Hard Core's Film Updates

You know, that thing where...

2012-02-22T19:00:00.004-08:00

Yesterday I did that thing where I start and finish a short video project within one day. This is kind of for a school project. It was basically a proof of concept, showing that I can animate character designs based off of a single still Photoshop file. I basically isolated the parts of the character that I wanted to animate from the Photoshop file, and then mapped them onto identically shaped flat-planes, which I rigged up to be animated with an armature. All of this was done in Blender.

I have to say... I wish that I could find it in me to work as hard and as fast on The Battle for Axis Mundi as I did on this. I really just got down to business... even though it took, literally, all night. I finished rendering out the final animation at 7:55am, just in time to leave and go learn about Photoshop. Hahaha. When I describe it like that, I realize how much I love being in college and studying Digital Media.

A YouTube Milestone

2012-02-19T23:26:00.004-08:00

So, I just realized today that I am now the owner of a YouTube video that has been viewed over 100,000 times. That's right, it's taken more than 4 years, but "Hugest RCT3 Crash on Youtube" has finally broken the hundred thousand barrier.

Unfortunately, I haven't got much to report on Axis Mundi. Just keep your hopes up, and I'll try to do the same. I'm going to finish it somehow.

What's new?

2012-02-06T08:22:00.000-08:00

So, January was a horribly slow month. What's new? That's what it is like every single year. I have worked some this February, though. A few frames here, a few frames there. I guess it is coming along.

Don't you like them super-short posts?

It's goin'

2012-01-20T17:37:00.000-08:00

When people ask me how it's going, I like to reply with: It's goin'

Just thought I'd throw that out there. When I come up with an equally witty response to the query: "What's up," then I will let you know.

In Axis Mundi news, It's time for an update on the total length. The film so far is 5 minutes and 20 seconds long. A nice update to go along with this is that every scene in that 5:20 mins has music to go along with it. Music that I actually like and I think fits it pretty well. A couple days ago I had a really nice spurt of musical inspiration, and got that done.

So like I said, the film is 5:20 right now. At this very frame, serious stuff is going down. Blows are being thrown, and blocked, and parried. Awesome stuff like that. The RCT3 engine is taking it all in it's stride. I have not had any problems with the animation functionality of the game. Since the film is building up to it's zenith, soon the final length of the will be determined. I'm going to try and make the craziest, most awesome action scene that I can, until my creative strength gives out and I have to say enough is enough. When that happens I'll wrap the film up.

Oh, and I recently showed what I have so far to another Digital Media professor here at my college. He's a pretty frank guy. I've seen him critique a lot of other people's work, and he doesn't hesitate to tell you if he doesn't like something. He was silent as he skipped through my video. (If he watches an entire 5 minute film, then it's either a huge compliment, or he's just being uncharacteristically patient) and right after it ended he said: "So, I take it you like Dragonball Z." He was right. I do like Dragonball Z. He also told me that the animation was good and smooth, which made me very happy. So yeah. Being a Digital Media student and having access to professionals who can give you critiques is amazing.

First post of 2012

2012-01-15T20:19:00.000-08:00

I made some pretty good progress on Axis Mundi today. A little animation, a little filming, and a little compositing. I realize that this is a pretty tame start of the month (even though the month is pretty much halfway over already), but as always, I'd like to remember that a productive streak could be just around the corner.

Oh, and Happy New Year!

Progress... sort of.

2011-12-31T20:44:00.000-08:00

Ok so technically I have animated 12 seconds of animation since my last post, which is a good amount. The bad thing about this is that 11 of those seconds were animated pretty much right after I made the last post, and I've not made much progress since then. If I worked as hard as I did that day, I might have been able to do a few seconds of animation per day. As it is, I've only added about 1 second, for a grand total of 12 since my last post.

Besides the disappointing amount of work that I just described, I did get a ton of awesome hardware for Christmas. I got a 24 inch, 16x9 1080p monitor (now I can view my editing projects in fullscreen as I work on them!), a pair of pretty awesome speakers for said monitor, as well as a wireless, solar-powered keyboard. When I am not using both screens, I set up my huge monitor in front of my laptop, and along with the separate keyboard and speakers, I feel like I am on an entirely new system. It's pretty darn cool.

I still have a solid week left to try my best to be productive with Axis Mundi, so I hope and pray that I will be able to force myself to get some work done. It's not that I haven't sat down to do some serious animating... It's just that when I do I sit there watching what I have play over and over again, and I hardly ever add any new keyframes. If I ever do add any new keyframes, it only takes me about a minute, but then I WATCH IT ALL OVER AND OVER AGAIN INSTEAD OF TAKING THE NEXT MINUTE AND ADDING MORE KEYFRAMES. SERIOUSLY WHAT'S THE DEAL WITH ME?!?!?!

Filming by the book

2011-12-19T18:56:00.000-08:00

Today I have been animating and filming according to my animatic. Here's me comparing my shot in RCT3 to my animatic, in order to make adjustments:

So yeah, that pretty much explains what I've been doing and will be doing until I get to the end of my animatic. Then I'll just make it up from my head as I animate and film.

In other news, I've received grades for the art and digital media assignments that I posted earlier. The art project (The December Render) got a 97.5%, and the animatic got a 113%. Although, I didn't really get credit for the extra 13%, because that's not the way that the school's grading system works. The professor just happened to have a grading scheme that can go over 100%, because extra credit is built into it. Obviously I didn't really need extra credit, though.

December Render

2011-12-12T18:38:00.000-08:00

I can't believe that it's been more than a year since I started working on the model of the Pagani Zonda. But here we are, almost a year removed, and I have yet another "December Render" to share. Hhhmmm. March Madness and December Renders. I really enjoy all of these little traditions that I am slowly instituting here at Hard Core's Film Updates.

So, without further ado, here is the second official "December Render!!!"

Yes! It's all snowy and icy and watery! And stuff! I kind of half did this for fun, and half did it because I needed to make something for my 2D Design final. I printed it out on the super-nice printers at the Digital Media Center where I go to college at ETSU. The image is 4800 by 2700 pixels, which is exactly the right resolution to be printed on a 16 inch by 9 inch piece of paper at 300dpi. So that's what I did. The critique for my class's final pieces will be tomorrow, so I might add to this post or make a new one once it has been critiqued.*

Oh, and in case you weren't bored by the technical details mentioned earlier, here are some more to ensure that you get a healthy amount of bore-induced snoring today: The image was rendered in Blender using the Cycles rendering engine, using my GPU (A GTX 485m). It took about 12 hours of rendering to get this quality, which is actually very fast when you consider that there is virtually no noise in it. A similar image would never have cleared up this much in 12 hours if I rendered it with, say, Luxrender. So far Cycles is proving its self to be really, really valuable.

*I had the critique today. Nothing special, really. It went pretty well but people weren't drooling over it or anything. The class wasn't geared towards digital art, so I'm not surprised that not many people really "got" the image.

A scene from The Battle for Axis Mundi

2011-12-08T19:04:00.000-08:00

So... I decided that I would upload something kind of out of the ordinary for me. It is a preview of a scene from The Battle for Axis Mundi. I don't generally like to upload "previews" of my stuff before it is done, but I felt like I should make an exception in this case. Firstly, because this preview is not using footage from the actual film. Secondly, because it has been so darn long since I started this thing, I feel like people should get to see some indication of what is in the works. The animatic takes place about 4 minutes and 30 seconds into the film. That's how long it is right now. So basically over the next few weeks I will be working on making the very scene that you see in this video. But in RCT3 with fully animated 3D characters. So go ahead and take a look at what I am talking about, and then I'll give you some more tidbits:

So yeah. Kinda basic, but you get the idea of stuff happening. You also may recognize my slightly Derpy drawings as the Warrior of Light. You also may see a creepy spiky dude that you have never seen or heard of before. I guess I am kind of revealing him here. Oh well. I don't think that it matters that much that it stay a secret. Since I have shown you a 3D model of the Warrior of Light, I might as well show you a picture of what this bad guy, who's name happens to be "Evil," looks like in the game:

Now you are officially kinda-half spoiled. But not really. Because the point of this film is the animation. And I haven't made anything close to these animations before. So hopefully you don't feel too spoiled. Given that this is the biggest update for Axis Mundi so far, I kind of feel a little let down. I was expecting to be like OOHHHH YEAAAHHHH CHECK IT OUT ITS AN ACTUAL VIDEO ABOUT THE BATTLE FOR AXIS MUNDI WOOP WOOP!!!1!!1!!

Maybe I'll feel a little more excited once you guys start talking about it. Wink wink nudge nudge.

New for me, old for... French people?

2011-12-07T18:24:00.000-08:00

I just found a really interesting thread. This thread has only one reply. However, this thread also has to do with my machinima tutorials. Which makes it awesome. And in French. Derp... I mean, the thread isn't french because of my tutorials. It just happens to be on a French forum and I decided to mention that last.

This thread is kind of old, but it's new to me so that's why I am posting it. Here's the thread in butchered English a la Chrome:

And here's the French version for those of you who can read it:

Oh, and here's the link: http://frct3.forumactif.com/t1029-tuto-astuces-pour-creer-un-film-avec-rct3

I love posting stuff about people talking about stuff I've made. It makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside.

Chillin Vanilin

2011-11-28T20:35:00.000-08:00

I worked on some music today, as well as the animatic for the next part of Axis Mundi that I am doing for school. I found this nifty little program called the "Vanilin MIDI Keyboard," that basically lets you use your computer keyboard as a piano that can play notes into musical software. I've got it working with Mixcraft, so we'll see where that takes us. Hopefully toward awesome music land.

Alignment Issues

2011-11-20T12:59:00.000-08:00

Over the past week I've gotten 100 frames of animation done, imported, and filmed in RCT3, and about 100 more animated only. The second 100 frames are proving difficult to import, because there are two different rigs interacting with each other. In theory, this shouldn't be a problem, because I have technically done the same thing in an older shot. When I did it before, though, there was one complex armature and one armature with only one bone. Right now I am trying to import two complex armatures. They don't want to import in the same scenery file, so I have tried separating them, but there are major alignment issues that I have yet to fix. As I write this post, I think I recall that when I animated interaction between two models before, I imported them separately as well. So I should probably focus my efforts on correcting the alignment problems, instead of trying to get both animations to import in the same scenery file.

Texturing and importing

2011-11-15T23:20:00.000-08:00

So that model I was talking about. I textured it and imported it. Now I am even closer to filming some more. Thats's pretty much it. But I am going to try my best to work on The Battle for Axis Mundi as if it is a project for school, because I seem to be able to work pretty hard on those. I figure I ought to be able to have at least same amount of dedication for my own personal projects as I do for those that are assigned to me. Cross your fingers.

Storyboards and Photoshop

2011-11-14T21:59:00.000-08:00

Unfortunately I have not actually filmed anymore for Axis Mundi since the last post, but I did work on it in a sort of round-about way. I had an assignment to sketch a 16 panel story board, so I sketched the scene that I am about to animate.

I also finished a project for one of my classes recently, where I had to replicate a photograph using collage techniques. There was an option to do it in photoshop, so that's what I did. The images on the left are my replications, and the ones on the right are the original pictures.

Notice the trees? They're from Crysis 2.

This second one is purely Google images.

There you go. That's what I've been up to lately. As usual, I need to get back on track and work more on Axis Mundi more often.

Yay 3D

2011-11-12T01:17:00.000-08:00

So just now I actually made something in 3D! Yay! I love 3D! I should do this productivity thing more often. So anyways, it wasn't animation, but the start of another model. I know that I started another model around this time last year, and I only just finished it to the point where it can become a part of the film a few months ago, but I'm really thinking I'm not going to put as much time into this. In fact, I might even say that I am completely finished modelling it. Yes! I am completely finished modelling it. No if, ands, or buts about it. I will now simply texture it, import it, and film it! And there will be PROGRESS!!! MUAHAHAHAHAA!!!!!!

Vector Drawings

2011-11-10T06:51:00.000-08:00

So I finally finished the drawings of the robot for my class. The lines were drawn in Illustrator and everything was colored in in Photoshop.

Still not more than superficial progress on Axis Mundi. I need to remember that post I made a while ago. There's no reason why I can't be working on The Battle for Axis Mundi as much as I can during my free time.

Cold feet

2011-10-31T16:44:00.001-07:00

I got a good amount of the re-edit in Premiere done this weekend. That's about it, unfortunately. I feel like I am avoiding doing the animation that I need to do next, almost like my subconscious is panicking now that I actually have all of the assets that I need to get most of the film done. It's trying to find a way for me to get stuck on some minor detail, but there aren't any details left. It's an open road, I've got a full tank of gas, but my foot nervously hovers over the gas pedal. Almost like it is too good to be true. Hopefully writing this will help me overcome that feeling.

Frame by frame

2011-10-25T18:43:00.000-07:00

So I got my walkcycle animation set up to be properly synchronized with all the particle effects and other RCT3 factors that I can't directly control (not always an easy task), and chugged out 150 frames/5 seconds of final footage! Woohoo!

It kinda seems sad that I am celebrating over getting just 5 seconds of my film done, but hey, at least I am making progress.

In other news, my college classes continue to be ten times more fun than regular schoolwork. Using Adobe Illustrator, I am tracing over the robot sketch that I posted a while ago. I'll post that when it is finished.

Productive Procrastination

2011-10-23T21:17:00.000-07:00

So I just finished some really productive procrastination. When I was going to be working on a paper, I worked on the walk-cycle and got it to a presentable-enough-to-film-it level. And now I can work on my animations more this week, unless a boatload of unexpected stuff happens, because I just finished the paper! But I think I'm going to go to sleep now.

Practical animation

2011-10-19T17:56:00.000-07:00

I remembered something I read a long time ago today. It had to do with computer animation. It was one successful animator's specific workflow (can't remember who it was). Basically, he animated the body first, completely ignoring the legs, and then animated the legs after he got the motion he wanted with the body. I remember thinking that it was a really good idea to try once I started animating stuff. I had forgotten about it until today. That's what I've been doing, and it seems like it might work. I've got the body animated the way I want, and I've only just begun to see if I can get the legs to follow along in a believable way, but I am hopeful. It really does make sense to do the body first, since shots in films tend to focus on the face/head first, the body second, and the legs might be included if the shot is wide enough, but they are almost never the center of attention. So why let them define your animation? Well, that's exactly what I had been doing up until now... I was animating the legs first, and it was making my character look completely weird. Even if I don't get the legs looking completely perfect, though, I think I will still be able to use this animation. The particular shot I want it for doesn't actually show the legs most of the time anyways (surprise, surprise!).

Animation and editing

2011-10-18T09:52:00.000-07:00

Over the past few days I have completed and filmed 321 frames of animation for The Battle for Axis Mundi. It could have been even more than that, but unfortunately the new model's walk cycle has me a little bit stumped. I kept re-doing it and it kept coming out wrong, so I need to figure out what is up with that. I think part of the problem is me thinking that IK constraints would solve ALL of my problems. While it is true that they make feet stick to the ground, it's not true that they auto-magically make your animation look realistic. In fact, I think it is just as easy to make an unrealistic animation with them as without them. With IK it looks like your character is a puppet who has no muscles, and without them it looks like a person who's feet don't seem to care that two pieces of matter cannot occupy the same space at the same time (note however that well-animated characters don't necessarily give a second thought to the laws of physics either!). Overall though, once I get better at animating them, I think IK rigs will make the animation process a lot easier.

Oh, and since I was having such a hard time on that particular animation, I continued working on the re-edit in Adobe Premiere. The green-screening is SO much cleaner! Everything looks better than ever!

IK, You K, We all K.

2011-10-14T18:21:00.000-07:00

I have now (kinda) figured out how to animate using constraints, including IK constraints. Makes a lot of stuff easier. For a while I was having a hard time getting the constraints to bake, but I've got it sorted. My first animation with my new model is now working successfully in RCT3, so I'm going to go to bed and then start animating and filming as much as I can tomorrow.

Sketching And Stuff

2011-10-09T12:49:00.000-07:00

Good news/bad news time! The bad news is that I haven't gotten to work on Axis Mundi very much this weekend. I have been writing a paper for one class, and sketching a robot for another. The good news is that you get to see the robot!

It's a giant, inquisitive, nuclear powered, teleporting, exploration robot! Or at least those were the parameters I was given to work with. Hopefully I have adhered to them closely enough to get a good grade. Those little probe things are the teleportation part, by the way. The idea is that they can zap stuff into the compartment on the back of the robot, so that it can be studied by people inside.

The return of the Titanicus

2011-10-06T18:11:00.001-07:00

So my laptop was returned to me on Monday, presumably with a new graphics card (Is there really anyway to know if it is a different one or not?). I'm really glad that it is back. The keyboard is so much easier to use. It's tactile feedback is insanely superior than the keyboards in the public lab. Oh, and editing in Premiere on my laptop is smoother than on the desktop workstations that my University provides. Yeah. It's an awesome laptop. That's why I named it "Principio Titanicus." (Don't ask me what that means, I just thought it sounded awesome.)

Anyways, hopefully I'll be able to work on Axis Mundi stuff more this weekend. Pretty small update, I know, but I just realized today that I hadn't made a post about my laptop being back.

"Swimmingly" <---How things are going.

2011-09-29T15:41:00.001-07:00

My laptop is still gone (I sent it off last Wednesday), so I am about to head to the edge of campus where the Digital Media Center is located. I saved all my Axis Mundi files to my external hard drive, so I can continue to edit using premiere even though it is gone. And yes, I bought Premiere even though I have access to it through computers at school. I like to be independent, sue me.

Anyway, I have to say I am loving the workload as a Digital Media major. This past week the first 4/5 week work cycle completed it's first go-round. So far it is quite a bit easier than high-school. I don't have classes on Friday, which gives me extra long weekends unless I have papers to write, which I don't this weekend. So I'll be able to work! I think it's obvious that everyone wins in this situation. I get to go to college to make movies, and learn how to make better movies, and you get to watch my movies! Yay!