smudge

Pretty much, luckbat. Good Ol’ painting over a wireframe. Since I drop the wire image over the model before I begin painting (like how the bench is currently set up), I can constantly go back and forth between Photoshop and Hash to see how the texture is working on the model adding and subtracting detail as I think it needs. Here's the back wall as an example.

Poking at the main Observation Room textures and setting what the final look's going to be. As you can see, I still need to do the bench, outer walls, the control panel brace, a hallway behind the door, ect. And here's what I'm going for a final look (using current models). I have not touched the animation at all at this point. Just poking at textures while I'm getting other work done. Weee. LookTest_small_compress.mov

Another Friday update. Fish are happier now. Still need to repaint the background. After I finish with the re-painting it's on to BG09 I guess. <sarcasm> Wow, I might actually finish the first act by the end of the year...</sarcasm> BG07_BG10snippetCompress.mov

Premiere is a good one for this sort of work. Yes you should be able to hold a frame for however long you want. I say should since I don't know what version you have and what version that support came in, but it can in really early so chances are the version you have will do it. When I putting together my animatics (likeareels ect.) I use Premiere because it's much faster to adjust to get the timing I want and to drop in basic sound since that affects timing. Hope that helps.

Ask and ye shall receive! Hope this helps.

Nightelf Warrior, actually. I like my guys good looking, strong and slightly stupid. He's on Uther. I've got a bunch of characters scattered between Uther, Dragonblight, Eldr'thalas(sp?), Sliverhand and a couple others depending on what group I'm gaming with. Blanc is my main thou and is currently trying to figure out how to afford a mount. But that's enough of a WoW hijacking for this thread (for now)....

I'm assuming you mean the Will O' Wisp? It's a simple model of a flat circle with a ring around it. The Ring is boned to spin around the center. The texture map takes care of the glow. Hope that helps. As for WoW, I play it waaaay to much....

Hey all! So here I am, with 'Stolen Child' well underway and demanding attention, way too much comic and web work that I need to find time to poke at, and what do I do? That's right, I create a new WIP for my 'mood shot' entry in hopes that I might actually finish it one day. I must be suicidal or something... Anyway, 'Longing for Home' has a long way to go. While the all the rough blocking animation is there, and there is enough in place to tell the story, it'll be nice to polish this up into something I'd actually be proud of. Something nice to put up on the website, anyway. I'm also going to be using this as a style test bed for another project that I want to do after I finish 'Stolen Child'. For those who haven't seen it yet, you can find the short: Longing for Home So, what needs to be done? For starters, replacing all the dummy models with finals would be good. There's a lot of texture painting to do, re-rigging of the main character, lots of re-working of animation, ect. There's also timing fiddling I need to do to make this read better. As for the style test thing: I'm going to be painting all the backgrounds and toon-rendering the character. Let's see what comes of this, shall we? Right now I'm starting with the models, so I have finalized rigging to work with. Models Recorder -- Need to remodel. Needs proper holes, need to add about 3 inches onto the length, need to create in lighter color (white/cream?) so that it reads better against the dark backgrounds of space. Observation Room -- The model itself is pretty much good to go short of adding textures. I might add like a trash-receptacle or something like that. If anything, I want to dirt the place up a bit. Give it that "we've been out here too long" look. Star Sphere -- Need to re-build and retexture. I'm thinking that it should have at least three layers of geometry with a transparent star texture map on each so that when the world shifts you can see the stars moving slightly differently from each other. It'll help add the illusion of depth. Need to also correct for the seams and pinching on the sphere. Grassy Field -- Boy this one needs a lot of work. Need to paint backdrop. Need to fiddle with hair setting until they actually look like grass. Maybe use an image for the blades. Not sure yet which would be better. Forest -- Again this needs a lot of work. Should rebuild trees to something less cartoony. Also need to keep in mind that the toon render does not render the line behind a transparency so any breaks in the leaves on beauty shots where the tree is in front of Rose I need to model instead of letting a transparency map to the work for me. Need to think about what time of day it should be and who to better light the scene. Right now it's just default lighting. Cliff -- Lots of heavy work. Paint sky backdrop. Add small amounts of grass. Make it feel "alive". Rose -- she's going to need the most work. Right now, I’m fighting the model because of her IK-popping knees. I have an idea that'll help rigging-wise. I just need to implement it. I also want to set her up properly for the toon render and get here more "spacey" by giving her a nice SF jumpsuit with cargo pockets to hold the recorder (see model design sketch below). Animation Redo it all! It all sucks!!! I think that about covers everything. I'll post stuff as I get a chance to poke at it. Nothing scheduled though since 'Stolen Child' takes priority. Wee! More Work! How fun!!

(Continued) I’m also looking at redoing the fish slightly since I’m really thinking that the one that darts off screen does it badly when mixed in with the other video. I need to have him appear above the son’s panel not dart behind it. I’m slowly coming to the realization that I’m going to have to redo all my matts too. But that can wait until I’ve finalized all my shots for the first act. I’ll probably touch them up as I’m working on dropping all the knot-work in. Fiddle, fiddle. Futz, futz. BG07_BG10snippetCompress.mov

Standard Friday update! Got BG07 & BG08 complied together and have discovered a minor problem. Because of the way they had to be compiled, I've ended up with this weird black line at the bottom of the panel during the shift from BG07 to BG08. =gr!= Best way I can think to correct it is to go in and touch-up the background of BG08 to fill in that area. Not a major thing but it is time consuming. And here I thought I had everything worked out. Poo! (Continued in next post due to uploading more than one video...) BG07_BG08compress.mov

Sorry for no post last week. Things have been hectic. The two art shows are off and away. Now it's setting up for SDICC. Have been able to work on the short however. YEAH! Got the fish in for BG08. They are very fishy. However, when I dropped it into the reel, I can't tell if their motion is fighting with the main motion of the 'Son' in another panel or not. Poo. I've been staring at this thing too long and am starting to lose perspective. I'm going to wait until after Comic-Con to look at it again and decide if I need to change it. Also filed the bug/feature report about the alpha channels to Hash Reports. Hopefully they (in this case probably Noel & Yves (sp?)) will have a chance to look at it soon. I have a pretty good idea how busy their work schedule must be and since I'm not reporting anything that's 'broken' it'll be awhile before they get to it. We'll see. In the meantime I need to figure out a work-around to both Hash's render channel & Premiere's stupidity to complete BG07 & BG08. Again, something to contemplate after Comic-Con. BG08compress.mov

Weekly update! Got a good start on BG07 & BG08. The first pass of BG07 is rendered. Debating on whether I need to speed up the droplet or not. Pros: Right now it's moving too slowly and feels "floaty". Speeding it up would correct this. Cons: Speeding it up means a much sorter view time on screen (in this case, inside the panel). Folks might not be able to recognize that it's a water drop if it's moving too fast. Need to think on this. Also need to think on how to handle rendering BG08 due to how HASH handles the Alpha channel. Talked to Noal & Yves about this already when I was up in the area visiting HASH Inc. Need to get back to them on it, probably next week between doing more matting & framing. Setting up for three different art shows again, two of which need to be in the mail by next Wednesday, Yikes! Anyway here's the first render of BG07! BG07compress.mov

HA! Recovery! Actually, Mr. Jaqe, that wasn't the problem. Rose(my machine, we name our machines in this house-hold just to keep straight which machine we’re talking about) was doing that blue screen *after* booting and loading Windows 2K, but not before you got to the login screen. Once Rindis got home from work, he pounded on Rose until she finally recognized Check Disk, then she was happy. Stupid computer. As promised, here's what I was able to get done this past week; happy still lawn-herons standing in water (ie, the clouds and reeds are the only things moving). Until Obnomauk finished the rig, I can call this done and move onto the next shot. Obnomauk, no rush on the rig. The 'Heron' is only used in two shots in the entire film. Of course they are two of the most difficult shots to TD in the entire film. If you think the 'Heron' is tough now, what 'til I get to the second shot in Act 2 when we start throwing in particles with the birds.... (Why do I do this to my self?) I know how difficult the rig for the wings is, which is why I was more than happy to hand them off to someone far rigging-wiser than I. I'm just moving on ahead with the ability to jump back and finish this scene off at any time when you think they are ready. No worries. Onward! BG06compress.mov

Back to the typical friday posting....sort of God hates me. I know it. I acutally have something to show today; BG06 with all the background & forground elements animated. This pretty much finished with what I can do with the sceen until I here back from David about the Heron Rig. So of course *this* is the day that my main work machine that has all the files refuses to boot. Blue-Screen of death time. Inaccessaible boot device. AAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGG!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Somedays, I just can't win....

UG! Sorry for not updating for two weeks! Been busy trying to do two different art shows back to back, FanimeCon and the AVArt fest. Both went off real well and now I'm free to animate again. This weeks been recover and tying up loose ends so I haven't been able to do anything animation wise until today, and that starts by posting this. More next week when I have something to show. Yeah!

Actually, I had considered it. But on review of the artist's work that I'm patterning the film after, I found that he doesn't do it (one in maybe twenty pics if that). So I'm not gonna worry about it at this stage of the game. As for the clouds, some do arc up. Some arch down, some don't arch at all. It all depends on: A. How much information I've got to play with (usually not much) and B. What will read on the screen. There are usually three cloud layers to each background, with one or two exceptions. If they all moved in the same direction it just would read as one giant white blob. However if they are moving against each other you get a cool layered thing. Sometimes it means arching the clouds up, sometimes not. Also I don't want to add too much motion to the background lest you won't be able to focus on the main action of the characters. But thanks for the thought, entity. It's comments like that that keep me honest. Ug... back to matting. My hand's gonna fall off at this rate....

Nothing to report this week, since I couldn't do any work on the film. ACK! Trying to set up for six different art shows (two attending) will do that. If any of you are attending either Fanime Con or the AVArtfest stop by Baron's and I's booth and say "Hi". Next week's schedule: Next verse, same as the first? I hope not.

Thanks for the feedback guys! Sorry for no post last week. I was out of town. But I'm back on the ball this week. Worked on BG06 this past week. Splitting the background up and preparing it for animation was, for some odd reason, tougher than normal. I think I had to redo the clouds like five times.... But I've got a first pass at the clouds and lakeside done, and, while I do have the reeds and water lilies split from the original background as well, I won't be animating them until next week. As for the Heron, Obnomauk aka David Rodgers has, thankfully, volunteered to step in and give rigging the wings up a try. This is probably the most difficult rig in the entire short since the boards ask for the birds to go from a standing position (with their wings folded) to taking flight. It's easy to rig for one position or another, but mind-blowing hard to set a rig that can do both. I'm so glad he felt up for the challenge. You go for it, Dave! Next week, animating the foreground to BG06. If I get that done before Dave finishes the rig, I'll move onto BG07, which will need simple specialty models for a water drop and ripple rings for the water surface. Onward! BG06Background_compress_.mov

Woo-hoo! BG05's done! Next on the hit parade is BG06. This is going to be complicated since, as yet, I have not finished rigging the Heron. So for me to finish BG06 I need to: Finish rigging Heron Animate Herons, 5 birds total Animate the background elements, reeds, clouds and water Probably need to create a specialty model for the water, ripples and drops Then render everything Can I get it done in a week? Probably not, and definitely not next week since I'm going to be out of town. So I'm setting my "due date" for the 9th of next month. Here goes! BG05compress.mov

Oh, wow, I'm actually posting something on Friday for once... Yes, my walk cycles suck. I've given up on them. Let's move on, or this will never get finished. Worked on BG04 this week. Most of it's all there now. Adjusted the Son's ending pose to help with collision problems and to be more expressive to his reaction to the Will O' Wisp. Having the staff not slice the shot between him and the Wisp really helps. Still need to adjust the Son's right arm. It's floaty right at the end where he grabs the staff again. Next week, working on finishing BG04 and moving on to BG05. *Quick Edit: Fixed floaty arm and re-uploaded .mov. Now, next week, I can completly focus on BG05. BG04compress.mov

Ug, it's Tuesday and I’m only now doing my Friday post? Erg ... APE (Alternative Press Expo) kind of threw a ringer in things. But the shows over now, and I can start concentrating on other things (like my animation). Mostly did maintenance stuff last week; updating my schedule, seeing what's done and what's not, figuring out whether I need to revisit already completed animations or not, ect. Added all this data to Toon-Tracker. Boy, when I get into larger productions that programs going to be a God-send! The goal for this week is to try and finish off BG04. This should involve setting up the backgrounds for a very subtle movement in the clouds (so they are not dead), re-rendering the backgrounds with the Will O' Wisp, and taking a careful look at the son to see if I need to retouch the animation or not. Probably not with this shot, but I don't want to dismiss it out of hand. Off to work for me!

Thanks, nixie. Glad you like. Now here's hoping I can see it through 'till the end. Sorry for no post last Friday. Things got kind of weird between trying to get the new Ebin & May graphic novel compiled for Radio, poking at an entry for the animation contest (don't know if I'm gonna make it but I'm trying anyway), and trying to convince another publisher that they really want me to letter their next book (aka pan-handling for paid work). But I did get the last touches to BG01 in, mainly fiddling with the clouds. Next step, poking at BG04! BG01compress.mov

Not much to show this week despite how busy I've been. Actual work-like projects getting in the way. Gotta put food on the table somehow.... Had to deal with a small case of model corruption that kind of set me back. It's all fixed now. Did some animation too, but nothing I can really show. Hopefully, I can show a huge amount next week. Still not quite back on track yet. =grr=

Wow! I actually did some animating this week. Got the 'Mom' in the first act fixed. She’s no longer popping nor slamming as she transitions from kissing her 'Son' on the cheek to walking off screen. I know the 'Father's still a little stiff, but I think I better move on to another shot. If I have time, I'll come back and revisit the shot to work on the 'Father'. Next week, I plan to really look at my original schedule and adjust it accordingly to get back on track. I also plan on seeing if I can cut a trailer soon as a holdover for my website until I can get the final short done. All this, another quickie short for another project, comics pages, and World of Warcraft, all at the same time. WEEEE! BG01compress.mov

Thanks! Nothing to report this week. Doing much better, but now I'm to playing catch-up for the two weeks of sickness. Got the pages off to my publisher. Murphy's law; here I'm all panicked that I'd missed the deadline, and they come back and tell me I'm the first person to submit anything.... But, I'm almost caught up with my workload now. Might be able to animate a little this weekend. That'd be nice....