Wildsided

Looking good so far Steve,

Guess who's back. I thought I was done, I thought if I ever wanted to do some more 3D stuff that I'd just prat about with Blender, but no. I tried going 2D, convinced myself that's where my future was, but no. The siren song of A:M has pulled me back in and I've signed on for another year. What can I say? I missed the ease of use. Missed the simplicity of converting ideas into something that I could make do complex moves and not have to redraw it every frame or worry about layer orders or foreshortening. So I'm back, motivated and ready to get A:M back into my workflow. Ready to make promo art for my next book, (sorry Rodney it's the sequel to Breckridge, Annie and Max's story just wasn't done). But who knows what else this oft defective mind of mine will spew out next. I for one am looking forward to finding out. Dan

Is that a sack of sentient goop that's driving?

Sounds like a good decision to me. seconded

Good to hear from you too Rodney. Yeah, quality-mart came about originally because of my own job in a grocery store. All the stories in the original comic came from events that happened in the store. With all the management, staff, and customers, the plot pretty much writes itself.

Wow, it's been months since I posted anything. I have been busy working on the second volume and haven't had a whole lot of time to be modelling since I finished the trailer. But I have been keeping an eye on the forums, lurking around, spying on what everybody's up to. Over the last couple of days, I figured out a major plot point for the sequel and made a teaser image for my facebook author page. Thought I'd post it here too for you guys to see, prove I can still throw a model together.

Very cool. Quick question, though. Having never read the original story, I'm wondering if the ghost had no head (and that was the neck we could see in the video) or a very tiny head?

Robert, I just went to download v16 so I could give this rig a try and the releases jumped from 15.0j+ to 17.0. Am I missing something? There had to have been a version 16.0 surely? Edit: Never mind, found it on the FTP server. Thanks anyway.

John, you could try the k-lite code pack. It was free the last time I checked and has a whole bunch. Just Google codec pack and it's top of the suggestions.

I have graphic novel versions of Macbeth and Romeo & Juliette that I found in a book warehouse.

Thanks, guys! You're not the only one Rodney!

Hi everyone. If you're interested, the finished book is now available on Amazon.Com in both physical and ebook form. Just search Breckridge from the home page. (or LINK)

That looks amazing. Anthropomorphic animals are one of my favourite things.

Interesting stuff.

Never mind I just looked it up and I had a totally wrong idea of where it went on the instrument. They look extremely fiddly to install, even after taking your design into account.

How would it attach to the cello? Or does it not need to? Does the weight of the instrument hold it steady? Very nifty concept though.

Hey, I noticed my upload allowance has gone up. Thanks whoever did that. I've rendered the video out to half 720p. But if you want to see it at a higher resolution you can over at the new author page I'm setting up on Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/DanielFSkeltonauthor/?ref=hl Trailer.mov Also here's the cover artwork that has been accepted by the publisher. I'm waiting on the delivery of a proof copy of the completed book and if that's all good then the book might even be available before Christmas.

The trailer is finished (for a few day actually). I'll render it small enough to post shortly. Also nearly finished the first round of editing. Should have an actual book at some point soon.

Is your clothing physics based? Like an actual cloth simulation? Coz otherwise you could just remove the patches that poke through. No one is going to see them anyway. Unless you're gonna do a super awesome taking off the clothes shot.

I agree on that text being too small and hard to read. It's supposed to be two characters talking to one another. The next line which shows up from the bottom left says "is that such a bad thing?" I've made it bigger and more legible since then. The 'jump scare' with Annie at the end of the second shot was awkward to do. The original plan was to have her glow and it look like she was producing her own light. But it looked awful in practice. So in the end I opted for a pale green bulb to just flash on and fade out. I'll probably play with it some more before I call it done. I like your point regarding moving her a bit. I might make her smile as the camera fades out. As for the next project. I guess that all depends on how well the book performs. If it does well then I have a sequel in the planning stages called Breckridge: Ghost Train (which gives me an excuse to model a train). It's set to deal with Max and Annie's relationship following the climax of the first book. But if it tanks then it might be time for me to call it a day. I haven't made any real money since 2011 by pursuing these dreams and while it might not be about the money for me. It's not fair to let my wife keep supporting me. So as the saying goes, this is the last roll of the dice. I'll still make stuff but it will only be in my spare time when I'm not working and who knows maybe it will be something happy.

Here's the other bit. I've left out the smoky text reveal coz it's not done in A:M so won't be of interest to the majority of forum users. If you wondered it said "Some spirits will never rest in peace". show forum2.mov

Been working hard on getting the trailer ready for Breckridge. I've rendered out a couple of clips from it. Will have to post them in separate posts because of 10mb file limit. Likewise the quality is low coz of the size limit. Could upload it to youtube and link it I guess but this will do for now. show forum.mov

I had to format and start over to get to 8.1. I didn't make a disk image and for reasons it never explained the rollback decided it didn't want to work. Wasn't too big of a deal though. I backed up everything I needed to an external drive and then just reinstalled all my stuff.

As promised I've been working on the trailer for the past couple of days. Rendered out a frame from the part I'm working on. It's a slow pan across the old gym at Breckridge. The shadow on the wall reveals a gently swaying pair legs before the actually hanged girl passes through the frame. The caption that will appear before this clip is "Some things are better off forgotten"

How do, all. Some of you may have noticed I haven't been around for a while. I've been busy working on the most important part of the Breckridge Project, that being the book itself. I'm happy to say that I finished it a few days ago and while I still have to go through and edit it, I'll also have some more time to dedicate to making a trailer for the story. This will mean more modelling and animating obviously so expect me to be posting some new material soon. Thanks Dan