Digima Revolution

Ghost Dance Update - about 1/2 done animation (I'm sort of back... I never really left! ;)

2017-02-18T22:37:00.001-05:00

It's been a while since I updated this blog... again... heh :(

1 year almost to the day! hah: time for the annual blog post!

Some updates on my latest creation: "Ghost Dance" ... animation is about half done now. I've been working on this half assed as I feel like it. After finishing production on Cold Dark Mirror I needed another break in between projects to recharge and think up new ideas for future films.

You'd think that a short film would be easier to make than a feature: Less to record, less rendering, less animation... Turns out you still need to build a lot of sets... and I've only got the main sets built so far... There's some scenes that are only a single shot or two, going to have to "hide" things with clever use of camera angles and fog effects...

I've shut off my Facebook account in the meantime while I finish up "Ghost Dance" Social media is a total distraction and a time waster if you plan on getting anything actually useful accomplished. And it's not nearly the grandiose tool for promotion, based on the poor performance of all my films in the sales department!

Which is why I've also QUIT the film INDUSTRY. It is now purely a personal artistic expression for myself. As a result, I will be releasing all future releases just like the good old days: For free on Youtube and Vimeo. Films for me, by me, on my schedule. I don't want to hear any fucking complaints like on Archon Defender where the arms were too short 3 years after the fact when I could have done SFA about it. ! :P

Ever notice there are no really *good* films out these days. I can't even watch most movies now, especially since I know so much about how they are made, what makes a film good *for me*. Do you think similarly? Why not make your own films? In life there are two choices: Make art, or drink yourself to death with crack cocaine and heroin and meth-amphetamines.

2016-02-20T14:03:00.001-05:00

Long time since an update here on the ol' blog ;)

I'm making characters for Ghost Dance in Blender:

I'm using drivers to control the 'toon width' on my character: I've setup two objects (the "Toon Width" slider at the top of the character here...) In the Solidify modifier (which generates the toon edge) I've set up a driver with a simple calculation based on the distance between the origin object and the control. I've created this in all the objects on the character (there's 5 right now: body, hat, gun, sword, scabbard.) So now when I get close up or far away from the character I can adjust the toon width to my liking based on the shot:

2015-05-09T19:56:00.002-04:00

Started writing (by hand...) the first draft of my next film - A short Western animation: "Ghost Dance" - I sat outside and took advantage of the good weather instead of being cooped up all winter. I've been loosely following Blake Snyder's "Save The Cat" - A good starting point for screenwriting, and the story structure you "should" follow to write a good screenplay. The quotes there indicate that it's only a starting point, there's no set rules in screenwriting ( in my opinion..)

The three act structure outlined in Save the Cat is a good guideline, and the "beat sheet" I've found invaluable in fleshing out screenplays. But I'm not opposed to thinking outside the box, when it comes to script writing. The main thing is to write consistently, and to have a compelling story that underlies the film. Good characters, with motivation and growth, with conflict and adversity, and a resolution. If you take 3 acts or 6 to get there, doesn't matter, as long as the elements hold the story and the audience.

No visuals to show for the film yet. This early in the process I'm building the film in my mind, the script outlines my ideas as I develop them. I started with a beat sheet, one page handwritten that outlines the whole project, and I follow that in the next phase, drafting the first revision of the script. I'll make revisions to the script after I have the first draft, and fine tune the story before the next stage: Storyboards.

I'm going to be posting my progress for this whole project, from the first brainstorming to the final film, as a guide to my process. Here's the brainstorming and treatment that I initially created for the film:

I Brainstormed some Cliche elements that I have to put in the film:

Elements in a Western film
● Gunfight / showdown at high noon
● Undertaker measures up a coffin for the poor sap who just walked into town
● Sign on the outskirts of town with a population ie 23 people on it with numbers crossed
out
● Old broken down covered wagons
● Slowly riding a horse through the desert
● Monument valley landscape
● Saloon doors
● Some guy playing a harmonica
● Four roughians playing poker
● Small graveyard outside town with shitty old time gravestones
● Prairie dogs popping up out of the ground cover
● Riding off into the sunset.

The treatment I'll use as a rough guide, and flesh out in more detail as the first draft of the film:

Treatment / Plot outline
An Indian Spirit Talker invites a cowboy ( The Stranger) to sit with him at his fire. Two braves
sit off away from them, watching out into the night.

The Stranger tells the Spirit Talker about his wife and child, who were killed when their
plantation burned at the end of the Civil war. After this, the Stranger went west; there was
nothing left for him once the Confederacy was defeated, he came home from war to find his
home destroyed and family dead) The Stranger tried to hang himself then, but the rope
broke, and the desperation of hopelessness then held him back from trying a second time.

In the west, the Stranger wandered westward until he came to a town where he had a run in
with some local thugs who he saw beating a woman and child. This woman and child
reminded him of his own family, and he couldn’t let it go unanswered. The Stranger goes to
the saloon where the thugs are playing poker, he sits in on their game, laying down a bullet in
place of a coin... he accuses them of being dishonorable scumbags; the thug leader
challenges him to a shootout at high noon.

They shootout in a dramatic fashion, though we don’t see who has won the gunfight.
The Spirit Talker tells the Stranger that the Dead cannot die again. The Stranger tells him
that he has been wandering westward for a long time, that he cannot even remember how
long anymore. The Spirit Talker tells him that he is already dead... how else can they
understand each other if not for the fact that the Spirit Talker speaks the language of the
dead.

The Stranger does not remember if he was killed as a soldier on the battlefield, if he did
manage to hang himself, or if he died in the shootout with the thug gang. The Spirit Talker
tells him as he is leaving, that he will find no rest unless he gives up his wandering. He tells
the Spirit Talker that he will keep riding west; that there is always a horizon to walk towards.
The stranger gets on his horse, and walks off into the sunset.

Script Writing has begun!

2015-05-06T21:18:00.004-04:00

I've started writing an outline and a script for my next production, this time it will be another short, a Western in the style of the great Spaghetti Westerns of the 60's and 70's. Working title- "Ghost Dance". Some of the goals for this production is to develop a good horse model and rig, develop a flat shaded toon / hand painted look that will be a bit of a departure from the style in my previous films, a more expressive face rig with emphasis on the eyes, but keeping things simple and still avoiding the uncanny valley.

I also intend to document my process a bit than the last production, Cold Dark Mirror, which I made pretty much hiding out in a darkened studio room with no contact to the outside world. This time I want to show how I do each step of the process, with videos and demonstrations of my process with an emphasis on using Blender each step of the way.

All my other films are still going strong, and available on various distribution channels. Check out my main film website: Original Sine Productions with links to all the films.

In Uberector news, Jimmy Screamerclaus has wrapped up on When Black Birds Fly I've seen a sneak preview of this, and it's a pretty trippy experience, definitely a step up in his game from his previous works. If you search around, you can find some reviews for his first film "Where the Dead go to Die" which pan it as the worst animated film ever. Quite an accomplishment: being mediocre is easy... anyone can be the best, but to be the WORST... that takes talent!

I also hear that M Dot Strange is coming back from Game Development in his "spare" time (where he get's this spare time from is beyond me...) to work on a new film project.

Uberector Spooktergeist has released a teaser for his new project: River of Dry Blood. He's working in Blender as well, and this film looks like it's going to be good:

Cold Dark Mirror is Released!!!

2015-04-07T15:45:00.000-04:00

I suck at updating this blog. Usually because:

I'm lazy
I'm busy working on films or at my day job
I'm drinking beer or sleeping (simultaneously)

Announcing!

The VOD release of my third animated feature film, the fantasy epic Cold Dark Mirror!

Available now for rent or purchase on Vimeo VOD:

Standard 2D version rent from $4.99

3D Stereoscopic Bundle - rent from $7.99

The 3D Stereoscopic version includes the standard 2D version,

3D Anaglyph version, and 3D L/R Upper/Lower for 3D enabled displays.

Don't forget my other films, Archon Defender and Origin A Call to Minds, available on Google Play and iTunes!

Archon Defender - get it on Google Play or DVD

Origin: A Call to Minds - on iTunes and Google Play

Cold Dark Mirror - Characters - Clovis

2014-10-05T22:55:00.001-04:00

Clovis

Acheron's Cat Familiar, fiercely loyal and protective, even to the point of his own peril. Clovis has a dominating independant side which Acheron must constantly keep in check, by Compulsion when necessary; although ultimately Heroic and loyal.

Cold Dark Mirror - Characters - Acheron

2014-10-05T22:52:00.000-04:00

Acheron

A wise Maegis, and skilled in the Craft. As the Head of Coven Winterbel, he has trained and mentored many Witch Hunters, to whom he has a natural affinity. He is motivated to protect the innocent and guide the lost.

Cold Dark Mirror - Characters - Callista

2014-10-05T22:49:00.001-04:00

Callista

Lydia's Cat Familiar, Callista was found by Clovis and brought to Coven Winterbel under Acheron's watchful guidance. She is as skilled as Lydia in the Craft, and is fiercely protective of her lover, Clovis. Loyal to Lydia, and bound by Familiar's Normative (a kind of ethereal link between the two), they act in unison to find and capture lost Spirits.

Locations

2014-09-13T01:39:00.003-04:00

A lot of the action in Cold Dark Mirror happens in the Old Library, a sprawling and abandoned collection of bookshelves and forgotten books:

I have several locations that crop up multiple times like this in the film, identical shots but at different times. I used this shot in three places in the film as an establishing shot which serves to link the scenes together and bring them into the same location context.

At the beginning, and throughout the film, the tone is dark and the action takes place at night. Nightmares and monsters crawl around at night, so it sets the mood and tone of the film. Towards the end of the film, I use the same scene but in the morning, to signify a new day has dawned and that the nightmares and monsters that hide in the darkness may not have such as strong a hold as they seem to in the dark.

Cold Dark Mirror - Characters - Lydia

2014-09-12T01:52:00.001-04:00

Lydia

A young Witch-Hunter, Lydia was orphaned when her Worldstream was attacked by the Voidic Order, surviving due to her own natural abilities in the Craft. She was discovered by Acheron who took her under his protection and guidance; her abilities and confidence have grown under his guidance though she is still deeply haunted by her experiences and fears. Together with her Cat Familiar, Callista, she tracks and captures lost Spirits in order to return them to their proper Worldstreams.

Cold Dark Mirror - Characters - Immacula

2014-09-12T01:49:00.001-04:00

Immacula

The Immacula are dark Spririts bound to the evil desires of their masters by the strongest form of compulsion. They obey their masters, but will not hesitate to turn on them if the opportunity arises. This particular Immacula is bound to the Timeshadow, as a sort of spirit familiar.

Cold Dark Mirror is almost finished filming...

2014-09-12T01:29:00.000-04:00

Yup.. it's been a while since I updated this blog again... ofc I've been busy working on Cold Dark Mirror... and the good news is that I'm almost finished!

Just a few more shots left to animate and then music and sound effects, and it'll be time for another release. This time I'm looking at a direct to VOD / streaming release on VHX and Vimeo, and spreading the word through Google ads, maybe some film festivals if I can find a couple good ones to enter.

The idea is to have it ready by Halloween... don't know how realistic that is but it'll be close...

Archon Defender continues to pick up momentum, check out the digitally remastered version on Google Play today if you haven't already.

And in other news, the second film set in the world of Archon Defender, Origin: A Call to Minds, is finally getting a release along side Archon on VOD, look for it on Google Play and Itunes in early 2015.

Dr. Monacle's console gets dusted off from the Rocketmen vs Robots days.

2014-01-29T21:13:00.001-05:00

The new M Dot Strange film "I Am Nightmare" is finished, and if you pre-ordered (like me then you've got a sneak peek at it before it's impending release date. M Dot Strange delivers another twisted masterpiece, this time more family friendly but at the same time dark and twisted, if that's at all possible... ... and it is, and M Dot pulls off another Uberected offering, upping the game for other filmmakers to follow. The Nightmare creatures with their comedic top hats and 'boing boing' sounds are a particularly notable touch, creepy like the creature in The Thing, but at the same time comical. Gonna have to step up my game after watching this one.

Modeling sets and characters over the holidays

2013-12-29T00:11:00.000-05:00

I've been busy over the holidays modeling sets and characters which I had not gotten around to building yet, some of these are only in a few shots as well, but they still have to have enough attention to detail to fit in with the other parts of the film.

The Grand Hall of Craftminster, seat of the Alchemic Council

Getting a mesh driven by an armature to clone properly in Blender is a bit of a trick...
...but I got it to work ;)

Today was "spiral stairs" day, made easy thanks to the Array modifier in Blender

I'll we working on a few more sets over the next couple days then it's back into production again.

How to do storyboards the Uberector way.

2013-11-26T19:14:00.005-05:00

How to do storyboards the Uberector way: Get a bunch of recipe cards from the office supply store, I usually get a 3 pack of about 300 cards... get the blank ones, or use the blank side (unlike these shown here) For action scenes I divide a card into 3 sections, and draw action sequences. If it's a fight scene, for example, I then mix and match these sequences until a bigger sequence starts to take shape. Coloring the storyboards can help to keep track of characters and make it easier to follow what's supposed to be going once you come back to them after a while. Here are some storyboards from 'Archon Defender':

Archon Defender is out on VOD, get it on Itunes and google play today!

Teaser Trailer for Cold Dark Mirror

2013-10-28T21:32:00.001-04:00

Just in time for halloween, I'm happy to announce a new teaser trailer for Cold Dark Mirror:
.

Set in a realm where magic and technology co-exist as the Discipline of Craft, Cold Dark Mirror follows a young Witch-Hunter, Lydia, who stumbles upon the dark secret of the Unseen World; a shadow world of dreams and nightmares which lies just beyond the mirror’s edge.

A dark and ancient power, the Time Shadow, seeks entry into the corporeal world, a power some on the Alchemic Council are in league with, and whose existence they seek to keep secret above all else.

Together with her Cat Familiar Callista, Lydia must face the Shadow Council, and avenge the death of her mentor, the Maegis Acheron.

I'm working solo on this one, as with all my previous films (visit http://www.originalsineproductions.com for a full rundown of these ;) I'm just over 20 mins in runtime at the moment, with some furious set building and secondary character modeling in the works over the next few weeks. Follow my intermittent updates and progress reports on my production right here on this blog.

This will be the first film I've done entirely in Blender, start to finish, for everything except the sound fx and music. I'm aiming for a 2014 release at some point, in the meantime you can catch up on my previous works at the links up above, including my first feature film Archon Defender out on DVD and VOD in USA and Canada right now.

Grab your 3D glasses for the extra awesome version:

Animating some dialog shots

2013-10-25T00:08:00.002-04:00

I'm working on some dialog shots, these are easy to crank out, and are necessary to balance out the film and advance the plot along. As long as your entire film isn't dialog (unless you're making an Ayn Rand Ninja movie...) and you've got enough action packed sequences...   You'd think these kind of shots are pretty straightforward, though there's actually quite a bit of animation and shot timing necessary to keep these interesting. The performance of the characters, and the emotional performance of your voice actors, has to carry these shots, and with the camera locked down there's not a lot of room to hide mistakes with an excess of motion blur here.

Modeling this cloister set was actually pretty quick, the arch elements are instanced using Blender's null object group instancer. I made the 'master' (hidden on another layer) exactly 2 'blender units' wide, so I can move these around, snapping to the grid, and they'll stay in place.   The most complex part of the set is the angel statue, which I modified slightly from a model downloaded from BlendSwap which is a great Blender community website where users can post models, and assets (animation clips, textures, materials, etc) with various licenses according to the taste of the creator. This one is CC0 - public domain. A lot of the BlendSwap models are CC0 or 'Attribution' , some have Non-Commercial licence, but the site makes it clear which is which.

For a project like Cold Dark Mirror, I'll go onto BlendSwap and look for CC0 or Attribution models, whenever I feel like saving some time in modeling. I ususally have to modify models to fit my own visual style: this angel model I severely ran through the decimate modifier which cuts the poly count and makes it look blocky, then I added my 'HF' sketch method on top to give it the 'painted with polygons' look. But this whole scene took me only 5 hours to setup from scratch, using preexisting models (the wall lamps, some of the statues in the back.)   The architectural look I've established in this shot will be carried over into a few other sets I have yet to build.

20 mins done

2013-10-05T23:19:00.000-04:00

20 minutes done, an important milestone which means that I'm starting to get an actual film going here ;) And it's almost 20 continuous minutes too... So if the film is supposed to be 80 minutes or so, then I only need to do that 3 more times and then it's done.... easy stuff...

Archon Defender - Canadian VOD Release on Google Play

2013-10-01T18:54:00.000-04:00

Archon Defender has finally been released in Canada! Visit Google Play to buy or rent this special digitally remastered edition. USA DVD and VOD release to follow shortly.

15 minutes...

2013-09-08T22:15:00.000-04:00

Actually more like 16 and a bit minutes... but the major milestones are always 5, 10, 15, 20, 30 mins. Once you've got 20 minutes, you only need to do that 3 more times and you have a finished 80 minute film.

So in the next little while I'll be grinding away on the shots that I can do quickly, a lot of them are dialog shots which are relatively easy to finish compared to action shots. By Action shot I mean anything that is more involved than 2 or more characters standing around talking. Now there's a certain school of thought that says you should be showing not telling in a film. I like to strike a balance between the two, there's times when a dialog shot can be used to fill in the back story and establish the world of the film. These sequences should fit in with the visual elements of the film and provide clues for the viewer to grasp exactly what the hell is going on in the film.

The overall arc of a film should be set in a consistent mythology, and the elements of that world should slowly unfold, and in a non-linear way so that the viewer can go back and watch the film again, each time discovering new aspects of the world which were not apparent or evident on first viewing. There's a common thread uniting all the films which I have done, and I'm revealing a little bit more of that thread in Cold Dark Mirror...(if you know where to look ;)

Yup... pretty lazy updating this again lately ;(

2013-08-27T21:59:00.001-04:00

Yup, I've been pretty lazy updating this blog lately... however I do have almost 15 minutes finished on Cold Dark Mirror.

At the moment I'm rendering a big sweeping landscape shot (which flies through this stone circle as shown here) Right now it's clocking in at 8 mins per frame, and there's 1056 frames... per eye, so that's 2100 ish frames to render over the next week or so. I'm also rendering the sky separately and doing a bit of tweaking in the blender node compositor to brighten up and soften the shot, comp in some extra atmospheric haze etc... But this shot will tip me over the 15 mins mark..

Here are a couple of other shots with the main character Lydia from the beginning of the film.

First batch of shots for Cold Dark Mirror

2013-05-10T23:56:00.002-04:00

I've just finished off the first batch of shots for Cold Dark Mirror, 80 seconds done in the last 2 weeks. These shots have been a test bed for developing a Blender workflow, getting network rendering ironed out and a stereoscopic 3D workflow ironed out in Blender as well. I'm using the Loki Render network render manager to post the shots to my 'grunt' computers as I work on them. Stereoscopic 3D is simply a matter of saving two .blend files, one each for Right and Left camera; adding a job in Loki is easy, especially adding two similar jobs when one is called 'ACH010-R.blend' and the other is 'ACH010-L.blend'

Then I let the render nodes go overnight, or while I'm working on the next shot. These shots have been full frame renders, due to the moving torch light you can see the character Ibecc carrying above. Longer render times than I'd be usually happy with, but worth it because the shots look great. The library scenes here are all put together from a small set of building block elements which I clone using group instances, this makes building each set super easy, to the point where I can just build each set on the fly, in a matter of minutes, using a simple set of common repeating elements, with enough flexibility and variation to maintain a complex visual interest between shots.

The workflow in Blender is really fast once you get the hang of the interface, and learn a few of the keyboard shortcuts you're going to use most often.

It's off now to build the 'library rotunda' where a lot of the cool action of the film happens.

Lip Sync with Blender and Papagayo

2013-04-27T22:54:00.002-04:00

* Download the .blend file, the script, and papagayo here *

Papagayo is an open source and freely redistributable lip sync tool by Lost Marble. Lip syncing is the most boring thing you can do by hand when animating... I have created python script to take .dat files exported from Papagayo and import them as position keyframes on a control object which drives (using drivers ;) the morph targets of a face animation rig.

The linked zip file has the script, a slightly modified version of Papagayo (with my face rig images instead of the stock distro version) as well as a blend file with my full (simple and low poly) facial rig. See the included readme.txt for a step by step how to use this script.

The version here is slightly modified only by the addition of a new set of default 'face shape' images to match my Blender face rig.

The included Blend file: Face Rig - rev004.blend has the facial animation rig I use on all my characters, applied here to a slightly modified Suzanne monkey head. The face rig is obviously low poly and simple (I like to avoid the 'uncanny valley' effect) however this rig and script could be adapted to a more complex face rig if you were so inclined.

Step 1: Install the Papagayo application
Step 2: Learn how to use Papagayo to sync up text to a sound .wav file Export a .dat file from Papagayo Step 3: Copy the Papagayo_Import.py script to blender's add-ons directory
Step 4: Activate the script in the Addons tab of the user preferences window. You'll see a little control box appear in the 3D view tool shelf ("T" to bring this up)
Step 5: Load the Face Rig .blend file Select the "Plus" control called "face.mouth.ctrl"
Step 6: Pick a .dat file (saved from papagayo above) and click on "Process Input File"
Step 7: A bunch of keyframes should appear in the timeline. Scrub back and forth to see the keyframes in action You can load in your wav file into blender at this point to hear the audio synced to the mouth (but this isn't necessary for the script to function)

Building sets and characters

2013-03-16T13:50:00.001-04:00

It's been a while since my last post: over Jan and Feb 2013 I was working on script revisions and storyboards for Cold Dark Mirror. I'm now working on creating all the 3D assets in Blender which I will need to start animating: Characters, Sets, Props, Models, etc:

There's kind of a 'book' theme going on in this film, so books feature quite prominently throughout. The only problem here is that you end up having to model a lot of books, and to keep things visually interesting, there has to be a lot of variation in the layout and positioning of books on the bookshelves... I'm still working on a way to easily set this up... maybe something with particles. One thing Blender does well is handle lots of particles without a low memory overhead.

I've intentionally been keeping the backgrounds simple, at least for the interior shots. A lot of the background elements are just going to be shilouette or total darkness. There's a darker feel to this film than Archon or Origin, so the backgrounds are going to be less 'busy' and let the characters and action stand out.

Blender has a lot of great smoke, fire, and fluid simulation tools, I may even use them in this film ;) Only trouble is there's a lot of pre-calculation involved which I don't want to have to sit through, especially to tweak values until they're exactly what I want. The candelabra flames here are just mesh objects which I've rigged with a simple set of morph targets which I can manually animate to flicker when I need them to.

Layer compositing is the best tool for independent 3D animation production, in terms of getting shots done quickly. You don't want to sit through a bunch of full frame renders if you can help it, so the technique is very similar to the traditional 2D cel animation technique where characters are animated on top of a painted background. In this case, the 'cels' are PNG files with an alpha channel.

Some Blender Tutorials / Demos

2013-01-10T18:53:00.000-05:00

A few quick Blender demos / tutorials that I put together over the holidays for the character design and rigging for my next film. Thought I'd document it as I go this time and show the various steps, setup, and methods I use to create my films:

First up is a short tutorial on creating realistic plant models quickly using the Array Modifier (with a second object controlling the axis origin and scale for the transformation) The key is using a golden ratio Z axis rotation of 222 degrees:

Next, a demo how to achieve a 'squished against glass' look for your models, useful if you have a character trapped behind a force field or a big glass plate window or something:

And two videos showing my dress / robe rig, for the legs and for the arms, which allows the sleeves and bottom of the robe to dangle and move in the correct fashion without having to use cloth simulation.

And returning for a one night limited engagement: the infinite inception goldfish: