Darkwing

wow, wish I could produce that much in the same amount of time as you! Probably gonna take a gander at your script on Tuesday, don't have the time yet to commit to reading something until then

That's looking like a great style you have going, keep it up!

Le gasp! My sub is up. Probably gonna be a bit before it gets renewed

Great start! I never got around to proofreading your script, I still can though if you want as I did get your e-mail

Here's a super awesome test render the other Chris put together! It's pretty awesome as he'll soon be working on the actual VFX and I'm about a month or two away (I hope) from starting actual character animation!

So, I have a request which is probably gonna get more reluctant answers, but I'm gonna shoot it out anyways. I'm finally on the third last character model (which is exciting in and of itself) but the main issue is that these are the main characters with dialogue bits. Now where this is Star Trek and it takes place on starships, there kind of needs to be background characters who are just sitting around, using computer consoles, walking by and that sort of thing. My request is actually two-fold, first up is the one that would make my life considerably easier but might be something people are reluctant to give up. If anybody has some heads that are at more or less of photorealistic nature (like mine) and would be willing to donate them to be placed on some bodies just to fill in these background roles of populating the bridges and stuff, that would for one be fantastic and I would be ever so grateful. Of course you would be fully credited. They could be guy or girl (or alien even) and as long as they look old enough to be on the bridge of starship then that would be about it for requirements. I am not asking for you to build new models or anything, but if you have any that you had previously built and textured and are just collecting dust on the old HDD that would be amazing! The second portion of the request is if you don't have any or are really unwilling to part with any, lend me your face by taking high res rotoscope images and letting me build and texture it. That's obviously the one I'm less inclined to as it's more work overall, but it might end up being the only option depending on if people are willing or not with the first request. Again you'd be credited as an "extra" if we went that route. So yeah, if you're willing for (hopefully) option A or B, I guess just post here or email me at chrisadcameron(at)gmail(dot)com Again, it's really appreciated if you do

Figured I'd post this here as well. Here is the first of three short stories that serve as prequels to Red Squad and between the three, will set up the events that unfold in Red Squad and fill in a lot of the gaps and blanks and knowledge to help make episode 4 make sense when it comes out Beginnings: Mysteries, Crimes and the Dark Hidden Shadow

That explains why I don't know it then. Only sci-fi I've ever really read is Asimov's stuff from like 50 years ago

Ok what about a different hint, is it from a Tv Show, Movie or Book/Comic/Literature of some form? I've honestly wracked my brain and can't think of any blue and white planets comprised of a hexagon pattern with black poles and a red equator. The hexagon pattern suggests some sort of mechanicalness, it doesn't look like cybertron which is the only mechanical planet which comes to mind

Is the entire object a sphere or is this sphere you've made part of the larger object? EDIT: It's not a sphere is it, it's just the decal? Hmmm, this is tricky, I feel like I should know this though :/

I would say Dyson Sphere, but I remember that being greyer

Did a bunch of doodling for both male and female designs. For this batch I've gone with a significantly higher retro look to it as you can tell by the flared gloves and stuff. Also, I believe I've invented a new character (roughly) which could help with the human element for Heroic. Essentially we have the hero, we have the villain so what's needed is the love interest. I'm thinking (if going with the heavier retro design) that this is the "damsel in distress who isn't quite in distress" that Heroic always comes to save, but for no real reason as she can very much take care of herself. I'm not thinking of her as a travel companion though, more like someone who pops in and out again throughout the series or something. I dunno, just some musings is all.

Mm, unfortunately I just came back from Futureshop and they don't have it. So guess it's don't get it, actually apply for that credit card, or somehow get to the city. Probably just gonna end up being the first option. I suppose if anyone really wanted to see it, I could upload all three 20 some odd MB SWF files which isn't preferable.

Oh don't get me wrong, I purchase almost every piece of software I own and if I go free, I try to make sure it's legal. Of course I do have one exception, except I intend to pay for it as soon as I apply for a credit card... I just can't see why someone would pay a hundred dollars to convert an SWF to MOV is all. It's just like at that price it better make breakfast too or something On that note, I intend to go to Futureshop and see about purchasing the upgrade from Leopard to Snow Leopard (assuming they still have it.) I'm getting tired anyways of all the glitches of Leopard and I hear that AM runs smoother on Snow Leopard, so that in and of itself would be a bonus!

Nope, looks like it comes with Snow Leopard, so I'm once again an OS behind At a glance I can't find a download for it, but like I said, it's only at a glance EDIT: After more digging it's definitely not something I'm going to be able to get on my little old Leopard. It follows this newer platform of apps and stuff the Snow Leopard and Lion have utilized so I'm still in the ditch :|

A query to anyone who knows where Mac software exists. Is there first of all free SWF to any known form of video type converter out there? I recorded this video basically a behind the scenes on setting up that explosion wallpaper, except it seems that the only free mac screencap software is Jing, which records to SWF only. So that brings me to my second point, if anyone knows of any free screencap software other than Jing, please let me know. It kind of sucks cause this type of software exists freely for windows users but once again, mac's exclusivity has struck again (can you believe some SWF to MOV conversion software charge 99 dollars?! I can't believe any of those folks are in business, who would buy such software at that cost?!)

Figured it was time for a good pic of Deitrix, the primary antagonist for Red Squad, so here's a new wallpaper featuring him! And yes, the explosion and everything was done with AM! Well, not the words, blurring and sparks, that post work was done in PS, but the primary render was done in AM

The new bodies are complete and look much much better than their predecessor! So here's a new wallpaper showing three of the Red Fleet team!

I followed the rotoscopes almost to a tee, but I'll do some measuring for good sport and see if they are small

So I've decided to remodel the bodies as the old ones are kind of over muscular and don't move around well. So here's what I have so far! I grabbed the hands off of the extras CD (they're better hands than my previous ones I was using) and everything else is all modeled by me! I've also employed a very basic rig around the major joints so I can move them around in an action and make the modeling corrections as needed. So far it's working beautifully and the character can have considerably better poses and contortions without the mesh distorting, specifically around the shoulder which was a trouble spot on the previous body model.

Interesting idea, definite arc potential! Originally the name actually derives from the fact that during the civil war with his people, he was a captain and his "wing name" so to speak was Heroic. That was the original idea but not sure if I'll stick with that. However, here is more of the significant idea I had come up with eons ago. Captain Heroic's race wasn't like typical life in the galaxy, divided by what they called sentient and non-sentient. The sentients were basically most humanoid like life (including humans). Heroic's race however was known as non-sentient life forms. Heroic's race was born like normal life except that the distinguishable difference was that they could control their life entity (usually referred to as essence). This essence was incredibly long lasting and gave the race an almost appearance of immortality, not just because of the incredible life span, but because while this essence inhabited a body, the body was seemingly indestructible, or at least had considerable resistance to most common forms of injury. The essence of a non-sentient could actually remove itself from its body and go to another one if it was skilled and strong enough. Now most of Heroic's race wasn't capable of this, but Heroic was naturally one of the gifted ones who could actually do it. So was his arch nemesis Goriath. In a plot premise I came up with a few years ago, the penultimate episode for the season would have ended with Goriath discovering a way to extract the essence from Heroic to use it to power his mega-weapon which could destroy, convert or control all sentient life in the galaxy. The episode was to have ended with Goriath succeeding in doing this had having extracted Heroic's essence, destroyed Heroic's physical body. If you watch the original episodes, this is loosely where it's heading as Goriath makes his first attempt at this (but fails) in episode 1. In episode 3 we see a new space station designed by Goriath which was supposed to be attempt number 2. Again he was to fail as Heroic destroys the space station yet actually be oblivious as to what its true purpose was and what was to be in store for him by Episode 6, when Goriath would have amassed the largest space fleet since the Civil War and launched his assault on Heroic and finally succeed in extracting Heroic's essence and controlling the galaxy.

Oh my goodness, I forgot a key element! I'm glad I started re-watching Moon of Evil, I'm amazed at how much I had figured out back then! Definitely some decent material that has potential for exploration that could answer some of who or at least what is Captain heroic!

Yeah, that was always one of the major plusses of serials, being able to continue the arc with repeated to be continued's. Something I think I forgot to mention with regards to the human thing and this actually gets me to thinking a bit, but in the originals, it was unspecified as to where the series took place. In my mind it was in another galaxy or a distant part of this one, so in episode 4, it's a freak accident that blows him across the universe to meet humans for the first time. If you watch all of the episodes, with the exception of Episode 4, other than Heroic, you won't see anyone else that looks like a human, everyone else is alien. I think this is where it starts to get into that territory of animation not just substituting real actors because if everyone but Heroic looks alien then it kind of makes sense to do it all as animation. I've always been partial to not giving the info up front, I always like to build up to the penultimate episode...well, have always wanted to, I've never made a full series before, kinda been one of my loose dreams in life if I have any at all The trick will be doing this and having what appears like random adventures in a 5 minute interval. Or perhaps this is too complicated and each episode should specifically deal with the seasonal story arc?

Well, I was young, or at least younger, guess it's only been like 6 or so years since I made the last one. By comparison I find them archaic and sloppy at best, but it usually takes forever (or never) before you become appreciative of one's first works. I do remember do several re-writes of scripts though and being beat for ideas. Episode 3 took frigging forever to write as I couldn't get the idea formed right. More trivia, the episodes were made out of order, I do believe they were made as episode 1, 2, 5, 4 and 3, mainly because Halloween happened and I wanted to do a special, but it didn't fit in the 2 part timeline of Planet of Insects. Furthermore, Planet of Insects was supposed to be 3 parts instead of two and this cybertron fellow wasn't behind any of it originally. Also, (this may be the most interesting trivia tidbit or any actual interest or significance) but episode 6 of Captain Heroic is why I bought AM. I had decided that what I wanted to do for episode 6 and beyond wouldn't work well with Anim8or, so I bought AM and then never made episode 6. And now like 5-6 years later, here I am! Now to stuff of more story consequence, I'm intrigued by certain ways you've put things, the human element, heroes and legends, the gods etc. An interesting albeit semi cliche idea would be to follow along this mythic sort of lines ie the "gods" deemed Heroic's race as the guardians of the galaxy but after something happened, Heroic is all that's left. On the note of the human element, you are very correct, the audience needs to connect. Something of further interest is I read a while back an article regarding Doctor Who, I can't remember who it was by, perhaps it was Steven Moffat, can't be sure. Anyways, whoever said it said the reason the Doctor needs companions is so that the audience can connect with the show. On his own, the Doctor is actually so coldly alien that a human audience could never fully connect to a show that revolved around the Doctor alone. Like the Doctor, the audience needs the human companions to connect and to feel a part of it. As there are many similarities between the Doctor and Captain Heroic, this would hold true for Heroic as well. If he's not a human and this mary-sue like super hero of sorts, how does the audience connect. I think the common method these days is by giving the hero all sorts of human flaws and corruptions (look at BSG, they are the good guys and heroes, but they suffer from drinking problems, depression, marital problems etc) So again, that brings up the question of how. I don't think I'm all to partial to the idea of a sidekick or anything like that but I think perhaps he could be somewhat human by nature, compassion and all that, but not without all of the dark flaws. Someone like MacGyver. MacGyver's a good guy, he's a hero, does the right thing but overall doesn't really have much for corruption or flaws. Sure he can make mistakes, Heroic can too, but I think he could probably still be connectable without having some dark character trait to bring him down to our level.

Yeah, I think I'm kind of inclined to inspiration from the visual style of the Incredibles as the Incredibles definitely pulled on that retro yet modern look at the same time, which is kind of what I'd like to go for, at least a little.