Wow! It Has Been A Long Time!

I can't believe I haven't worked on the movie in over two months. A lot has happened since my last post, but sadly, none of it has been on the movie.

Still, what is it they say? Happiness makes the heart grow fonder? Well, I can say that is true.

This time away from the movie has allowed me to get everything else in my life together and although nothing in life is ever perfect I feel things are under control enough for me to start working on this movie again!

And boy am I ready. Within the next couple of weeks I expect to be working on the models again. I still have the T-Boom model to rig and then I will try a test animation. If that goes well I will rig the Rocky model. That shouldn't take to long since, like Thomas, she is human and I should be able to use the same rigging for Thomas/T-Boom on her. Then its off to rig the animals.

Now, this doesn't mean I'll be "shooting" anytime soon. Everything mentioned above will take some time and I'll have to do several test animations with each character before I'm ready to begin "filming". Also during this time I hope to be putting together a home office that will give me the privacy I have so desperately longed for over this entire project. All in all, I'm expecting all of this to take several more months.

Still, this is several months of me actually working on this movie which is something I haven't been doing these last two months so I am pretty excited.

As always, I'll keep you posted.

Struggling to Find Time!

Hey guys,

The good news is that last week I found a new job. I'm really gonna like my new gig and am very excited to be working again.

The bad news is that for the first time in over 3 years I am not working from home. Now, I never worked on the movie while I was working from home but I was able to work on it the second I got off of work. As of last week, I now have a 25 mile commute to the northern part of Dallas and it takes me on average 2 to 3 hours a day to drive back and forth. That said, by the time I get home I have very little energy and just haven't been working on the movie.

I'm not gonna say I'm giving up on making the movie but I just don't know how much time per week I'm gonna have to work on it. It honestly pains me to type this but I just don't know if I'm ever gonna finish this project.

Still, I will not quit. It may take me three times as long to work on the movie but as of today I refuse to throw in the towel. I just want to let you know why you are gonna see less and less updates.

When I have something worth reporting, I will report it.

Later!

Haven't Done Much These Last Few Weeks!

Hey guys,

Well, what can I say? I haven't really worked much on the movie these last couple of weeks. Halloween and Thanksgiving have really taken their toll on my time and energy and December doesn't look to be any different.

Of course, the holidays the last three months of the year probably take just as much of a toll on you so I'm sure you all understand what I'm talking about.

I promise that I will work on the movie some this month. I can't say how much I'll get done but I hope to at least finish up the re-working of the T-Boom model this month.

Of course, I'll keep you posted!

The 100th Post!!!

Hey guys,

Well, I've been putting off posting anything as this post marks the 100 post on the Xam and Power Blog and I really wanted to make is special, but it has been so long since I posted anything I was beginning to feel bad.

As I've mentioned, Halloween is a big holiday in my house and it pretty much took up all my free time on the movie (check out the Hollinger Hollow blog).

Now that Halloween is over I will once again be directing all my free time to making my little movie a reality so begin checking in on a regular basis as updates are going to start coming in on a more regular basis.

Talk to you soon!

Not Much... But It's a Start!

Hey guys,

Well, like I said, October is going to be a slow month for the movie and so far that has been the case.

Still, since I was feeling a little restless, I thought I'd start working on the updates to the T-Boom model.

Late last month I announced I would have to re-work the human models (Thomas, T-Boom and Rocky) in order to fix a rigging problem. If you look at previous posts you will see I'm referring to the rebuilding of the arms and putting them in a "T" shape in order to solve the "shoulder pad" problem as well as fix some other issues with how rigging affected the shape of the sleeves.

Well, since I finished with Thomas I thought I'd spend a couple of minutes and start on T-Boom. Since T-boom is an advanced model of Thomas it is a pretty easy start. I just need to add the vest, glasses and T-Boom logo to Thomas.

The vest will be a beast and adding the logo means I'll have to start over on the UV Texture (color mapping). All of those would require more of an effort on my part and since it's past midnight I'm a little tired.

So, I did the easiest thing and added T-Boom's glasses. That' is a simple matter of importing the glasses model I made months ago and fitting them to his face.

Walla...

I know. It's not much, but it's a start. When I finally get the Halloween decorations in the front yard set up, something I hope to do this weekend, I'll have more free time to work on the movie. Next step, build the vest and add the logo and then it will be on to the Rocky model.

Until then...

Our Love of Halloween!

Alright, I'm breaking my biggest rule with this blog.

The one thing I pledged when I started this blog was that this blog would only discuss the trials and joys of making a Xam and Power Dog movie.

That said, this blog, and the movie, is going to take a bit of a hit this month as my attention turns toward the greatest holiday of all time, Halloween! My family loves Halloween and every year we put up a display that people (people have personally told us this) come specifically down our block to see every year.

So, if you're checking in from time to time to see what's happening in the world of Xam and Power Dog and are disappointed by the lack of updates this month, head on over to www.hollingerhollow.blogspot.com and check out what is causing the hold-up.

Haven't Had Much Time To Work On Movie!

Hey guys,

What can I say? Halloween is taking up most of my free time these days.

That said, I haven't done much on the movie this last week. The only thing I can say I've done is I fixed the length of Thomas' arms.

Since I had to redo his model with his arms out in a "T" position I wasn't able to judge the length of his arms. Since I've rigged him I was able to put his arms down at his sides and I noticed his arms were a little short.

Case in point...



Since then, I've lengthened his arms and now they are right...



All in all, it's a small modification but one I think people would have noticed over time so it was a necessary correction.

I'm still working on Halloween stuff this next week and I am expecting it to take up a lot of my time. Still, I will try harder to work on the movie this week and as always, I will post something when there is something to report.

Until then...

Still Rigging Thomas...No Walk Cycle Yet!

Hey guys,

Well, it's been a pretty busy week, and with Halloween getting closer (a very important holiday in my family with a huge, elaborate front yard cemetery that requires considerable building every year) it is only going to get busier.

Still, I will not stop working on the movie but may slow down a bit, as was the case this week. I'm still not working on a walk cycle yet because I'm ironing out the rough spots in the Thomas model rigging. This is very time consuming but once I get it finished it will be easier to position and pose the models.

I mentioned last week that by doing this I was able to improve upon the models. One of the things I mentioned is that I will be able to get rid of the "shoulder pads" on the models and below is an example of what I was talking about...




As you can see in the second picture, Thomas' shoulders look much more relaxed and natural. I was also able to fix his hands, which is something I was never happy with and was able to fix with the Rocky model. The hands in the second pic come from a separate model I created for the Rocky model and imported them into the Thomas model, then beefed them up to look like a boy's hands. A huge improvement in my opinion.

All I have left to finish rigging is his legs and feet and once I complete that I will finally be able to work on the walk cycle.

As soon as I have that finished I will post it.

Later!

So Far... So Good!

Well, I had a pretty productive day today.

I was able to fix the Thomas model by rebuilding his arms so they stick out in a "T" shape. Check out the before and after...

(Before)


(After)


As you can see, I was even able to redo the UV Textures which gives him his color. If you look closely you will see the pattern on his pants is a little different.

The other thing you will notice is that he no longer looks like he's wearing shoulder pads. This will be more noticeable after I rig him and put his arms down by his sides (something I will show you after I rig him) but for now, if you use your imagination, you will see what I'm talking about.

So, not bad for a days work. It actually only took me a couple of hours. The big thing will be rigging him, which I will hopefully be able to spend some time on tomorrow. I say "hopefully" because this weekend is going to be very busy and I'm not entirely sure I will have the time until next week.

As always, I will keep you posted.

Back to the Drawing Board on the Human Characters!

Well, I mentioned last week that I was certain I would find problems with the models when I started to animate them and I did...at least as far as the human models go.

To make a long story short, when I was building the human models I didn't have their arms out to the side (so when you look at them from front or behind they look like a "T").

Why is this a problem? Well, because they are wearing shirts and when I move the arms the shirt sleeves become deformed.

It's all pretty complicated if you're not familiar with the rigging process so I won't beat you down with the details. The bottom line is I have to rebuild the human models with their arms out, which will completely wipe out the color maps I've done taking me back at least another week to fix all three human models (Thomas, T-Boom and Rocky).

And I was in such a good mood last week.

The good news is that I believe this will only be a problem with the human models. As you know, Max and Gibson are wearing costumes when they are Xam and Power Dog, but because I built them standing on all four limbs they should be alright. At least I'm crossing my fingers that will be the case.

So, what does this mean? Well, it means if my estimation of a one week delay is accurate then it will be a couple of weeks until we see T-Boom in a walk cycle.

As always, I'll keep you posted.