The X-Wing

So I've got the X-wing modeled and I played with my patented blatant ripoff of Frank Millers black and white look- Hee hee.
I still need to seriously texture it and do the rigging (of which there is none on the Tie Fighter- I'm not sure if I'm gonna rig all the ships but the X-wing does demand those wings to open in a scene!

Once I get this thing textured and rigged I'm probably gonna give a run at some of the scenes I've worked out- but the SMART thing to do would be to get set on finalizing my design ideas for the actual characters. I don't know why it's been so hard for me to just settle on a design and run with it but it needs to be done.

Anyone else ever have this problem?

How To Train Your Dragon

I know, I know. "I already know how to train MY Dragon!- Hyuk, hyuk-yuk!"

Now that we got that out of the way-

Dreamworks is getting better and better at this animation thing.

HTTYD was pretty good. It ain't exactly Pixar at it's best- (UP, NEMO, The Incredibles) but it is of that quality. I liked it better than- Cars, Toy Story 2 and maybe even Monsters Inc...Nah...It's about right on par with Monsters Inc.

It's a little predictable at times but the way they pull the story off makes up for it and there are a couple of surprises.
You feel for the lead character as he tries to make his case AND there are some very nice touchy, feely things in there too.

The visuals are STUNNING. I love the design of the characters. They are textured in a way that is quasi-realistic and very appealing.
The animation (motion) is top notch, too.
I'm normally distracted by "hair" in these 3D films (I much prefer "hard hair" over realistic hair on cartoon characters) but this wasn't bad. I mean, I DID find myself staring at it a couple of times but it wasn't unappealing.

Speaking of 3D- as Dreamworks has promised since Monsters vs. Aliens- this film requires you wear glasses so that things poke out at you. Yes. It is a gimmick but it's a gimmick I enjoy- for the most part.
This movie is 3d through and through and it's great- HOWEVER- it's that 3d that is in your face (which I liked) not like UP where after 30 minutes you forget. Don't get me wrong- it's done in a tactful way but it IS in your face. My only real problem with it was getting used to a little distortion in my peripheral. That might be a personal problem though.

That said, I would like to own it so I can watch it over and over again. There is so much I missed out on because it was going so fast and I was so amazed by the backgrounds and overall artistic layout of it all.

I dug it...

Now, to get back to learning how to rig!

Scene 001-

After I finished the the generic Tie Fighter- there were so many paths I could take as far as moving on to the next thing:

Build Mac-Vader's Tie fighter
Build the Cockpit for the Tie Fighters
Finish the X-wing (which I'm close to doing)
Get a final design on the Characters and build them
Figure out how I'm going to animate the CHARACTERS

But the excitement of having a completed ship made me ache to try and see something finished- or closed to it... So I decided to work on the first scene of the animation.

As cliche as it is to break out the Star Wars style title and float it back, followed by the introduction paragraph- it HAD to be done...
I figured I would jump in and knock that out...because it's just a couple of graphics, floating over space and then I have the Tie fly by- which will eventually reveal the Mac Star- It's SIMPLE, right!?

MAN! That shit was difficult as hell to get the timing right.

And that was WITH having an animatic of the scene I created in Flash.

So in this movie you will see the animatic of scene one followed by the actual scene one in progress.

I Got Jacked animatic...scene 001 from kimmygorden on Vimeo.

This is the animatic for scene 001 of my animation for "I Got Jacked When I Bought A Mac" It's still a work in progress-

I hope to put the final up for this scene soon (as I remodel the mac star and straighten out my Tie flyby issues).

As you can see, it's been a hell of an upgrade from the animatic.

I did go with the cliche Sith Wars pull back but added the a title reveal much like I thought would have happened with "The Empire Strikes Back".

You will notice a sort of slow down of the title as it gets further back. Sometimes when I see this it annoys me and then other times I really like it (it makes me feel like the original SW which had little things like that going on in it).
If I change the in-out of the right key frame it would probably fix the situation. I might do something with that.

I like the wording of the paragraphs but they take a little while because it is a lot to read. I've gotten used to it but I may cut a version that doesn't have that in it. People are so impatient these days.

So I'm pretty happy with everything else...Yeah, RIGHT!

Here is what I want to fix:

I've already redone the flyby of the tie fighter- In this scene I had the frame rate wrong but I wanted to see the compositioning.
In the remake you REALLY get a good look at the logo on the wing but I don't like the way it glows so I'm gonna try to amp that up as well.

I've remodeled the Mac Star since I started to compose this post- which really wasn't that bad because I did like what I had created before I just needed more detail (the Mac Star you see in the picture is just a drawing- hee hee).

I plan to add some lights to the Mac Star to flesh it out a little more.

I have some flares in the shot but I'm not sure they work. It might be better to use some lighting and blend the composition better. Maybe shroud the Mac Star in some natural darkness.

Space is boring. I mean, it looks pretty and all but it just sits there.
In my mind I've flirted with the idea of making the blackness of space more fluid- kind of a shifting darkness. Then other times I like how still it is. So I'm gonna play with that.

I got rid of the planets that were in the flash animatic but I might put them in...idunno.

After that I have sound efx and music to add...I played with one little ditty but I'm not happy with it at ALL.

Well, back to work.

Tie Fighter Action

'Sup Crickets!

I'm back in action. There is so much I can post but I'm gonna go with my latest completion...The Mac Tie!



This here is the Desktop version because it is in fact, my wallpaper right now- HOWEVER there is a problem with it... It's too close to the actual Mac logo.

I actually drew this logo myself so it's not exact but it's pretty damn close. It's "Hey! Take it down or we're gonna sue you!" close.

When I complete this thing, I don't know HOW Apple is going to react-
They could be cool and see the video as the parody that it is...or they could be a bunch of assholes and try to strong hand me. I can't leave that to chance.

I mean- the song I don't worry about because I'm telling a story that happened to me. It's personal and it's my opinion.
But I want to be careful with the images I put out there. Mr. Lucas will be cool I think but I'm not dissing Star Wars.

So this was the time to make a big decision:

Do I complete the animation with the real logo and wait until I hear from someone at Apple before I take it down?-

OR

Do I do the animation with an original logo and hope people connect the dots enough that the video is still funny?


Believe it or not- I was heavily considering option one, with the idea that I would have a backup animation with all the logos switched out AND I was designing things so that all I had to do is click a button or turn off a layer so the Mac logo would be gone...

But then I said "forget it" when I really realized how much double work I'd be (and was) doing.

The best thing to do would be to make a symbol that people would instantly think was the Mac logo although it is not.

I thought about adding an extra bite out of the apple but went with this:



See!? TWO LEAVES!

That oughta do it. Here it is in action:



and from the back:



I hope that is enough. Thoughts?



Yup, I thought you would say that... crickets.

SO-

I'm still at it. I've rendered off scene 11 in parts and I have to compile it.
FIRST I kinda want to build and use the REAL X-wing (or Sith Wing should I decide to redesign it) and I need to nail down how I'm gonna do the lasers- which I should really just draw in flash- for the coolness of it.

So, I'm not gonna put up any pictures today.

Double Whammy-

Double whammy because this is my second post for today AND I have two things to say:

1. I got the greeble situation handled- I'll have to render in sections and composite. Which I'll do with part one of scene 11 tomorrow.

It just took some organization and planning- which is becoming more of a necessity as I go along, eh?

2. You'll note I've dropped the name Ponomo Studios (logo change too)- as I've dissolved the company sometime ago and I've grown out of the name. Hell, I only ever produced Stems and Seeds under that name anyway.
Working on a new name and I got a couple of ideas I like that I will have to investigate in the future. No hurries.

Oh. And here are a couple of pictures to see you off. I've been working on a style inbetween these two shots.

The Riz

I'm thinking heavily about The Riz today.
I think I better let you know who the Riz is-

John Rizzo.
The Riz.
J-Rock.
The Rizzinator.

He's one of the baddest editors we have at Maury- And Maury's shop is loaded with some badass editors- myself included for all ya'll that don't know! Whassup!

The Riz is more than just an editor- he's an AWESOME graphics dude.

Johnny Rock and I bullshit about a lot of things: Star Wars, cars, politics, conspiracies, cakes, farts- but over everything else we both have a love of the visual and often share notes on what's going down out there in the graphics world.

During one of these conversations we were lamenting on how we never really have the time to do something RIGHT.
You know, really pulling the best out of your work without a time constraint or a producer sitting over your shoulder- looking at their watch and giving you 3rd grader suggestions on how to improve something.

I'm talking about REALLY taking in a piece and making sure each part of it ROCKS-
"...You know, like spending a day trying to get 7 frames to look right..." is how The Riz put it.

And now that I'm on hiatus from Maury I find myself in that position!
(The reason I hadn't posted in a while is because I was pulling 70-80 hr weeks getting the Maury Show ready to make their big move).

So it's been a week and I've dedicated a great deal of it to doing this animation.
I organized a bunch of notes, drawings and files to streamline production. Then I began an outline and storyboard.

During storyboarding I learned that I prefer a looser form of the process where I have a folder filled with lined paper and post-it notes as the frames.




I didn't say it was pretty.
I probably like it more because it doesn't feel like I'm filling out a form as I do it. It's for my eyes only so it doesn't HAVE to be pretty- I just have to get it done so that I can move on to the next phase which is a "compositing-board".






In this I kinda break down HOW I'm gonna try to pull off that frame of the storyboard. For me it's a half step between storyboard and animatic. Some might consider it an extra/unnecessary step but I get a lot of ideas at this stage I'm finding.


SOOOOOO...

I'm working on this so's I can at least get a bit of the animation done- I decided to focus on scene 11 as I really KNEW what I wanted to happen.

Now, I did a little animatic for this scene as a test:





I got a turret in there and a stand in X-wing and everything- :).

I didn't like how big the bulk was inside the trench so I stopped and decided I needed to go BACK and redo the panels I used to make it (that is also why you don't see completed panels on the edge of the trench).

Sigh.

Having gone back though- I really like my panels now. I like them but my computer does not.

I tried to render a scene with them and the computer just said- NO and crashed. :(.

It's an old computer and if it doesn't get it's soup in the afternoon, it's cranky.
Honestly- the greeble-age is just too much for my desktop to handle and my tablet (which is Vista) doesn't run my old version of Max.

I'm thinking I'm going to have to break down the greeble shots and composite them in After Effects.

Here is the scene with the new trench UNGREEBLED:



All of this revelation has led me to remember what The Riz said and I realize I now AM spending all day- SEVERAL days on just a few frames. It's got a little frustration to it but it's FUN as hell. Kinda like a puzzle.

Next I'm gonna try to greeble it and see what happens- AFTER I post this (you know, in case old cranky decides to crash under the weight of my creative power!!)

"Freestylin'!"

...or "Going Commando!"

I mean, getting at your art without any rules, baby!

That's usually how I go at creating something.

For example:

I'll pick up my pad and I'll say- "I'm gonna draw Spider-Man!" So, I'll start drawing him and while I'm doing it, I'll decide to make him shoot a web. Then, I'll be like- "Oh yeah, he's on a wall too!", so I'll draw that in and so forth.

Same with a song.
I'll decide to write a song and I'll tap out something with an instrument (usually a bass or a drum) 'til I find something I like and then I'll start adding to it.

It's the rush of the moment I like- It's like you are creating something but the spirit of the creation is guiding you through it's completion.

You don't do that with an animation.

That is- You don't say "I'm gonna make a cartoon about a cat trying to catch a mouse" and then just sit down and draw it.
I mean, you COULD try to do it that way but you would probably lose interest after a while because the project is too big to be handled that way.

You have to PLAN a motherfuckin' animation.

Now, this is all common sense- I know. But you don't know how many times I've started to do an animation just like that.

All the cartoons I've ever completed were were written out and storyboarded first.

This one is the same- SORTA. I have everything plotted out- I haven't written it out shot for shot though, so sometimes I will be tempted to jump ahead and try to animate something without having storyboarded it.
This is stupidity- because I don't know what I'll need. Which means I'll be over animating- I mean, like WAAAAAAAAYYY over animating. Wasting time and resources-

I figured this out when I started trying to animate some scenes over my death star- just because I was so excited that things are working with it so well.

I then went back and storyboarded a section of the battle that is supposed to happen on the end and putting shots together was so much easier. I will post that later when I have access to those files and the internet at the same time.

So- I will storyboard more and thanks to writing this little blog entry- I kind of realize maybe I should write out the beats of the video as well.