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Showing posts from December, 2008

Thoughts on workflow...

Random note... If your going to Macworld... I'll be speaking at the Final Cut Pro user group meeting thanG. I was re-reading this book and it struck me as odd that in the workflow section they advised modeling before making an animatic... I would advise not modeling anything until you have gone through a few animatic revisions... the story could change, characters could change or get removed so then you would be spending time modeling for nothing which can hurt morale... its a good book though with lots of details about making 3d films thats really not written about anywhere else... except maybe here ^ ^ In this production I removed a main character and about 7 minor ones with an animatic revision... I'm glad I didn't model them yet cause then my wrist would hurt even more... That being said... I'm getting tired of modeling characters...I've done about 30 so far... but thats how things go... and the great thing about doing everything yourself is that there is alway

MadhouSe ftw

I started watching the new "Casshern Sins" series produced by Madhouse and I must say the d00ds at Madhouse just keep getting better and better... the imagery in Casshern is some of the best I have seen... the use of glows, selective focus, diffuse lighting and desaturated color palettes really makes it stand out to me... not too mention the awesome framing and blocking... Just have to say that I luRVE teh images. Color is something I've been thinking about a lot lately as I have a tendency to crank the RGB values ^ ^ BUT the first episode of Casshern Sins is a good thing to learn from... all the colors are desaturated except for the occasional glowing eyes or other things for effect like blood of red robot innards... because if the colors "pop" all the time then you can't use color as an effect because it will have no impact... no contrast... So I believe that you should only have a character talk when they have something to say... don't just have them

From the past...

I was looking through some old hard drives and came across this text file from 2003... --------------- 8-25-03 349am It all starts with an idea..a single spark that will hopefully smolder and catch aflame... and roll and roar through all doubt until it is as you have envisioned it in that fleeting moment. Long hours and sore necks along the way I know.... hot sweaty frustrations and spinning, shaking headaches when youre starving at 4am...it is all good. Pressure... time causes pressure... I have felt a great sense of urgency to create something of the worth the past few years... I thought perhaps my musical album would have staved it off for a bit but it swallowed it whole with no hesitation. So now I am on a new mission, a mission to create this animated film from an idea. In my mind this is the one, it always seems to be the one but I am assured that this will be more powerful than anything I have ever created. The script has been finished for about a month now. I was trying to asse

On technique and preparation

So after finishing the 2 best character models I've done so far I've decided to call it a day... and I had some thoughts on my workflow... So with WATS I was so nervous about 3d modeling and all that or for whatever reason I used reference drawings when I modeled..So I drew my characters on graph paper then put them in the background of my viewports and modeled to the design... and NOW I'm just freestyle modeling... I just launch Zbrush with a certain model in mind and I see where my imagination takes me and so far so good ^ ^ The great part of this freestyle modeling is that you can't "mess uP" since there is no plan to follow you can't do something "wrong" as you are experimenting the whole time... this way is far superior compared to how I was doing it before... I would waste so much time trying to get the 3d model to look like the concept art... if I would have just not been so careful I probably could of came up with something better BUT all

Damn I need Dis RAM

So I got those 2x4gb RAM modules for my new only 2 dimm slot board but they workin...and I need all 8 gigs... As I export a Displacement Map from Zbrush, compress a huge HD video in Quicktime while continuing to model and do test renders in C4d at the same time... its using 5.50 gigs right now DAMN! So I'm glad to have it back... I've been making some pretty interesting models for the film 0_o Welcome to your new nightmares ^ ^ I'm glad I can be of service! M dot Strange fashion designer has been working overtime designing all the clothes and what not for all these characters... there's close to 100 BUT I'll be using characters sets and templates like they do in games...Ya know using the same geometry for several similar models...like Soldier 1-8 have the same geometry for they bodies but different textures and faces... when you start mixing SPD maps and color maps you can get a lot of variety... So I'm right on schedule in case you were wondering... On another

The first feature film in 720p on youtube is We are the Strange ^ ^

The first feature film in 720p on youtube is We are the Strange ^ ^ I saw some press release where some Hollywood studio was making a big deal about posting theY feature films on youtube in the future and I was all ...I already did that in 17 languages?! whUT?! So to set the bar even higher for them to reach to catch interweB wacko's like myself I have decided to post We are the Strange in it's entirety in 720p. The film was made in 1080p but Youtube doesn't support that yet.... but when they do I'll post that too ^ ^ but I'll probably be done with the new feature by then and I'll have some crazy new ideas as far as what I'm going to do with it.... Am I afraid that no one will buy my SD DVD if they can watch it in HD for free? Not at all... Why? Because my films are made with passion and they cannot be duplicated or replicated... I put my heart and soul into my films...Hollywood just puts....money.... and today my friends...I say thats not enough!

The rituaL

I noticed that when working on a film my day becomes a number of different rituals...routines... and if I break these routines I feel lost and am unable to work... Those tech problems through off my routines but I hope to get back on it tomorrow... I called Tyan tech support and if I RMA the board it will take 5-7 biZ days to get it back...soooo... add in taking it apart and putting it back together etc thats about ten days... I really don't want to take that system apart so I'm to get two 4gb sticks of ram... I have two working dimm slots so I'll have 8gb's again... if something else dies on the board I'll use one of my render nodes as a temp workstation by popping in that 8800gt I have sitting around and use that till the main system is back in action... AND I can still use those 4gb sticks to give me 12gb of ram... Strangely enough... coffee, yogurt, bicycling, DS and manga are part of my daily ritual... Oh yeh I finished the 7th revision of the animatic...its ri

Multimedia MagicK

"Dreams are without proportion, without good sense, without truth; so is consciousness. Awake from dream, the truth is known: awake from waking, the truth is- The unknown" Aleister Crowley -------- How odd... I feel the same way about "film" ^ ^ Some d00ds theorems that have helped me immensely in my life...

And yeh it gets worse...

So tonight when I booted up my workstation the screen kept flashing and was running really slow... soooo... after doing tests... It appears as if now instead of just DIMM slot 1 being dead... now slots 1 and 3 are dead which makes sense cause they are on the same channel... So now I am down to 4gigs of RAM and yeh now I really have to return this POS... Also one of the sticks of RAM went kaput as well... it works but shows up as 1024mb's and its a 2gb stick! I tested in all the slots and of course none of them work in slots 1 and 3 but this stick only shows up as 1gb in the working slots... They don't sell this mainboard model anymore...maybe this is the reason why?

The true fiLM.

At version 1.7 of the animatic for my new film I will make some radical changes to the story... I'm taking out a main character and a subplot because it didn't add much to the emotional impact of the film... Ya know the same thing happened to WATS... a few months ago I found the original script ....and the original premise to WATS was actually really awesome I dont know why I didn't do it? Well maybe someday I'll create the original beginning so you can truly understand what wats was really all about because it wasn't about ice cream... thats the great thing about animatics... you can keep editing and reworking them to find the best film within... So by making this major change to the HSM story the true premise will reveal itself... I probably changed wats because I felt it was too personal... the way it was before... but I won't hold back with this one... Someone once described what I do as "personal cinema" and I think I will break new ground in that

Badr Hari is the besT.

This will seem like a strange post but since I'm making a film about fighting I've taken an interest in MMA and K1 fights... I just finished watching the K1 final from Japan... it had my favorite kickboxer in it... this d00d from Morocco named Badr Hari... He's known as the "Devil Prince" in Japan... cause he's all like WHUT?! and has mad skill... In the final he was disqualified for "poor sportsmanship" because he stomped his opponent when the opponent was on the ground..... It always strikes me as odd when people are outraged by such behavior that is "not in the rules" but as a fighter your out there to harm your opponent...why would you know want to stomp his face? I mean your out to knock him out the whole time and thats ok... Its a fight... thats what people came to see right? 2 men fight? So how am I going to tie this into film? Well lets say that to fighter there are two parts... the savage part... the one that wants to destroy your

Ugh memory problems...need some advice...

So as I was working away tonight I looked over at the task manager and noticed it said I only had 6 gigs or ram?! I was like wtf I have 8!??! I did yesterday?! So I rebooted checked the bios... 6 gigs of ram it said?! I opened up the case and reseated the ram... still the bios and windows reported 6 gigs... Then I took out all the dimms and left one in the slot #1... system would not post...just error beeps... Ok I said its either this dimm or this slot... moved the dimm to slot #2... system booted fine... So it must be the slot I say... put the other 2 dimms back in... system wont post?!!? Clear the CMOS... system posts... put all 4 dimms back in hoping clearing the CMOS fixed it... Nope..bios and Windows only see 6gigs of RAM... Mainboard has 4 dimm slots supporting 32gb of ram its a Tyan S5392... well now apparently I only have three working slots... So I have to return the mainboard?! NO I cant!! This is the second one I have gotten...had to RMA this first one cause it was DOA from

Building a world...

I forgot how much time goes into building a 3d world... I'm almost finished with one of the sets for HSM... but like being "almost finished" can last for awhile because I'm always adding stuff or changing the lighting... I'm like expecting to build a whole set in one night ^ ^ but thats not how it is... I was building whatever I wanted the last few days but starting tomorrow I'll be back on the plan... Had some weird stuff happening with Cinema 4d but copying and pasting everything into a new scene file seems to fix the weirdness... Sometimes the object manipulators stop working when I try to grab them... or just now... this scene with only 343,000 polys and 742 objects got SUPER slow in the viewport... I copied and pasted it into a new scene and the viewport was fast again?! I da know....just glad I found a workaround... THERES ALWAYS a workaround ^ ^ You just gotta grind and find it... apply it... then move on and keep working... Oh yeh one of the people I m

I can haZ never meet defeaT!!!

November is over... even though I missed 6 weeks of work traveling... Your pal M dot still finished his scheduled work... I met my quota ^ ^ The first phase of construction is finished... it was mostly props but I did model 8 characters.... rigged 2 of em cause I just had to see the creepy things move ^ ^ Rigging etc is in phase 3 btw... This stuff is not really what I had planned BUT it is unique and... well... insane XD Just thought I'd like yaLL know I'm right on track...thanks for your support! NotE: Since no other artists are working with me on HSM it is more me...which means more disturbing and raw... I use Cinema 4d's Bodypaint to texture the models but in my hands its more like finger paint ^ ^