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An ants eye view

12-10-2004, 04:10 PM#1
JetPack
I am currently working on a cinematic named An ants eye view, it is drama cinematic, but it will be using ants an other small bugs. It will be a trilogy, I currently have the terrain and most of the cameras placed.

The storyline is based off a short story I wrote a while back....

Quote:
Ant story

The General surveyed the battlefield; behind him lay a rough terrain which would serve many problems if engaged in. The Jungle would give him problems if he wanted to move his beetles into the position. If he could get the beetles into the front line they would be able to devastate the enemy army.

Leonard realized that this would be the most important battle to this war. His foot soldiers were beaten up very badly after his encounter with the beetles. His siege equipment was also very poorly manufactured and didn't fire where it was supposed too. The bulk of his army, the flying ants, had been sent to intercept a possible threat at the Black ant capitol.

Leonard's army was severely outnumbered, but he hoped that the beetles would be able to give him an advantage over the red ant's army. The pressure for this battle was beating down on him like a magnifying glass on a hot summer's day. But before an offensive could be made he needed to contact the capitol to hear of the news there.

Leonard slowly limped on his 5 legs over to the radio tower. He had lost his other leg in one of the first battles in the war from a misfired siege weapon. He walked through the flap and was immediately hit by a nauseating smell. The radar tower was also being used as field hospital and Leonard wasn't used to the smell of death and sickness yet. His troops had been hit by an epidemic that wiped out around 30 percent of his men.

Leonard continued his slow limp over to the command station on the second level. As he made his way up the ramp, the smell seemed to stick to him like a fly in a spider web. When he was halfway up the ramp another soldier went scuttling down the ramp in a hurry bumping into Leonard. Shrugging it off Leonard continued walking. Not even a minute later the same ant runs past him, stops and turns around.

“You are General Thompson,� said the young soldier with a quivering voice.
Leonard replied, “Yes, what seems to be the problem?�
Stuttering ever couple of words of words he got out, “There is trouble on the Northern front.�
Annoyed with a questioning tone Leonard said, “What is the bad news you speak of? How urgent is it? When did it come in?�
Struggling to find answers to the words Leonard was asking for he handed Leonard a piece of paper and ran.

Leonard surveyed the paper it read as follows…

The city of Antopia has been attacked. Somehow the red ants managed to get around you and have gotten to Antopia. This is very urgent as our armory is there and the red ants know that. Please move your army there as soon as possible to try to minimize the damage that will be done.

Startled and confused by this message Leonard read it over a couple of times to be sure that it was saying what he thought was impossible. How could they have gotten around him? He had scouts everywhere and even had spies inside the red ant army. Could it have been when he was preoccupied with fighting the beetles? No, because he had reports that they the red ants hadn't been deployed yet at that point. There was no point in continuing to ponder about how this had happened, what was important was getting to that city.

He went to the top of the radio tower to make the announcement. He shouted to the army the terrible news that had befallen their great empire and the importance of ever one of his soldiers. His men were not happy by this news but reluctantly moved anyways.


* * *


Leonard awoke to darkness. His head hurt like he had been recently carrying ten pebbles. He tried to remember what had happened through the pounding pain that he could now feel in his head. He remembered himself ordering to charge on the red ants and then the sky darkened. The next thing he could remember was the cries and shrieks of pain from his fellow soldiers. He quickly tried to push that memory out of his head, but it wouldn't go away.

He soon realized that the sounds weren't coming from his mind but only a few feet away from him. He got up slowly and followed the cries; he was horrified when he discovered who they came from. It was a red ant soldier; Leonard became even more distraught on where he was. Leonard then ran at the ant and grabbed him and started questioning him.

“Where has your kind taken me?!� Leonard asked.
The other ant yelled as he soon discovered that someone else was in here he said, “I don't know and even if I did I would never tell you.�
“You lie, tell me my location now!� As he tightened his grip around the red ant's neck.
“I would die before I told you anything,� said the ant and slowly went unconscious.

Leonard then looked around him trying to figure out why it was so unnaturally dark. He walked to his right and quickly walked into an invisible barrier. It was smoother than anything else he had felt before and it was transparent. Leonard repeatedly tossed the red ant's body at it hoping to break it and escape but it didn't even make a mark. Leonard managed to pick a very small hole in the barrier and got one of his feelers out of it. He was very confused with what he saw, there seemed to be many tunnels above him and at the top a very large red rectangular object. This was clearly a diabolical red ant prison, only they would use red on their buildings. Leonard attacked the barrier trying to make a larger hole so he could escape. Leonard was soon exhausted from this and collapsed on the ground and fell asleep. He awoke to see that it was bright again.

He stood up and heard an ear-shattering noise. He quickly fell over again because of the pain. It eventually stopped and he stood back up. Suddenly the ground beneath him started moving and the tunnels above him started caving in. He heard a very loud maniacal laughter. He was quickly enveloped by sand and struggled for his life to escape, but it was to no avail. He heard large sounds then move away quickly crying.

“Mommy, my ants are gone,� said the child.
“I told you to be more careful, you know how fragile they are.�
The child broke out into tears. The mother sympathetically said, “We can always get you some new ones.�

I can do the majority of the project myself the only problem is I can't animate make skins or models. I will be needing....

1-Animator, to animate models already finished
1-Skinner, to skin models already finished
1-Modeler, to make models
A handful of voice actors would be nice but there is no way I'm going to get any, nor do I need them now.

Ant hill

Ant farm
01-02-2005, 03:22 AM#2
Yoz
Awsome story
01-02-2005, 04:13 AM#3
JetPack
Thank you very much, with the lack of replies in this thread I had assumed nobody had liked my project. Always good to here someone appreciates your work, almost as good as hearing critiscm. I've been working on the terrain and adding in cameras. Those screenshots are very old and soon I'll upload some new ingame ones soon. Those two locations are no longer in the map as I had originally planed, but they might appear later on in the background possibly, not the ant farm though.