Still Working on the Short!

Hey guys,

Not much to report really, other than the short has broken the 2 minute mark. 

The short I'm filming has only 4 scenes.  I can say that I have, for the most part, filmed scenes 1 and 3.  I did those first since both scenes use the same camera angles and required very little configuring.

Now that those are done I can start on scenes 2 and 4.  This is going to be fun because those scenes introduce Dr. Huffenagle.  Up until now, I've only been working with Jimmy and Nathan.

I'm trying to hold off on posting any more footage until the short is finished.  That means the updates won't be all that interesting and for that I am sorry.

I'm working as fast as I can so hopefully I'll have the short finished in the next three to four weeks.

I'll certainly keep you updated.

Later!

Broke the One Minute Barrier!

Hey guys,

I know, I said I was gonna hold off on posting any more videos until I had something substantial to show.  Well, the short hit a milestone today, I surpassed one minute in lenght!

Alright, not that big of a deal since this is going to be a 5-7 minute short, but I think 63 seconds is a milestone that deserved being mentioned on the blog.

Now, this is in every sense a rough cut.  I think some of the pacing could be tightened up on some of the cuts but I figured "what the heck" and thought I'd post it anyway...



So, there you have it.  All in all, I'm pretty happy with it up to this point.  I still have a long way to go until I consider it finished (if I ever consider it finished) but I think I'm off to a pretty good start.

Talk to you later.

Still Working Hard on the Short!

Hey guys,

Don't let the lack of updates this last week fool you.  I've been working very hard on the short these last several days.  I just figured you'd all be pretty tired of seeing 3-4 seconds of additional film so I'm waiting until I get a large portion done before posting any video updates.

So, what has been taking so long?  Oddly, it's not the lip syncing.  I think I'm getting pretty good at that (you'll have to be the judge when this is done).

No, actually, what's taken up a lot of my time these last couple of days is fixing the first two clips I ever did, the ones that were way too dark.  I'm not really sure why those two small clips are being so difficult, but that is what I've been working on.

So, in the interest of at least posting something, here is a picture of me doing my seemingly 100th rendering of a 3 second clip...

Isn't that exciting!

I'll post another video sometime soon hopefully!

Later.

Alright... Another Update to a Recently Added Video!

I hate it when this happens.

I post a video to show my progress and I realize upon replay that I missed something than needs to be corrected.

Specifically, Nathan, seen floating up and down in the first 3 seconds of the video in my previous post, isn't floating up and down in the last 10 seconds of the video.

So, I have fixed that and here is the updated video...



Alright, now back to working on the next part of the clip.

Later.

Added Nathan to the Test Video!

Hey guys,

Well, I've added another 9 seconds to the test video, specifically, Nathan answering Jimmy's question.



Now, it may not seem like I've done much, but it is a rather lengthy process making things like lip syncing and general movement to the characters.  The last 9 seconds of the clip above took me an hour of tweaking to make it look right.  Then, it took another 45 minutes to render the output and 15 minutes to edit. 

Still, I have to admit, I'm having quite a lot of fun. 

I hope it shows.

HD Version of Latest Video!

Hey guys,

I was wondering why my videos are still so small when I suddenly noticed I wasn't rendering in HD!

So, I've managed to fix that and here is an HD version of the latest video.  Of course, you'll want to make sure your settings are set to HD or you'll get just the standard version.




So, nothing really new but I thought this was still worth updating.

Talk to you all later!

Still Working On Animating the Short!

Hey guys,

It may be difficult to tell from the 4 second clip below, but I've been working really hard on animating the short these last couple of days.

As I'm new at this, the challenges I've been facing have been pretty big to me.  I'm sure seasoned vets would have all this down by now but that is the reason for doing this side project, to get better.

So, here is a new clip, complete with dialogue, the actual dialogue that will be used in the clip.  Keep in mind, I'm not a fan of my voice, but I will be doing all the voices for this short so I'll just have to get over that.

Here you go...




I know, I know, I need to start dusting off my mantle for my Oscar, but I'll probably hold off on that for now.  Besides, just being nominated is enough of an honor.

Still, this short video does have some problems and I need to determine if it's worth fixing them before I move on to the next 4 second clip.

I'll let you know what I decide.

Recording Voices!

Hey guys,

Just a quick update.  I wanted to let you know that I've spent the last couple of days recording the dailogue for the short.  I have to admit, it has actually been fun.

Still, I'm not really sure how it's going to turn out. If you've paid attention to the blog, you'll know I'm not exactly a fan of my voice.  In fact, for Xam and Power Dog I will not be doing the voices for any of the main characters. I really don't want my voice in it at all, but I fear I may have to make a cameo or two.  But, for the short, I will be doing all the voices.  It's just easier for me to do them but be warned now, they're gonna suck.  :)

Right now, I've got all of Jimmy's lines recorded and I plan on doing Nathan's and Dr. Huffenagles lines today.

I'll keep you informed. 

Holidays Keeping Me Busy!

Hey guys,

Merry Christmas everyone!

The holidays have been keeping me busy but I wanted to drop you all a note.

I haven't been working on any animation.  I really haven't had that kind of time.  I have, however, re-written the short scene with Jimmy, Nathan and Dr. Huffenagle. 

Basically, I wasn't very happy with it and that was becoming more and more obvious to me as I was recording the dialogue for the film.  I had re-worked it a couple of times but even after several draft changes I decided it was better just to scrap the whole thing and start over.  I find that a useful tactic from time to time and since it is only 8 pages long it literally was nothing to start over again.

I don't know how it is for other writers, and I'm not even certain I can count myself in that category, but sometimes I get bound by what is written on the page.  Even if I remove entire sections of something I still feel limited by what comes before and after.  That is when I find it better to start with an empty sheet of paper and start over.

So, I did that, and I have to say I like this script better.  It's funny, because I was still working off the same outline, and a lot of what was there to begin with still exists but I still managed to get something that is way different from what I had originally.  That isn't going to change the animation all that much but there are some differences.

The biggest difference is that Dr. Huffenagle has far fewer lines than he had originally.  That really is OK. He has the same impact and now I think he comes off more mysterious.  Time will tell I guess.

So, that's all that's been happening these last couple of days. 

I'll keep you posted, probably after New Years!

Happy New Years everyone!

Starting to Aminate the Short!

Hey guys,

Man, I can't believe it's been a week since my last post.

I have quite literally been working non-stop on trying to animate my short movie.  I have run into so many problems.

First off, when I first tried animating a 10 second video the rendering of it was going to take over 2 hours!  That was because I was trying to render the characters as well as the entire set all at once.  I quickly learned that is not the way to go.  What I was having trouble with was figuring out the many different ways to work around this, such a rendering in separate layers and using backdrops.

Rendering in different layers proved to be way over my head at this point.  Although I believe I understand the concept I still can't quite figure out how it's done.

So, I decided to use backdrops but, I had spent so much time building the set for the shoot I didn't want to throw all of that away. The solution was to create the backdrops of the set from the camera's point of view.  That sounded easy enough but I had to enter the world of using Nodes and although I don't want to get into what that means I will say that it is something I have avoided pretty much since I started animating 3 years ago.

Finally, after a week of trying to figure all this out, I finally have a test video that is 10 seconds long.  Ugh...

Still, the video does have two camera angles as well as some sound.  It's not perfect, but I'm actually excited.  I actually feel as though I'm animating!

Again, that probably was too terribly exciting, but I have to admit that I am pretty happy so far.  Sure, it has some problems, but it is a start.  I'm finally starting to animate something!

I also loaded this video on a popular video sharing website (if you think only a little it's probably the one you immediately think of) as apposed to loading it directly on the blog. I'm hoping the video quality is better than what I've had in the past.  It at least will offer some HD quality this way. Believe it or not, the videos I make look far better on my computer than they do on the blog and I'm hoping this resolves that.  Still, this particular video is way dark, it's my first night scene, so you may not be able to notice.

I know this isn't Xam and Power Dog, but believe me, this little side project is only going to help when it comes time to animating them.

Stay tuned for more...