largento

Another sequence. This one with an exploding chicken. :-) littlechicken.mp4

This was great timing for me, John... just now working on an exploding chicken. :-)

Digging it, Gerry!

Thanks, David & Jake! I *am* having fun with it. Beyond that, it's a chance for me to push myself. It seems like every time I do another project I learn new things. At some point, I'm bound to figure it all out. :-) I'm not even pretending to have any clue how to create anything like that, Jake. Perfection is out of my grasp. :-)

Thanks, Holmes! I hope so, too! If nothing else, I'm having fun with it and learning a bunch as I go.

Thanks all! I got the same impression, Holmes. That it's a toy ship. That's a great suggestion, Paul. I'm fortunate to be in the position where someone is doing the sound for me (thank the maker!) I'll pass that along. He's going to be doing music for the whole thing which is something I'm really excited about. I've heard some of the sound work he's done and it's really been impressive. It might just make up some for my amateur animation. :-) I had been too intimidated to try it out, but I was amazed how easy the ocean generator was to use, Mark (i.e. you don't have to do anything to use it.) I can't imagine going back to the "flat" water ever again.

Most impressive, Matt. That granule would make a great asteroid!

Thanks, Nancy! That ocean generator is a wonderful thing!

Made it to #100 of the current storyline, Amulet of the Apes!! You can see the triple-sized Angry Birds themed strip here!

Well, I wasn't able to track it down, but my fuzzy memory was that after the type was created in a 3D app, a mask was made in After Effects and the image was then distorted and overlayed over the text. Made it look like it was reflecting images, but there was no actual reflection. Looked very similar to that effect (although it was more dramatic obviously.) I came across it while searching for inspiration for title effects. My fuzzy memory says that it was for a game trailer-like effect (maybe had "monster" in the title?) but I'm pretty sure that I didn't find it directly from a Google search, but found it linked on one of the sites that I did find in Google.

Still feverishly working to get this finished! Here's the sequence I finished today. I've been using Mark S' ocean generator with neat results. I've been adding scenes to this, but I'm pretty sure of the exact sequence now. I've got a fun scene with Flemm in his Queen Amidala outfit to do tomorrow and then I need to go back to one scene and see if I can salvage it. Then it's three short scenes and I'm finished! Of course, two of those three short scenes are going to be very difficult, but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel! shipsails_s.mp4 I hadn't intended this scene to be in there, but this song was part of the first voice file for Flemm that I was sent and the singing sold me on the whole thing. Was very happy to be able to fit it in.

I don't think they are transparent. I'm thinking they are masks. Meant to look like reflections. I saw a tutorial like this recently. Let me see if I can find it.

Bravo!

Love this, Gene! Great looking character and the lighting makes me think it's a smokey room.

Happy Birthday!

Thanks, Jake! But you're forgetting that this story takes place over 300 years ago. :-)

I've been cranking away on this! I've got a rough assemblage that I'm using as my framework. One of the things I decided to change was to take the first shot and make it appear to be on a monitor on a spaceship console. Here's the console I made: And here's what it looks like with the video running in it: I've added more shots, so I have even more to do, but I really think it's going to be fun when it's finished.

Very cool!

Those are some great solutions, Bobby! Now I want to find something to use dynamic constraint on. :-)

Very cool! Has a "black light" feel to it!

I never used to notice it that much in Hanna-Barbera cartoons, but the Filmation cartoons (Tarzan, Flash Gordon, etc.) were much more blatant about it. Even as a kid I recognized those sequences that were used over and over again. The trick to reusing it in 3D, would be that you'd have to keep your camera setup pretty flat. If the perspective is wrong, it would show up in 3D. Of course, it would save time just to render the characters with an alpha channel and render out the backgrounds as a static image that could be composited. Again, as long as you didn't move the camera. I've definitely re-used frames in the comic strip to save time.

Just voted again!

The set is looking great, Steve!

Okay, a lifetime of Mom guilt trips made me unable to not concede to your comments, Nancy. :-) I tweaked the last shot to try to cover some of the things you mentioned. I kept the hands up, though. they have aliens behind them aiming weapons at them. I might have overdone the bounce in the arms a little (almost looks like they are "raising the roof.") mysterious_shaded3.mp4 Here's the shot I worked on today. Fun to have the monkey reacting to everything. :-) indy_shaded.mp4

I think it works for what I'm doing, Nancy. I suppose if the elbows bounced to the movements that might keep the arms from looking as stiff. Waiting to put all the parts together before I do the final sound. I've been watching video tutorials for After Effects all day trying to think what I'm going to do for all of the title cards. Want something fun that feels like a real movie trailer.