional characters is a huge feat.”
在某个时刻,他们就可以开始制作动画本身。这项任务十分艰巨——如果我可以相信丹的话。“给人物制作动画是一个高难度的任务,学习它常常要花费数年。 Minecraft 人物更是如此,给这种非常规的人物赋予生命和情感简直是一个壮举。”


Dan’s favorite scene comes from “The Giant Problem”: “It’s such a simple scene in comparison but the pure absurdity gets me every time. Also, I got to speak German!”
丹最喜欢的一幕出自《村民新闻:“巨大”的麻烦》:“和其它场景相比,这一幕是如此简单,但那种纯粹的荒谬总是让我心动。还有,我有机会讲德语了*!”
(*注:这一幕之后,侦探通过仪器探测这个村民内心的想法,听到用德语说的“德语是什么?然而我什么也不懂”)


Once animation is done for a particular shot, several processes follow: crowd simulation, physics simulation, Jason playing with fire, and rendering. Rendering is where all the lighting is applied to the models, which can take hours on detailed shots for a single frame. “We would never have a video out in time if we used our own computers to render,” says Dan. “We send them to a render farm, a huge cluster of over 100 computers. The computers render a frame each and then send us back the finished frames.”
对某个特定镜头的动画制作完成之后,还有接下来的几个步骤:人群仿真,物理模拟,杰森来“玩火”,还有渲染。渲染就是把所有的光线效果加到模型上面,如果是精细制作的画面的话,渲染一帧可能要花费几个小时。“要是我们用自己的电脑渲染的话,大概就不可能准时做出视频了。”丹说,“我们把源文件发给一个渲染农场——一个由一百多台计算机组成的大集群——让那些设备渲染。在那里,每台计算机每渲染一帧,就把完成的那一帧发回给我们。”

Many, many computer renditions later, that is to say six to eight months, and you end up with a beautiful, hilarious piece of work ready to be shared with excited subscribers. By now, Element Animation has done well over a hundred animations. The fact that they haven't yet made a full-blown musical is a mystery, but possibly it’s just a matter of time.
很多很多的计算机协力渲染之后——也就是6到8个月之后,你终于得到了一个精美而有趣的视频,准备分享给迫不及待的订阅者们了。到现在,元素动画已经完成了一百多部动画作品。他们为什么至今还没有做出一部成熟的音乐剧还是个谜,不过也许,这已经只是时间问题了。

“That would be the dream! I’ve always wanted to do longer content, to be able to have a more complex story and fit more character development and really get the audience to connect with them. Over half of our team have a musical background and we all love making little jingles. In our spare time we make little riffs and musical ideas and send them to each other, every now and again one of those feels like it would fit the channel. We also work a lot with other channels on some of our music videos; Dan Bull is a hugely talented musician and his work sparked off all of our Minecraft rap videos.”

“那正是我们的梦想!我一直想要做出更长的作品,这样就可以有更复杂的剧情、更丰满的人物形象,而且可以真正地走进观众的心。我们团队中半数以上都有音乐背景,而且我们都喜欢做广告短歌。空闲的时间里,我们会创作乐句,写一些音乐创意,然后互相发。每隔一段时间,我们就会觉得其中的一些似乎与这个频道很般配。我们有时也和其它频道一起做音乐视频;与我们合作的丹·布尔是一个富有艺术细胞的音乐人,他的作品常常会给我们的 Minecraft rap 视频带来灵感。”



Oh no, this story is about to end! Quick, panic!
哦,不,这个故事要讲完了!好快啊,好怕怕!


The only problem, according to Dan, is that music videos take too long to make, and that the YouTube channel can’t fund bigger productions like the ones the studio wants to do. “But if we had the budget, we’d definitely spend a year or two and make something epic! Hint to any producers out there reading this!”
丹说,唯一的问题就是,做音乐视频实在是太花时间了,Youtube频道的资金支持不足以支撑这样的大制作。“但是如果我们预算充足的话,我们一定会花上一两年的时间,做出点史诗级的东西!所有屏幕前阅读这篇文章的制片人们,懂?”

Ten years of eggs and villagers, and Element Animation is still going strong. Despite their ambitions to go bigger, they’ve recently started to experiment with shorter content to get videos out faster. If we’re lucky, we’ll get at least ten more.
已经做了十年的村民和蛋的动画的元素动画工作室,还在变得越来越强。尽管他们有做大工作室的壮志雄心,他们最近也开始试验着做一些短视频,因为这样视频出得会快一些。如果我们够幸运的话,我们近期至少还能看到十个这样的视频。

“Once Minecraft became a part of our channel it was here to stay. It's a huge part of our lives and always will be. There’s no official storyline in it – you make of it what you want. This makes it the perfect vessel for storytelling.”
“一旦 Minecraft 成为我们频道的一部分,它就将在这里生根发芽。它现在是我们生活的重要部分,也将永远是我们生活的重要部分。它没有官方的剧情线——这样,你可以想做什么就做什么。因此,它便是故事最好的载体。”




【GCVillager译自官网 2021 年 08 月 04 日发布的 It takes a Village;原作者 Per Landin】
【本文排版借助了:SPX


来自群组: 幽篁流觞
2021.12 数据,可能有更多内容



DEEP DIVESIt takes a Village
举全村之力


Element Animation brings villagers to life!
元素动画让村民有了灵魂!


Anyone who likes a good binge-watch, raise your cyberspace hand! Don’t be shy, I expect an overwhelming majority! After all, it's the perfect pastime to stay entertained during long, boring workdays, er, I mean boring weekends! Because why enjoy a warm summer when you can just hide indoors and watch amazing content such as Element Animation all day?
屏幕前有喜欢刷剧的人吗?请举起你网络空间里的手来!没关系,大胆点,我觉得绝大多数人应该都是这样的吧!毕竟,在那漫长而无聊的工作日,呃不是啊,我是说那不工作的日子里,刷剧是一种很快乐的打发时间的方式。明明可以躲在室内,观看像元素动画的作品一样的优秀内容,谁还去外边晒太阳啊?


If you’re unfamiliar with Element Animation, don’t worry, I still like you even if I have to spend an entire paragraph giving you a crash course! As their name might suggest, this UK-based studio specializes in the field of animation. Over the years, they’ve made many a video with unique interpretations of Minecraft’s universe – its villagers in particular. As most players know, villagers communicate in the occasional “Hrmm”s and “Haah”s, but in Element Animation’s version, they have the ability to talk . Now, before you start yelling “Sacrilege!”, “Unbelievable!”, and “Is this article over soon?!” hear me out. This is done with so much heart and silliness it’s impossible not to love. Don’t believe me? Well, their most popular show “Villager News” has been seen by millions!
如果你对元素动画不太熟悉的话,也别担心。尽管我需要用这一整段内容来给你上一节速成课,我的爱还是不会消失的!正如它的名字似乎要表明的那样,这个位于英国的工作室致力于动画创作。近年来,他们做了许多对 Minecraft 宇宙(尤其是其中的村民)有独特见解的视频。如大部分玩家所知,村民们的“交流”就是偶尔来几声“哼”或者“哈”,但是元素动画版的村民有说话的能力。现在!在你高喊“这简直是亵 渎!”“难以置信!”或者“这破文章要结束了吗?!”之前,听我讲,好吗?他们付出了很多心血和傻劲儿,让人忍不住就爱上了他们的视频。不信我是吗?看吧,他们最热门的节目《村民新闻》已经有了百亿级的播放量!


https://www.bilibili.com/video/av370722653
“The very first Villager News video came about because one of [our] animators was playing around making vehicles out of villagers and they were hilarious,” says Dan Lloyd, co-creator of Element Animation. “We wrote a script based entirely around the idea of turning villagers into an actual helicopter. It was by far the dumbest thing we’d ever made – and it was entirely voiced by me!”
最早的村民新闻视频的诞生,是因为我们的一个动画师在瞎弄,整出了村民做的车子,而且这车子还挺有趣。”元素动画的联合创始人丹·劳埃德说,“然后我们就完全围绕着把村民做成一架真正的直升机的想法,写了一个剧本。这是迄今为止我们做过的最傻的事情——还有,这个视频是由我一个人配音的!”



The year was 2013 when science finally went too far.
那年是2013年,在那年,科学终于走得远过头了。



So why make animations about Minecraft? According to Dan, it all began ten years ago when Element Animation was still in its infancy, consisting only of Dan’s fiancée Chrisi as well as their mutual friend Jason Sargeant, who they always joked would end up living in their attic one day. Together, they were learning everything they could about animation by making fun videos. Well, at least whenever Jason wasn’t busy playing a certain blocky game between his animation sessions. At some point, he even wanted to start making videos about his new experience.
所以,为什么要做 Minecraft 的动画呢?丹说,这得从十年前,元素动画刚起步那时说起。当时团队里的其他成员只有丹的未婚妻克里斯蒂,还有他们两人共同的朋友杰森·萨金特——这人经常被夫妻两人开玩笑,说是这家伙总有一天会住到他们的阁楼上。三人一起,用做视频的方式,学习了所有他们能够学到的做动画的内容。呃,至少是在杰森不上动画课的休息时间,而且不在忙着玩某个方块游戏的时候,他们是这么做的。有时候,杰森甚至想要做有关他最近的经历的视频。


“It didn’t fully click until I’d played it myself,” Dan tells me. “Our next video was late. I spent three days solid playing Minecraft. I'd never experienced a game that gave the player so much freedom and creative control – the same thing that attracted me to animation attracted me to Minecraft: if you can imagine it, you can make it.”
“直到我自己游玩了 Minecraft ,这件事才一锤定音。”丹告诉我,“我们的下一个视频很迟才出。我花了三天的时间泡在Minecraft里。我从来没有玩过一个像这样的,能给玩家这么多自由空间和创意控制的游戏——吸引我去做动画的这一原因,也成为了吸引我去玩 Minecraft 的原因:“只有想不到,没有做不到。”



Jason is normally in charge of crowd simulation, rendering, and vocal animation. “If you see fire or swarms of characters in one shot, Jason made that happen.” Yeah, there's a surprisingly high amount of fire.
通常是杰森来负责人群仿真、渲染和音乐动画。“如果你在哪一幕里看到了火或者是一大群人,那就是杰森干的好事。”确实,这火猛得有点惊人。



Luckily, Dan & co had plenty of imagination! The result was “An Egg’s Guide to Minecraft”, a series about (I’m sure you can guess) an egg’s guide to Minecraft. As of episode four, Element Animation began including villagers as side characters. The problem was that they lacked a voice.
值得庆幸的是,丹和他的伙伴们有丰富的想象力!于是,《蛋 蛋的 Minecraft 指南》,一个(我敢说你能猜到内容是什么)一颗蛋的 Minecraft 指南的系列,横空出世。在第四集的时候,元素动画团队开始加入村民,当做配角。但问题是,他们缺少配音。


“I decided to substitute my voice in for animation,” Dan remembers, “then get a new voice actor to dub over my lines once we found one. The voice was really silly and monotone, and it was never meant to make it into the final video. We didn’t manage to find a voice actor, so we released it with the placeholder voice.”
“我决定先把自己的声音放进动画里,”丹回忆道,“然后要找一个新的配音演员,如果能找到的话,再用他的声音来替换我的。这声音真的很蠢而且很单调,我们从来没有想过要让它留在最终的视频里。结果我们没能找到一个配音演员,于是用我们发布的视频里用的还是用我的占位符声音。”


Placeholder or not, the first Villager News hit one million views within its first week – the biggest video launch they had ever released. People loved it and kept asking for more, which they also got! Ten years later, we’re still getting videos with Dan’s monotone villager.

不管是占位符声音还是怎么的,第一个村民新闻视频在发布的第一周内就取得了一百万的播放量——这是他们发布视频最成功的一次。大家都喜欢他们的视频,催他们赶紧继续出,而观众们最终也看到了他们想要的视频!已经十年过去了,我们还能看到新的有着丹古板声音的村民的视频。



Testificate Man is just like you and me – but better – and also one of Dan’s personal favorites. “I think we will always have a special place for Testificate Man, but the Detective from 'The Giant Problem' is definitely a close second.”
测试侠(村民新闻中的人物)“就像你我一样——但是稍微强那么一丢丢*”——他也是丹个人最喜欢的人物之一。“我觉得我们心中永远会给测试侠留一个特殊的位置,而《村民新闻:“巨大”的麻烦》中的侦探绝对是稳居其次的。”
(*注:在《村民新闻:“巨大”的麻烦》中,众人要求测试侠来解决问题,测试侠想要逃避,说“我就和你们差不多……不过稍微强那么一丢丢”)


Today, Element Animation is sporting a channel close to four million subscribers on YouTube, which I must confess is pretty impressive compared to my four subscribers. We could probably end the story right here with Dan, Jason, and Chrisi living happily ever after in the attic, but let’s not, because there is still a lot to tell.
如今,元素动画在Youtube上主持着一个有近四百万关注的频道,不得不说,和我可怜的四个关注相比,这相当让人震撼。我们大概可以让我们的故事就在这里结束了,结局是丹、杰森和克里斯蒂在他们的阁楼上幸福地生活在一起,但是这可不行,因为还有很多要讲的呢。


As their channel has kept growing, so has the scope of their projects. When they’re not busy helping us with Minecon and release trailers, they create music videos and even short movies . One of their latest, “Villager News: War”, is a whole 14 minutes long and became far more ambitious than Dan and team ever expected.

他们的频道不断成长的同时,他们项目的范畴也在不断扩大。当他们从帮我们制作Minecon或者预告片中抽出身来的时候,他们也会创作音乐视频, 甚至是电影短篇。他们最新的作品之一——《村民新闻:战争来临》——整整有14分钟长,而它的制作过程也比远比丹和他的团队想象的要费劲。


“The original script was supposed to be 25 minutes long and included a huge battle between villagers and creepers,” says Dan. “There was no way we were going to finish it in a reasonable time so it ended up being split into two videos. Each part took around 6-8 months which is far too long for a YouTube upload schedule, but we felt these videos needed that time to make them as good as they could be. We had to learn how to do crowd simulation, voxel fire and explosions, and make lots of fighting animations for the crowds. With every video we try to do something we’ve never done before, to make each one better than the last!”
“最开始的剧本打算是做25分钟长的视频,其中会有一段村民和苦力怕之间的大战。”丹说,“但是那样的话,完成花的时间就长得太不合理了,所以它最终被分成了两个视频。每一段都花了6-8个月才完成,而这个间隔对Youtube的上传时间表来说都太长了。但是我们觉得,这些视频就需要那么长的时间去打磨,这样才能让它尽可能完美。我们需要学习做人群仿真,做像素火焰,还有学习做爆炸场景,接着还需要做大量的人群打斗的动画。做每个视频的时候,我们都会尝试一些我们从没做过的东西,让每个视频都在上一个视频的基础上更进一步!”


[album]
[aimg=https://attachment.mcbbs.net/data/myattachment/forum/202108/11/102935f5w3wpdddbqwgxqa.png]元素动画不仅能做动画,还能写音乐,也能做惊艳的分镜?真是群多才多艺的狗东西!可恶!


[/aimg]
[aimg=https://attachment.mcbbs.net/data/myattachment/forum/202108/11/102935nnbfmo1bqf4kubua.png] [/aimg]
[aimg=https://attachment.mcbbs.net/data/myattachment/forum/202108/11/102935dsx9fxguses9e77l.png] [/aimg]
[/album]
Just thinking about the work and effort that goes into animation is enough for me to never consider a career in the business (unless Pixar can make an animated character of me). This first part, coming up with an idea, is probably the easiest one, as it starts with simply playing the game. “Being in the world itself and interacting with the villagers can spark off lots of ideas. We’ll bring all those together and that will usually spark more. We can end up with hundreds of post-it notes with plot points and ideas. I’ll then go away and start piecing it all together into a coherent story.”
单单动画行 业需要投入的努力,就足以让我望而却步(除非皮克斯工作室能帮我做一个动画人物)。做动画的第一步——想出一个点子——也许是最简单的一步。“身处Minecraft世界中,和村民们互动,就可以激发出不少点子。我们会把它们放到一起来看,然后通过它们来激发出更多的点子。到最后,我们会有几百张写着情节设计和想法的便利贴。然后,我就会离开游戏,开始把它们串成一个连贯的故事。”


Precisely what I’ve been trying to do with this story. Oh Dan, we’re so much alike! Before they can even start animating an episode, there’s a long yet creative process that they have to go through: writing a script, recording voice lines, rigging characters, and building sets. There’s also the shot list, in which Dan – as the director – must decide what will be seen on screen for each part of the script.
这正是我写这个故事的时候让自己做的事!哦,丹老兄,我们真是不谋而合!在他们开始做一集动画之前,他们还有一段漫长但有创造性的过程要经历:编写剧本,录制声音,塑造人物,还有构思设定。他们还弄了个镜头清单,而丹作为导演,要决定清单上的哪些画面要对应各部分的剧本,出现在观众的屏幕上。


At some point, they can start working on the animation itself, which is a lot of work if I am to believe Dan. “Character Animation is a highly skilled job and usually takes years to learn how to do. Minecraft characters even more so, being able to create life and emotion in such unconventional characters is a huge feat.”
在某个时刻,他们就可以开始制作动画本身。这项任务十分艰巨——如果我可以相信丹的话。“给人物制作动画是一个高难度的任务,学习它常常要花费数年。 Minecraft 人物更是如此,给这种非常规的人物赋予生命和情感简直是一个壮举。”



Dan’s favorite scene comes from “The Giant Problem”: “It’s such a simple scene in comparison but the pure absurdity gets me every time. Also, I got to speak German!”
丹最喜欢的一幕出自《村民新闻:“巨大”的麻烦》:“和其它场景相比,这一幕是如此简单,但那种纯粹的荒谬总是让我心动。还有,我有机会讲德语了*!”
(*注:这一幕之后,侦探通过仪器探测这个村民内心的想法,听到用德语说的“德语是什么?然而我什么也不懂”)


Once animation is done for a particular shot, several processes follow: crowd simulation, physics simulation, Jason playing with fire, and rendering. Rendering is where all the lighting is applied to the models, which can take hours on detailed shots for a single frame. “We would never have a video out in time if we used our own computers to render,” says Dan. “We send them to a render farm, a huge cluster of over 100 computers. The computers render a frame each and then send us back the finished frames.”
对某个特定镜头的动画制作完成之后,还有接下来的几个步骤:人群仿真,物理模拟,杰森来“玩火”,还有渲染。渲染就是把所有的光线效果加到模型上面,如果是精细制作的画面的话,渲染一帧可能要花费几个小时。“要是我们用自己的电脑渲染的话,大概就不可能准时做出视频了。”丹说,“我们把源文件发给一个渲染农场——一个由一百多台计算机组成的大集群——让那些设备渲染。在那里,每台计算机每渲染一帧,就把完成的那一帧发回给我们。”


Many, many computer renditions later, that is to say six to eight months, and you end up with a beautiful, hilarious piece of work ready to be shared with excited subscribers. By now, Element Animation has done well over a hundred animations. The fact that they haven't yet made a full-blown musical is a mystery, but possibly it’s just a matter of time.
很多很多的计算机协力渲染之后——也就是6到8个月之后,你终于得到了一个精美而有趣的视频,准备分享给迫不及待的订阅者们了。到现在,元素动画已经完成了一百多部动画作品。他们为什么至今还没有做出一部成熟的音乐剧还是个谜,不过也许,这已经只是时间问题了。


“That would be the dream! I’ve always wanted to do longer content, to be able to have a more complex story and fit more character development and really get the audience to connect with them. Over half of our team have a musical background and we all love making little jingles. In our spare time we make little riffs and musical ideas and send them to each other, every now and again one of those feels like it would fit the channel. We also work a lot with other channels on some of our music videos; Dan Bull is a hugely talented musician and his work sparked off all of our Minecraft rap videos.”

“那正是我们的梦想!我一直想要做出更长的作品,这样就可以有更复杂的剧情、更丰满的人物形象,而且可以真正地走进观众的心。我们团队中半数以上都有音乐背景,而且我们都喜欢做广告短歌。空闲的时间里,我们会创作乐句,写一些音乐创意,然后互相发。每隔一段时间,我们就会觉得其中的一些似乎与这个频道很般配。我们有时也和其它频道一起做音乐视频;与我们合作的丹·布尔是一个富有艺术细胞的音乐人,他的作品常常会给我们的 Minecraft rap 视频带来灵感。”



Oh no, this story is about to end! Quick, panic!
哦,不,这个故事要讲完了!好快啊,好怕怕!



The only problem, according to Dan, is that music videos take too long to make, and that the YouTube channel can’t fund bigger productions like the ones the studio wants to do. “But if we had the budget, we’d definitely spend a year or two and make something epic! Hint to any producers out there reading this!”
丹说,唯一的问题就是,做音乐视频实在是太花时间了,Youtube频道的资金支持不足以支撑这样的大制作。“但是如果我们预算充足的话,我们一定会花上一两年的时间,做出点史诗级的东西!所有屏幕前阅读这篇文章的制片人们,懂?”


Ten years of eggs and villagers, and Element Animation is still going strong. Despite their ambitions to go bigger, they’ve recently started to experiment with shorter content to get videos out faster. If we’re lucky, we’ll get at least ten more.
已经做了十年的村民和蛋的动画的元素动画工作室,还在变得越来越强。尽管他们有做大工作室的壮志雄心,他们最近也开始试验着做一些短视频,因为这样视频出得会快一些。如果我们够幸运的话,我们近期至少还能看到十个这样的视频。


“Once Minecraft became a part of our channel it was here to stay. It's a huge part of our lives and always will be. There’s no official storyline in it – you make of it what you want. This makes it the perfect vessel for storytelling.”
“一旦 Minecraft 成为我们频道的一部分,它就将在这里生根发芽。它现在是我们生活的重要部分,也将永远是我们生活的重要部分。它没有官方的剧情线——这样,你可以想做什么就做什么。因此,它便是故事最好的载体。”






【GCVillager译自官网 2021 年 08 月 04 日发布的 It takes a Village;原作者 Per Landin】
【本文排版借助了:SPX




Wudji
这可能不是很明显,但是视频没识别出来

rfdiosuao
666666666666666

xing_yu_dada
感觉这村名都被你玩坏了

YeCrotMLP
翻译的很不错呀!!!

2307107878
每次看到这动画就想笑

19855928188
村民: 我直接好家伙

liangzhou2007
看这个村名我好想笑

1152507716
珍惜你遇到的每一个村民,他们搞不好都能干大事

早安油菜花
提醒我再重温一遍

卡狗
[media=x,500,375]就可以了

技术玩家
村民新闻真滴好看

WD17
哇这篇这么长啊 lz幸苦了 这个村民动画真的感觉是一接触mc就在看了 没想到现在还在继续

梦想阿巴阿巴
6666666666

Neko_Muzi
好耶!!!!!烦人的村民

1639362611
嘿嘿一直在看元素动画

划水的小暗
谢谢大佬分享经验^O^

luoye1231
学到啦,谢谢楼主,很全面

夏色景美
居然把奸商强化了,爷青结

Yin_zai
更加激励我做动画!

yellowxuuuu
好!!!不错!!

血殇曦
好玩 太好用了

1149180298
科学:你牛顿吗?!!!!

马每流皮
但是现在这种东西我找到的比较少...外面还有很多人做这个吗