The Wannabe Pirates

[Eric2575]

Really Top Notch stuff you got going there. Very professional quality look and feel to it. What Studio did you say you work for?

 

The guys you show this to may not know how much work goes into something like this, but all of us here really do know and appreciate that. Many koodos to you

[largento]

Thanks, Eric!

 

No, don't work at a studio. Maybe this'll be really successful, though, and I'll be able to open my own one day! :-)

[loopydoo2033]

great work

[robcat2075]

Wow. Great looking shots!

 

I'm eager to see what comes nest.

 

 

edit: I just perused your site and it refers to a live action movie you did several year ago. Is that viewable online anywhere?

[largento]

Wow. Great looking shots!

 

I'm eager to see what comes nest.

 

 

edit: I just perused your site and it refers to a live action movie you did several year ago. Is that viewable online anywhere?

 

Thanks, Robert!

 

McCrary's movie is a full hour long, making it too long to put up on the website, although we'll probably put up clips at some point, just for the novelty of it. There's a short clip in this thread here.

 

I've been taking a breather this week. Going back to work after my month-long sabbatical was tough!

[totlover]

Wow. I havent been to active on the forums but i love this project.

Dont know if you have already said this but what you plan on doing with them. Series... Movie....?

[largento]

The plan is a series of short movies, Tot... although finishing the first one is the primary goal. I'll see how it goes once I've done that.

[Masna]

Great job so far, Largento! I like the exagerated cartoony style you've potrayed. Maybe this'll be the next big thing on the web. I sure hope so.

[largento]

Thanks, Masna!

[largento]

Well, slight change of plans...

 

I'm breaking the movie up into chapters! There are several benefits to doing so, but the biggest one is that it makes the project more manageable being able to focus on one section at a time... and takes some pressure off of me to try to get the whole project done in a rush.

 

Tentatively the plan is to release the first chapter in September and then release the subsequent chapters every four months. This would then allow me to transition immediately into the second film without having to have a huge gap.

 

I think creating 5 minute episodes will be much more realistic and I think that works for the web better, too. Very few people would want to sit down and watch a 20 minute movie on their computer all at once.

 

I'm actually very excited about this, since the possibility exists for me actually being able to get ahead of the schedule... which would be a much better feeling than sweating whether or not I can get the whole thing done at once.

[largento]

 

Another character... This is Cutthroat Jacques' blind parrot, Archibald. It's gonna' be fun figuring out how to put a rig in him with TSM.

[Rodney]

For a moment there...

 

I was trying to figure out why he had two eye patches...

Then I thought they were sunglasses...

Then I re-read your description...

Makes perfect sense now.

 

He should make for some interesting moments.

 

I should say that you might want to work the design there a little to keep people from accidentally thinking the patches are sunglasses. Perhaps adding some fairly obvious overlapping?

Unless, of course they are in which case I'd suggest exaggerating the size or frame design a bit more.

 

Interesting character!

[jakerupert]

Maybe like this?

[KenH]

Heh. Should be fun. But the theory goes that pirates didn't wear patches because they were blind. It allowed them to go into dark spaces (ships?) and quickly adjust to the lighting by taking off their patch. Mythbusters is fun too.

[largento]

For a moment there...

 

I was trying to figure out why he had two eye patches...

Then I thought they were sunglasses...

Then I re-read your description...

Makes perfect sense now.

 

He should make for some interesting moments.

 

I should say that you might want to work the design there a little to keep people from accidentally thinking the patches are sunglasses. Perhaps adding some fairly obvious overlapping?

Unless, of course they are in which case I'd suggest exaggerating the size or frame design a bit more.

 

Interesting character!

 

Thanks, Rodney. Archibald is a mean, nasty parrot. Besides having his eyes poked out, his tongue was cutout and his tailfeathers were plucked... mostly he just bites. Flemm, of course, is fascinated by him and is usually the person getting bitten.

 

Maybe like this?

 

Some of my early drawings did have this overlapping eye patches, but I found it distracting and complicated... thus, the simplification. The fact that they can be mistaken for dark sunglasses, actually helps to reinforce the idea that he's blind.

 

Since McCrary is working about 20 to 30 strips ahead, Archibald has already been drawn into the strip as he is. I actually felt a stronger pressure to make him look like the drawn version this time out, since I was having to model it after the fact.

 

Heh. Should be fun. But the theory goes that pirates didn't wear patches because they were blind. It allowed them to go into dark spaces (ships?) and quickly adjust to the lighting by taking off their patch. Mythbusters is fun too.

 

I've never heard that, Ken. That's a sort of clever idea, but wouldn't being robbed of depth perception be a greater problem than the momentary benefit of being able to see in the dark faster?

[KenH]

I've never heard that, Ken. That's a sort of clever idea, but wouldn't being robbed of depth perception be a greater problem than the momentary benefit of being able to see in the dark faster?

 

Perhaps. But when you're a pirate pillaging someone elses ship, being able to see in the dark as soon as you enter it may have greater advantages. I guess it's up to the pirate.

[John Bigboote]

They would need to run into the powder-room (as in GUNpowder) very quickly as the battle raged... and because gunpowder was kept in a cool-dry place, it was usually dark as well. They would flip the eye-patch from one eye to the other for instant adjustment and thereby less clumsiness (you don't want ooopsies when handling gunpowder)

[largento]

They would need to run into the powder-room (as in GUNpowder) very quickly as the battle raged...

 

Yes, and hopefully, without being able to judge the distance, wouldn't miss the first step and fall down the stairs. :-)

[largento]

Just an update on what's going on with the movie:

 

Haven't abandoned it, I promise. :-)

 

I foolishly thought that I could work out all of the story stuff while storyboarding from the rough draft script. Turns out I got into a different frame of mind and just kept reproducing what was already written... and I wasn't satisfied with that.

 

So, I finally recognized that I need to go back and do a couple of more drafts of the script first.

 

The decision to break the movie up into four 5-minute chapters also means that I need to balance them out more. The first part of the story didn't really do much more than introduce the characters, so I'm trying to punch it up so that it works better as a stand-alone chapter. The second chapter is more or less being created whole-cloth. I've brought in another friend of mine to help me make it better and to put me on a more rapid timeline for its completion.

 

The webcomic is still going strong. We're close to finishing up the second storyline and the third storyline will begin in a week and a half or so. We've started to pick up a few readers and our numbers are going up. We're planning on doing some advertising around the start of this new storyline, so hopefully we'll get even more. The great part of doing the comic is that it gives us a chance to develop a potential audience for the movie... even though we began the movie first, it'll seem to the folks who come to the site that it's a 3D animated version of the comic.

 

I just today checked and September 19 is National Talk Like a Pirate Day. It'd be really great if I could at least have the first trailer for the movie done by then.

[largento]

As I've mentioned, one of the neat ideas we had was to create a webcomic version of The Wannabe Pirates as a way of introducing the characters and hopefully building up an audience for when the animated versions appear.

 

This has been great fun, a LOT of work and it's actually retro-influenced the cartoon. As I'm working on the new script, I'm including some of the ideas that were introduced in the webcomic.

 

We didn't do much to promote the webcomic originally, because we wanted to wait until we had enough content up to make a visit by a reader worthwhile. Now that we've got just under 50 strips up and have begun a new storyline, we decided it was time to do it.

 

Beginning last week, we started placing ads on some other webcomic websites and it's been fun looking at the stats and seeing how many people are coming to the site and reading the strips. In the 4 months we've been keeping track of it, we've had visits from all 50 states and many from around the world! Hopefully they'll be entertained by what we've done and will want to keep coming back.

 

Because of the dual nature of this project (3D & 2D), we decided to make both a 3D and 2D version of the banner ad. There were definitely limitations to what could be done because the ads couldn't be larger than 100k, but I think they came out pretty cool!

 

Here they are...

 

 

 

I think it will really be a plus for the cartoon to have the audience be familiar with the characters. To them, it will be like the cartoon is a 3D version of the strip, even though we started on the cartoon first!

[martin]

Cooooooool!

[NancyGormezano]

neat terrific wonderful style - love it.

[case]

Both strips look rather great!

Hard to choose which one looks better!

 

Keep Posting!

[KenH]

I love how the cartoon plays itself. It's like reading without having to move your eyes much. I think you should make all the cartoons like that! The banner at the end should be clickable!

 

Nice style and it's good to see you're waiting till you've plenty of content.

[largento]

Thanks, everybody!

 

Ken, the actual ads appearing on the websites are clickable, these are just the animated gifs. I don't know if anybody is doing their webcomic with animated gifs everytime. That would add a few more extra layers of difficulty and time spent! I liked it for the ad, though, since it might make the viewer pay more attention to it to follow it through.

 

I am very happy to say that I finally finished the 2nd draft of the script for Chapter 1 of the movie this weekend! In the end, I bribed myself with a burrito and sat in the restaurant with my laptop until I finished. :-)

[Tralfaz]

Excellent work Mark. Both styles look great!

 

Really looking forward to seeing your characters animated.

 

Al

[largento]

Thanks, Al! I am really looking forward to that part. I think it's going to be the most fun part of the process.

 

Now that the script is done, I'm jumping into making the animatic for it! I've started recording temporary voice tracks and plan on assembling it radio style to get the timing down. Every second is 30 more frames that need to be rendered, so I'm really wanting to make this not a second more than 5 minutes!

 

The only real comment I got from McCrary about the changes were that he lamented that I had to pull out some of the gags. It was kind of a bummer to lose some of them, but I think it actually works better in its new streamlined form. With the limitations, I could really only afford to put in the parts that were absolutely needed for the story. The pace picked up, too, which is good since this chapter is mostly set-up for the story.

 

Going to run another round of ads this week and needed a "skyscraper" ad, so came up with this one. The vertical shape was a challenge, but it also made it easier to use Flemm's ship. It's a shame about widescreen for pirate movies, because it's tough to show a tall sailing ship in all it's glory. I thought it was clever in the last Pirates of the Caribbean movie when they had the maelstrom, which allowed the ships to be almost completely sideways, and letting them fill up almost the entire screen.

 

[largento]

Apparently they showed Leslie Iwerk's "The Pixar Story" on television in England recently... so, naturally, it is now floating around the internet.

 

I watched it yesterday. It's pretty entertaining and interesting. Most of the stuff wasn't anything really new to me (especially after watching all the extras docs on the Pixar DVDs), but there was one thing I did find interesting:

 

In past docs I've seen on the subject of Toy Story, Lasseter seemed to have accepted the blame for the first version of it having been rejected by Disney... or rather, he never said, "It was Disney's fault." But in this, it's made abundantly clear that the problems with the first version came from the Disney Executive (I'm pretty sure it was Katzenburg, but my memory isn't firm) pushing Pixar to make it "edgy." In "The Pixar Story," the story goes that when they went back to re-do it, they did it their own way and that was what made it great.

 

There's a part in it, where Brad Bird has first come to Pixar and lectures to the room that all of these successes that Pixar has had are not normal... and I think he even characterizes it as a fluke, but it's clear that it's not a fluke. Pixar never really had to worry about the money part. Not that they were making a lot of it, but Steve Jobs came along at the right time and kept them going (even though he was losing a million bucks a year). Pixar saw success as being a result of quality. And it was telling that they never thought that one success gave them a free ride to the next one. They saw it as starting from square one each time.

 

There's certainly no way I would ever imagine being able to reach the quality of a Pixar effort on my own, but it does encourage me to keep on doing it my own way... which is what attracted me to learning how to do this in the first place.... the idea that one guy can sit down and make his own dream come true.

[KenH]

You certainly know how to put your idea out there! All the ads are great. I really want to see this darn animation now!!

[Rodney]

Mark,

There is no way for you to know it but so many times you have pushed all the right creative buttons with me.

Now you produce Gif ad banners with movie content. I have always been a fan of that format and apparently (with your refresher... still am!). I love Gif animation... never pretensious.... easily accessible... brilliantly executed in your case.

 

You are living the life I always wanted to live. Exploring. Creating. Connecting.

But.. importantly... you are doing it oh so much better than me.

 

Rock on Wannabes.

[largento]

Thanks, Ken! I'm trying! I really want to see it finished, too! Heck, at this point, I'd just like to see me get to the point where I can finally *start* animating it! :-)

 

Thanks, Rodney! My southern sense of humility thinks you're being too kind, but it's definitely appreciated! :-) I was kind of cornered into the Gif animation. When McCrary and I decided on doing that gag, I realized that the space just wouldn't allow all of the lettering needed. So it started just trying to solve that problem. Then, as I approached it, I thought it would work better having an animated feel. It took McCrary by surprise. He was expecting individual panels. As I got into it, I really lamented that I had to keep the file size down so small. It would've been great to have been able to have full motion.

[brainmuffin]

Mark, if you need/want volunteers, I've got some time. Just don't ask me to rig.

[Rodney]

There is one problem with Gif animations these days. Some browsers apparently have animated Gifs turned off by default.

So... the viewer only sees the first image.

 

At least that was reported after I posted a few animated Gifs here in the forum.

 

I'm still a big fan of the format though.

[largento]

Thanks, Brainmuffin! I'll let you know if I do!

 

Because I was supposed to be doing something else, I found myself experimenting with how Flemm's ship should animate. Here's my test.

 

shiptest.mov

 

This is from the final shot in Chapter 1. If you can imagine it, a seagull swoops down and disappears behind the ship exiting on the right side of the screen (blocked by the ship). On the fore deck, Mr. Sneeze is calling up to Captain Flemm, who is manning the wheel. As the ship passes us, he spins the wheel in the starboard direction and the ship turns, moving away from us. As it does, we see Poco pop up out of the crow's nest (which currently isn't on the model) and wave back at us.

 

The temp music here is from The Sea Hawk.

 

I put in a simple side to side motion and had the ship sink a little at the extreme of each swing. That way you get a little side to side and up and down motion. It seems to be the right way to go... and the camera's wide angle gives the ship a lot more scale when it passes close.

 

This is saved at 12 fps, so it's a bit jumpy. I did that while I was adjusting the speed.

[KenH]

Nice test. It feels like something needs to be a tad faster. What I don't know. Either the ship or the camera move. It's difficult to tell what is moving with no land marks.

[largento]

You're right, Ken. I'll keep tweaking... I think everything needs to be slightly faster.

[largento]

So, I spent all weekend working on this shot (and then about 25 hours rendering!) It's not perfect, but I'm beginning to realize that I'll never finish this if I even entertain the idea of getting anything perfect. :-)

 

lastshot_web.mov

 

This is a landmark for me... an actual shot from the movie!

[Caroline]

This is a landmark for me... an actual shot from the movie!

 

Congratulations - it looks fabulous. It really caught the sea swaying movement.

[robcat2075]

Yes, congratulations on your first shot!

 

I wonder what could be done to get a bit more... contact... where the boat meets the water?

[KenH]

Very nice. I like where this is going. I agree, there's too much of a horizontal line at the ship contact point. Some sort of wake would add a huge amount to it.

 

This thread might help. Though there's no white water....

 

http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?showt...154&hl=wake

[Rodney]

Mark,

I agree that adding some displaced water at the base of the ship would do great things for this shot.

 

The thing that seems rather odd to me however is the shadow of the ship.

The origin of the light seems low and close to the ship juding by how the shadow changes along with the camera move.

This gives the effect that all this activity is taking place on a stage... or a very small world... which, if that is the intent... I think you've nailed it.

 

If you were going for the stage look that might even let you exaggerate the style of the waves even more.

In other words... if you aren't going for realism in your characters and props... why go for it with the water?

Maybe some very stylisticly drawn waves instead of the similated computer style waves would look better?

 

 

 

Just thinkin' out loud here.

 

Looks great!

[largento]

Thanks, everybody!

 

Those are very valid criticisms (along with the many others that could be made!) :-)

 

I'm just going to have to accept the shortcomings at this point and move forward. Maybe down the line, I'll be able to revisit them.

 

Still, I'm excited! I'm on my way! :-)

[martin]

Looks great!

 

Baby steps on all the additional refinements. I agree that you should push on to the next shot. The important thing is that you're moving, the story is flowing, and you're maintaining your enthusiasm so that you may return to this shot in the future should you desire.

 

I can't wait to see what you do next!

[largento]

Thanks, Martin!

[jirard]

All this is looking great Largento! Glad to see your still hammering away at this.

[largento]

Thanks, Jirard!

 

You know the funny thing is that it seems like I've been working on it for much longer than I really have! I made some posts on the website showing the modeling of Flemm's ship and was stunned when I realized that was just back this January. It seems like I've been at this for years! :-)

[jirard]

It probably seems like a long time because of the amount of much work you have managed to get done in such a relatively short time. This a great example of proper planning.

[largento]

Hahaha, Jirard... I'm not sure about how much of this has actually been planned, but I very much like that I've given you that appearance. :-)

 

Well, I totally didn't take my own advice and have been messing around with this shot. I think it's much better. I re-rendered it with Image Based Lighting (just using a picture that included sky and ocean.) I ran into a problem where I had keyed a light coming on half way through the shot and ended up having to go back and re-render the first chunk so that the light would be on to begin with. I ran into a peculiar problem where I was getting random black squares popping up on many of the frames. Maybe something to do with the IBL and the ocean material? I painstakingly removed them all... but that's not something I'd like to do again. Finally, I gave in and rendered a mask version and added a sky image. I was worried that it wouldn't work because of the camera movement, but I think it does work.

 

Anyway, version 2 (sorry, it's kind of a big file):

 

newpass.mov

[largento]

Shameless self-promoting request time! :-)

 

We're trying to get our ranking on one of the webcomic listing sites up into the top 100. There's a "Vote" button on the right sidebar of the site that you can click on to vote for us. Not asking anybody to vote if they don't like our webcomic, but if you do, it would be great if you could help out!

[NancyGormezano]

Shameless self-promoting request time! :-)

 

We're trying to get our ranking on one of the webcomic listing sites up into the top 100. There's a "Vote" button on the right sidebar of the site that you can click on to vote for us. Not asking anybody to vote if they don't like our webcomic, but if you do, it would be great if you could help out!

 

Aye aye Cap'n - I done my duty - Can I be having my parrot back now?

 

My pleasure to vote for you!