Friday, August 10, 2018
Friday, September 19, 2014
UPM Saves Xmas - some cast photos (and more!)
Apart from Santa Claus (by Apparition and Alley) and the Police Uniforms (Alley again), all of the above costumes were created by me, with some great help from Beowulf71 supplying Nigel's head (imported from The Movies.)
An Update:
Some Extras appearing in UPM Saves Xmas! I gave Bob and Charlie a makeover (and decided they were twins) and the Barman and the Drunk are Alley created costumes.
And some screenies:
More promotional shots!
And the poster!
Friday, July 18, 2014
Battle of the Augments
My entry in the Reallusion iClone Battle Contest:
"Battle of the Augments"
Starring BiggsTrek and JetCityWoman
Thanks to:
freesound.org sony.com
reallusion.com audacity.com
iclonerevolution.com wolfzone.org
sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/
"Future Imperfect" - by BiggsTrek
Saturday, April 12, 2014
Alien / Easter Poster
For the Reallusion Poster contest (2014):
This is my version of the Alien movie poster. I decided to animate it and go a little seasonal.
Props are VidiEgg by vidi and Rabbit_White by Reallusion. The animated text was created in SketchUp (animated by changing the opacity of several textures.)
The end result was generated entirely in iClone (no post production work!)
Enjoy!
Tuesday, March 11, 2014
Godiva - Music, Dialogue and Sound Effects
There's
been a few comments and discussions about the lack of dialogue, the
sound effects and music in 'Godiva'. I thought I'd respond to those
comments:
Music: Even though the movie was going to be full of sound and voices when I started the project, things changed dramatically early on in the production when I came across some free music supplied by YouTube. I'd filmed the first few minutes of the movie (the initial flight sequence through the asteroids) and when I heard the music (Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata) I instantly wanted to see what it would be like in the movie. Well, I loved it. So much so that I toyed with it being the only audio element in the film. But the piece wasn't long enough to cover the entire film, and I couldn't find another piece that had the same feel to it that I could continue on with. But I did find a weird, almost discordant piece (well, 4 pieces - a string quartet performing pieces by Gustavo Becerra-Schmidt) that worked well in the film, but in a different way. And I also knew that this new piece wouldn't work on its own (not as well as Beethoven's piece did, anyway). Now that I was all keyed up for music, I wanted to finish the movie with a strong, heart wrenching kind of number. Something I've noticed in 'real' movies is that oftentimes they use a chorus of choir for those kind of scenes. So I went looking for something like that and ended up with this rather ancient number (Unus ex discipulis meis, by Tomás Luis de Victoria from the 16th century!) I think it worked really well and I actually chose the shots and timing of those shots based on the music. Once I had all the music, I knew I wanted it to lead the film, rather than just augment it, so I opted to sacrifice other elements of the overall sound design to achieve this...
Dialogue (or the lack of it): Some have said that the film needed dialogue, while others have said it didn't need any. Obviously I agree with the latter, but I can understand the former. Originally the film was going to have dialogue, and I actually wrote the lines for the first three scenes before I realised it didn't need them. In fact, I would argue that it not only didn't need them, but it would have been a very different (and inferior) film had I included them. In my mind, the film would have been very pedestrian; just another sci-fi flick with a monster. But by removing the dialogue and letting the music do its thing, and thus allowing the audience to interpret events on their own, rather than me spoon feeding them the facts with dialogue, I feel the film was lifted above the norm. Just a little, anyway. I admit that the entire story was not revealed in the film; there are several unanswered questions (How did Donaldson survive the monster? What was Sister Nova's link to it? etc) But isn't it more fun to ponder these things, rather than have them laid out in front of you? It's often said that us filmmakers should "Show, Not Tell" and I think this is a perfect example of just that. In the end, about the only way dialogue would have made it into the film would have been in the form of "chatter" as part of the overall sound design. But when it came to doing the sound effects, I opted to avoid that as well. More on that in the next section...
Sound Effects: This was probably the toughest aspect of the overall sound design for 'Godiva'. At one point I seriously considered having no sound effects at all throughout the entire film, figuring the visuals and music could carry it without them. And although I feel this is true of the opening and ending sequences, the middle section fell flat with their absence. So I started popping in an effect here, an effect there, mostly in an attempt at emphasizing the explosions and "big" events of that section. Now realistically, there should be no sounds at all in the "outer space" shots as sound cannot carry in a vacuum. But again, I needed to emphasize things, so I opted at breaking that little law of physics (and as 99% of sci-fi films today do the same thing, I think I can get away with it!) And yet in most of the spaceship interior shots (where sounds are expected), I left them silent as I didn't feel they needed any extraneous noise. Maybe not what everyone else would have done in the same position, I admit, but it felt right to me. And I like the end result.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SKUXWvdHFc
Music: Even though the movie was going to be full of sound and voices when I started the project, things changed dramatically early on in the production when I came across some free music supplied by YouTube. I'd filmed the first few minutes of the movie (the initial flight sequence through the asteroids) and when I heard the music (Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata) I instantly wanted to see what it would be like in the movie. Well, I loved it. So much so that I toyed with it being the only audio element in the film. But the piece wasn't long enough to cover the entire film, and I couldn't find another piece that had the same feel to it that I could continue on with. But I did find a weird, almost discordant piece (well, 4 pieces - a string quartet performing pieces by Gustavo Becerra-Schmidt) that worked well in the film, but in a different way. And I also knew that this new piece wouldn't work on its own (not as well as Beethoven's piece did, anyway). Now that I was all keyed up for music, I wanted to finish the movie with a strong, heart wrenching kind of number. Something I've noticed in 'real' movies is that oftentimes they use a chorus of choir for those kind of scenes. So I went looking for something like that and ended up with this rather ancient number (Unus ex discipulis meis, by Tomás Luis de Victoria from the 16th century!) I think it worked really well and I actually chose the shots and timing of those shots based on the music. Once I had all the music, I knew I wanted it to lead the film, rather than just augment it, so I opted to sacrifice other elements of the overall sound design to achieve this...
Dialogue (or the lack of it): Some have said that the film needed dialogue, while others have said it didn't need any. Obviously I agree with the latter, but I can understand the former. Originally the film was going to have dialogue, and I actually wrote the lines for the first three scenes before I realised it didn't need them. In fact, I would argue that it not only didn't need them, but it would have been a very different (and inferior) film had I included them. In my mind, the film would have been very pedestrian; just another sci-fi flick with a monster. But by removing the dialogue and letting the music do its thing, and thus allowing the audience to interpret events on their own, rather than me spoon feeding them the facts with dialogue, I feel the film was lifted above the norm. Just a little, anyway. I admit that the entire story was not revealed in the film; there are several unanswered questions (How did Donaldson survive the monster? What was Sister Nova's link to it? etc) But isn't it more fun to ponder these things, rather than have them laid out in front of you? It's often said that us filmmakers should "Show, Not Tell" and I think this is a perfect example of just that. In the end, about the only way dialogue would have made it into the film would have been in the form of "chatter" as part of the overall sound design. But when it came to doing the sound effects, I opted to avoid that as well. More on that in the next section...
Sound Effects: This was probably the toughest aspect of the overall sound design for 'Godiva'. At one point I seriously considered having no sound effects at all throughout the entire film, figuring the visuals and music could carry it without them. And although I feel this is true of the opening and ending sequences, the middle section fell flat with their absence. So I started popping in an effect here, an effect there, mostly in an attempt at emphasizing the explosions and "big" events of that section. Now realistically, there should be no sounds at all in the "outer space" shots as sound cannot carry in a vacuum. But again, I needed to emphasize things, so I opted at breaking that little law of physics (and as 99% of sci-fi films today do the same thing, I think I can get away with it!) And yet in most of the spaceship interior shots (where sounds are expected), I left them silent as I didn't feel they needed any extraneous noise. Maybe not what everyone else would have done in the same position, I admit, but it felt right to me. And I like the end result.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SKUXWvdHFc
Saturday, March 8, 2014
Godiva - a look at the visual effects
Over at TMU I was asked how I achieved a few of the visual effects in my latest movie, 'Godiva'. I thought it might be nice to gather them up into one blog entry (with a couple of extras thrown in for good measure):
Asteroid Field: very simply downloaded a pre-made field from 3DWarehouse, plus a collection of smaller, standalone rocks. Animated them to rotate or drift during each shot. Nothing special here, though the poly count got a little high at times.
Bugs: That was a prop I bought from Wil Veeke in the marketplace. I think it's a robotic scorpion. I retextured it a bit and added a bunch of glow maps across many of the textures and increased their visibility as the laser heated up the poor critter. The animations were all supplied with the prop, but to get the frantic death throes, I sped up its running cycle a lot, and removed any forward motion. Then I simply threw in an explosion and made the whole critter invisible when it actually blew up. Oh, and the afterglow on the wall was a strategically placed glow map on the wall itself. For the multiple shots, the afterglow was done by a half spherical prop that I faded in and out (much easier to do that for mutiple positions than the glow map on the wall).
Cracking Glass: This was achieved by placing a semi-transparent plane over the window with the image of a cracked window on it. It also had an opacity map in the shape of a white circle. By increasing the size of the opacity map (in steps) the cracks in the window appeared to grow.
Breaking Glass: This was a little trickier. I discovered during production of "Underpants Away!" (Ep 3) that if you applied the soft body physics profile to a (normally) solid object, the physics engine in iClone would effectively break the object apart into its component pieces. With this in mind, I took the glass from the ship (Godiva) into SketchUp, spent a little time drawing lines all over it (roughly the same shape as the cracks used above), effectively creating about 100 polygons (where it started as pretty much just 1). In iClone, this new piece of glass was put in place, and I used the soft body physics preset on. I then reversed gravity so things would fall 'up' and watched the results.
Well, it was dull. The window fell 'up' alright, but it didn't break up. Well, it did, but barely. So I then added a dummy prop (a huge sphere) that would then collide with the glass and force the pieces to spread out in a much more realistic manner. The end result (after much fiddling) is what you see in the movie.
Lasers: the laser shots were big on glow maps. The laser beams are simple primitives that came with iClone. They are actually twisted columns, and I had the glow maps pulse in intensity to give the beams a little life (not that you can really see that in the film, but it's there!) Oh, and they were assisted by a greenish Point Light for added effect.
Grasping Hand (sounds like a D&D Spell): This ended up being fairly easy to do. The hand is just the standard G5 character Chuck, but a very large Chuck. Of course, to make him that size required increasing his size to the maximum allowed (150 or 250%?) then saving him, loading him and doing it again. If you don't reload you can't expand his size beyond that current maximum. Then I chopped off 2 fingers (just reduced their size in the same way as making everything else larger). Oh, and I used Sketchup to build some finger nails and attached them to the 3 remaining fingers. The texture on the skin is one that came from a texture pack I got from Reallusion's content store (Total Materials Vol 11: Alien Organic). btw, that arm is ludicrously long... I mean, ludicrous. The tunnel is pretty much to scale and the arm had to come all the way out to grab the poor space dude. End result from that camera angle, though, came out pretty good. Probably the biggest challenge was keyframing the space dude (he has a name, you know: Donaldson!) to make sure he didn't poke an arm or leg through the creature's fingers. But like 99% of 'Godiva', what you see on the screen is what you see in iClone. I did very little post-production manipulation.
Explosions: These are all store bought from Reallusion (and they're cheap, because I'm cheap, too!) Most were used "as is", but the final big boom I had to tone them down a bit (some have strange "extras" in them that I didn't like) but it had pretty much all 5 or 6 Explosions going off at the same time. At one point I wasn't sure I was going to be able to pull off this effect within iClone, but as you can see, it proved quite possible.
Holographic Displays: These were easy. Just simple flat planes (semi-transparent) with the text as an opacity map. The "beam" projecting them is a simple primitive (a cone for one, pyramids for the rest), also semi-transparent. The inspiration for these came from an effect JosephKw did in one of his films, 'Scion', a while back. I always liked that effect, and have wanted to do something similar ever since seeing it. (Thanks Joseph!)
Scanning Target: I used a narrow beam Spotlight and in front of it I placed a custom made flat plane with the cut out shape of the 'targeting' image. (I made that in Sketchup very easily.) There was also the custom made spherical light prop and a light cone I made up as well. Put them all together (link/attach) and then made them 'Look At' the individual asteroids, twist the plane back and forth a bit for effect, and ta da! One Scanning System. Some notes on that: The plane had to be visible for it to cast a shadow, but it only had to be visible on one side. So it is placed very close to the light source and was also coloured the same as the light cone so when it did happen to come into view (from that one side) it would be virtually invisible to the camera. An alternative to making the custom plane would be to use an opacity map, but experience tells me that the maps tend to get jagged edges as they are just jpgs and get "fudged" to save space. So it was 10 times better to use a real object/prop rather than an image file.
The Third Eye: iClone comes with some miscellaneous accessories, one of which is an "Artificial Eye". By default, this fake eye is pretty "cartoony" with long lashes, but by stealing the eye texture of the character in question (her name is Sister Nova, by the way, not that it's important!) and removing the lashes by dropping the opacity (and stealing the skin colour from Nova as well for the eye lid), you can make it a match for the real eyes of the character. I then had to flatten the eye so it didn't look like Nova had a monstrous bruise on her forehead that she'd covered up with makeup. The eye accessory has a built-in "blink" function which just needed to be timed to match Nova's real blinking. But the real fun came when I wanted the eye to turn right and look at the Captain (the dude in green with the fancy techno-monocle). I couldn't just rotate the eye as it was now mishapen, so I resorted to moving the texture on the eye ball itself, using the "U" and "V" offset settings (which can be keyframed). When I first did it, I soon realized that I had to change the texture as the eye ball texture would wrap back around to the left, so I just made a bigger texture with lots of white and a smaller eye ball and decreased its "Tiling" so it would look the correct size. So now when I move it, you only see the whites of the eyes on the left as the eye turns right.
Ragdoll Dummy: No-one asked about this, but this took me a bit of time and effort to do. I wanted Nova and the Captain to both fly out the window during the explosive decompression scene, but I didn't want to just push them out cleanly, nor did I want to try and keyframe the animation. So I decided to make up a ragdoll dummy and let iClone's Physics engine do the work for me. A couple of (cleverer than me) folk on the Reallusion forum have already created such things, but I decided I'd like to make my own (movie making is fun, but I also like to do a little more than just put a movie together, thus the reason I made this prop and also many of the other smaller props seen throughout the film). This became a learning exercise as I haven't dealt with attaching and restraining physics in iClone before (I usually just drop things and watch them bounce!) I did manage to come up with something that worked well for my purposes, though in "real" gravity, if the character falls over it instantly breaks its back (not a pretty sight). But for flying out a window in virtually zero-G and bouncing off some invisible dummy physics activated props (rather than the actual space ship prop), it was wonderful.
Green Tinge: The whole film has a green tinge to it to give it a slightly "other world" feel. Remarkably, I did this within iClone rather than in post production. Not sure why, as it would have been easier in post, but I guess that's just me. I had the setting turned on in iClone and just left it on as I went shot to shot. Lucky I liked it!
Shining Trapezohedron: Just as a little "easter egg", did you know the crystals found in the excavation tunnel were, in fact, the Shining Trapezohedron prop I used in 'The Haunter Of The Dark'?
Asteroid Field: very simply downloaded a pre-made field from 3DWarehouse, plus a collection of smaller, standalone rocks. Animated them to rotate or drift during each shot. Nothing special here, though the poly count got a little high at times.
Bugs: That was a prop I bought from Wil Veeke in the marketplace. I think it's a robotic scorpion. I retextured it a bit and added a bunch of glow maps across many of the textures and increased their visibility as the laser heated up the poor critter. The animations were all supplied with the prop, but to get the frantic death throes, I sped up its running cycle a lot, and removed any forward motion. Then I simply threw in an explosion and made the whole critter invisible when it actually blew up. Oh, and the afterglow on the wall was a strategically placed glow map on the wall itself. For the multiple shots, the afterglow was done by a half spherical prop that I faded in and out (much easier to do that for mutiple positions than the glow map on the wall).
Cracking Glass: This was achieved by placing a semi-transparent plane over the window with the image of a cracked window on it. It also had an opacity map in the shape of a white circle. By increasing the size of the opacity map (in steps) the cracks in the window appeared to grow.
Breaking Glass: This was a little trickier. I discovered during production of "Underpants Away!" (Ep 3) that if you applied the soft body physics profile to a (normally) solid object, the physics engine in iClone would effectively break the object apart into its component pieces. With this in mind, I took the glass from the ship (Godiva) into SketchUp, spent a little time drawing lines all over it (roughly the same shape as the cracks used above), effectively creating about 100 polygons (where it started as pretty much just 1). In iClone, this new piece of glass was put in place, and I used the soft body physics preset on. I then reversed gravity so things would fall 'up' and watched the results.
Well, it was dull. The window fell 'up' alright, but it didn't break up. Well, it did, but barely. So I then added a dummy prop (a huge sphere) that would then collide with the glass and force the pieces to spread out in a much more realistic manner. The end result (after much fiddling) is what you see in the movie.
Lasers: the laser shots were big on glow maps. The laser beams are simple primitives that came with iClone. They are actually twisted columns, and I had the glow maps pulse in intensity to give the beams a little life (not that you can really see that in the film, but it's there!) Oh, and they were assisted by a greenish Point Light for added effect.
Grasping Hand (sounds like a D&D Spell): This ended up being fairly easy to do. The hand is just the standard G5 character Chuck, but a very large Chuck. Of course, to make him that size required increasing his size to the maximum allowed (150 or 250%?) then saving him, loading him and doing it again. If you don't reload you can't expand his size beyond that current maximum. Then I chopped off 2 fingers (just reduced their size in the same way as making everything else larger). Oh, and I used Sketchup to build some finger nails and attached them to the 3 remaining fingers. The texture on the skin is one that came from a texture pack I got from Reallusion's content store (Total Materials Vol 11: Alien Organic). btw, that arm is ludicrously long... I mean, ludicrous. The tunnel is pretty much to scale and the arm had to come all the way out to grab the poor space dude. End result from that camera angle, though, came out pretty good. Probably the biggest challenge was keyframing the space dude (he has a name, you know: Donaldson!) to make sure he didn't poke an arm or leg through the creature's fingers. But like 99% of 'Godiva', what you see on the screen is what you see in iClone. I did very little post-production manipulation.
Explosions: These are all store bought from Reallusion (and they're cheap, because I'm cheap, too!) Most were used "as is", but the final big boom I had to tone them down a bit (some have strange "extras" in them that I didn't like) but it had pretty much all 5 or 6 Explosions going off at the same time. At one point I wasn't sure I was going to be able to pull off this effect within iClone, but as you can see, it proved quite possible.
Holographic Displays: These were easy. Just simple flat planes (semi-transparent) with the text as an opacity map. The "beam" projecting them is a simple primitive (a cone for one, pyramids for the rest), also semi-transparent. The inspiration for these came from an effect JosephKw did in one of his films, 'Scion', a while back. I always liked that effect, and have wanted to do something similar ever since seeing it. (Thanks Joseph!)
Scanning Target: I used a narrow beam Spotlight and in front of it I placed a custom made flat plane with the cut out shape of the 'targeting' image. (I made that in Sketchup very easily.) There was also the custom made spherical light prop and a light cone I made up as well. Put them all together (link/attach) and then made them 'Look At' the individual asteroids, twist the plane back and forth a bit for effect, and ta da! One Scanning System. Some notes on that: The plane had to be visible for it to cast a shadow, but it only had to be visible on one side. So it is placed very close to the light source and was also coloured the same as the light cone so when it did happen to come into view (from that one side) it would be virtually invisible to the camera. An alternative to making the custom plane would be to use an opacity map, but experience tells me that the maps tend to get jagged edges as they are just jpgs and get "fudged" to save space. So it was 10 times better to use a real object/prop rather than an image file.
The Third Eye: iClone comes with some miscellaneous accessories, one of which is an "Artificial Eye". By default, this fake eye is pretty "cartoony" with long lashes, but by stealing the eye texture of the character in question (her name is Sister Nova, by the way, not that it's important!) and removing the lashes by dropping the opacity (and stealing the skin colour from Nova as well for the eye lid), you can make it a match for the real eyes of the character. I then had to flatten the eye so it didn't look like Nova had a monstrous bruise on her forehead that she'd covered up with makeup. The eye accessory has a built-in "blink" function which just needed to be timed to match Nova's real blinking. But the real fun came when I wanted the eye to turn right and look at the Captain (the dude in green with the fancy techno-monocle). I couldn't just rotate the eye as it was now mishapen, so I resorted to moving the texture on the eye ball itself, using the "U" and "V" offset settings (which can be keyframed). When I first did it, I soon realized that I had to change the texture as the eye ball texture would wrap back around to the left, so I just made a bigger texture with lots of white and a smaller eye ball and decreased its "Tiling" so it would look the correct size. So now when I move it, you only see the whites of the eyes on the left as the eye turns right.
Ragdoll Dummy: No-one asked about this, but this took me a bit of time and effort to do. I wanted Nova and the Captain to both fly out the window during the explosive decompression scene, but I didn't want to just push them out cleanly, nor did I want to try and keyframe the animation. So I decided to make up a ragdoll dummy and let iClone's Physics engine do the work for me. A couple of (cleverer than me) folk on the Reallusion forum have already created such things, but I decided I'd like to make my own (movie making is fun, but I also like to do a little more than just put a movie together, thus the reason I made this prop and also many of the other smaller props seen throughout the film). This became a learning exercise as I haven't dealt with attaching and restraining physics in iClone before (I usually just drop things and watch them bounce!) I did manage to come up with something that worked well for my purposes, though in "real" gravity, if the character falls over it instantly breaks its back (not a pretty sight). But for flying out a window in virtually zero-G and bouncing off some invisible dummy physics activated props (rather than the actual space ship prop), it was wonderful.
Green Tinge: The whole film has a green tinge to it to give it a slightly "other world" feel. Remarkably, I did this within iClone rather than in post production. Not sure why, as it would have been easier in post, but I guess that's just me. I had the setting turned on in iClone and just left it on as I went shot to shot. Lucky I liked it!
Shining Trapezohedron: Just as a little "easter egg", did you know the crystals found in the excavation tunnel were, in fact, the Shining Trapezohedron prop I used in 'The Haunter Of The Dark'?
Tuesday, February 25, 2014
Godiva - Now showing!
And here it is, 'Godiva', my latest work. 14 minutes of sci-fi horror fun. Not a lot of dialogue, but plenty of music. I hope you enjoy!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SKUXWvdHFc
"It's 2153, and a small group of prospectors dig up more than they expect when they delve a little too deep into the heart of the uncharted corners of the asteroid belt."
A sci-fi horror, directed by BiggsTrek
Thanks to:
freesound.org musopen.org
sony.com youtube.com
reallusion.com audacity.com
iclonerevolution.com wolfzone.org
sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/
Warlord, W.Veeke, peteradam6, Alley
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sound/list
-
Moonlight_Sonata_by_Beethoven
Becerra_string_quartet_4_-_1allegro
+ 2andante + 3allegro + 4allegro
UnusExDiscipulisMeis
Music Sources (all copyright free / public domain):
youtube.com/audiolibrary_download?vid=463864fcafcbc5bc
upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ac/Becerra_string_quartet_4_-_1allegro.ogg
upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8a/Becerra_string_quartet_4_-_2andante.ogg
upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/be/Becerra_string_quartet_4_-_3allegro.ogg
upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b4/Becerra_string_quartet_4_-_4allegro.ogg.
musopen.org/music/400/tomas-luis-de-victoria/unus-ex-discipulis-meis/
Saturday, February 1, 2014
My latest movie is complete: "Godiva"
Hey all,
After being stuck in traffic and then a hotel lobby overnight this week (thanks GA DOT), I was given a day off work as compensation. I made good use of that extra time to finish my latest film, which I have titled "Godiva".
It is a sci-fi horror, set in the asteroid belt. I've wanted to do a film in that setting for a while, and this is the result. Normally I write out a full script in advance of shooting (as we all should) but in this case I had an outline only and was pretty much "winging it" for much of the production.
The storyline changed a bit, the ending changed, the characters changed. But I think the end result is pretty darn good and fairly true to the original concept.
The following are a few screen shots to whet your appetite. I do not have a release date for the film yet, but that will change shortly, I'm sure. (In the meantime, I better make a poster!)
Please stay tuned!
After being stuck in traffic and then a hotel lobby overnight this week (thanks GA DOT), I was given a day off work as compensation. I made good use of that extra time to finish my latest film, which I have titled "Godiva".
It is a sci-fi horror, set in the asteroid belt. I've wanted to do a film in that setting for a while, and this is the result. Normally I write out a full script in advance of shooting (as we all should) but in this case I had an outline only and was pretty much "winging it" for much of the production.
The storyline changed a bit, the ending changed, the characters changed. But I think the end result is pretty darn good and fairly true to the original concept.
The following are a few screen shots to whet your appetite. I do not have a release date for the film yet, but that will change shortly, I'm sure. (In the meantime, I better make a poster!)
Please stay tuned!
Wednesday, December 18, 2013
12 Days of Xmas - my freebie
Hey all, and Merry Xmas!
Alley's tradition of offering 12 Days of (iClone) Xmas Freebies is on again this year. Tomorrow I am slated to offer one (for Day 6).
It's actually up now: http://city.reallusion.com/ContentPreview.aspx?i=JICbf4e3d3a099f13885 and will remain so for the rest of the 12 Days.
For more details, look at the forum thread: http://forum.reallusion.com/Topic170754-37-1.aspx
Enjoy!
Alley's tradition of offering 12 Days of (iClone) Xmas Freebies is on again this year. Tomorrow I am slated to offer one (for Day 6).
It's actually up now: http://city.reallusion.com/ContentPreview.aspx?i=JICbf4e3d3a099f13885 and will remain so for the rest of the 12 Days.
For more details, look at the forum thread: http://forum.reallusion.com/Topic170754-37-1.aspx
Enjoy!
Sunday, December 1, 2013
AdRev on YouTube driving me nuts
Hey All,
I just wanted to rant a little about AdRev on YouTube. Of late, I have received 3 Claims on several of my videos from AdRev, saying that I was using material owned by the people they represent. Of course it's pure BS as all the music I use was either created by me, or was supplied by Lionhead.
It is extremely annoying, and the lovely little "if you dispute our claim, we may sue you" notice that pops up is quite intimidating. But nevertheless, I shall dispute each and every one of their bogus claims, even if the videos have had less than 100 views. It's the principle of the thing.
I feel like an ant trying to bit the toe of an elephant, but I'll keeping biting. And maybe if me and my ant buddies bite enough times, the elephant might start to notice...
[EDIT: I sent some emails to AdRev and remarkably they responded and withdrew their claims. So next time (and I'm sure there'll be a next time) I won't worry with the YouTube dispute system and will just go to AdRev directly. Still a pain in the ass having to do ANYthing considering I've done nothing wrong.
And it turns out one of the claims was through a different company, CD Baby. I've emailed them, too. We'll see how they respond, if at all. Still not happy about any of this!]
[2nd EDIT: Well, this is ridiculous. Just as soon as they pulled their false claims, the numb nuts at AdRev have falsely claimed copyright on ANOTHER of my videos. F*cking insane! Will this harassment ever end?!?!?]
[3rd EDIT: Hopefully the last update. The final false claim has been removed with a promise that AdRev will not longer attempt to claim anything from my channel. Hip-hoo-f*cking-ray!]
I just wanted to rant a little about AdRev on YouTube. Of late, I have received 3 Claims on several of my videos from AdRev, saying that I was using material owned by the people they represent. Of course it's pure BS as all the music I use was either created by me, or was supplied by Lionhead.
It is extremely annoying, and the lovely little "if you dispute our claim, we may sue you" notice that pops up is quite intimidating. But nevertheless, I shall dispute each and every one of their bogus claims, even if the videos have had less than 100 views. It's the principle of the thing.
I feel like an ant trying to bit the toe of an elephant, but I'll keeping biting. And maybe if me and my ant buddies bite enough times, the elephant might start to notice...
[EDIT: I sent some emails to AdRev and remarkably they responded and withdrew their claims. So next time (and I'm sure there'll be a next time) I won't worry with the YouTube dispute system and will just go to AdRev directly. Still a pain in the ass having to do ANYthing considering I've done nothing wrong.
And it turns out one of the claims was through a different company, CD Baby. I've emailed them, too. We'll see how they respond, if at all. Still not happy about any of this!]
[2nd EDIT: Well, this is ridiculous. Just as soon as they pulled their false claims, the numb nuts at AdRev have falsely claimed copyright on ANOTHER of my videos. F*cking insane! Will this harassment ever end?!?!?]
[3rd EDIT: Hopefully the last update. The final false claim has been removed with a promise that AdRev will not longer attempt to claim anything from my channel. Hip-hoo-f*cking-ray!]
Tuesday, September 10, 2013
Sunday, May 12, 2013
Some fun with UPM.
A spur of the moment thing... just for fun!
:)
[EDIT: Thought I should at least use the "correct" font, for "Impact", ;) lol]
Monday, January 21, 2013
Prospects
A
little something I've been working on over the last couple of weeks,
hastily thrown together to see what it looks like "in scene". The new
spacesuits are coming on OK; the little Drone craft looks cool too, I
think. And I got me a bunch of asteroids to get the setting right.
ACTION!
For some bizarre reason, I seem to be working on two film projects at the moment. After months of indecision on what to do next, they both seemed to just jump into my lap at the same time. One is a space based sci-fi horror, the other is a collaboration with an iClone legend (details of the project tba).
Hold on to your hats!
For some bizarre reason, I seem to be working on two film projects at the moment. After months of indecision on what to do next, they both seemed to just jump into my lap at the same time. One is a space based sci-fi horror, the other is a collaboration with an iClone legend (details of the project tba).
Hold on to your hats!
Saturday, November 24, 2012
I give Muvizu a try.
Hey all!
After my latest film, UA3 (work it out for yourselves... lol), I wanted to try something different. A different Engine/software, actually. I considered delving into LightWave, which I'd been given as part of my Expo Prize from 2011, but what caught my eye was Muvizu instead.
For those that don't know it, Muvizu is a 3D animation tool, based on the Unreal engine. It has a particular "cartoony" style to it, which is cute, though it does kind of restrict the types of films you might want to make with it. I must admit their latest updates with various Superhero characters look really cool, reminding me of Pixar's The Incredibles (one of my favourite animated films).
I installed it on my PC, which actually took a while as the download is huge (or just slow from their servers, possibly) but as easy as any software can be to install. And when you start it up, you can load in some pre-built Sets from a small collection that comes with the software (and I later found you can also grab some other ones directly online, which expands the content considerably).
I fiddled with it a bit, but honestly didn't know what to do with it, nor how to use it. Luckily for me, Muvizu has quite a collection of video Tutorials on their site, which explain in sufficient detail many of the functions and capabilities of the software. So I sat down and watched a couple of the intro ones that explain the basics. They are very well presented and extremely helpful. The accent of the presenter is a little thick, so for people whose first language isn't English, they may have trouble understanding him (but I could be wrong.)
Still, I had no plans for what I wanted to use the software for. Then a blindingly obvious idea came to me: do another Empire Uncut scene! (I've already done two in iClone.) With that little epiphany, I went and grabbed a suitably easy scene (#17) that I could use to check out the software (and help complete the Empire Uncut project - which, for those in the dark, is the second such project where they take a Star Wars film, cut it into 15 second pieces, and crowd source the reconstruction of the entire film in a patchwork quilt kind of remake. It's fun!)
So, I had my scene and thus a goal to achieve with Muvizu. First thing I did was pick a Set. Easily done as they supplied a nice little mad scientist lab that I thought looked appropriate for my needs. Next was creating the characters (in this case, Han Solo and Princess Leia.) I think this was my favourite part of the process. It's very easy, and fun. The options are pretty good, though not extensive. I managed to come up with a couple of appropriate cartoon avatars that I then plopped down in the set.
Now I needed the characters to move. Back to the tutorials I went! The movement system is interesting, but clunky. Pretty much everything in this software is "puppet" based, meaning I have to puppeteer the actions in some way (in real time). I don't mind doing that for some things, but with others it's a pain. In particular, making a character turn left at a certain point was very frustrating as I had to get the timing just right, clicking on the turn gadget and hoping I hit the right one. I could alter things in the timeline a bit, but I felt it was awkward.
The scene called for dialogue between Han and Leia, and looking at the menus in Muvizu, I couldn't work out how to properly apply that dialogue (which I had pre-recorded and altered the pitch to match the cartoon appearance of the scene - hat tip to Scott Hather for the inspiration for the voices!)
I quickly watched the tutorials on lip synching, and it became obvious that the system wasn't particularly friendly. It appears you can have only one audio file that you can lip synch a character to, so if you have multiple lines, you have to have them all in one file, and spaced appropriately to match your scene. Not a good idea, not at all. Makes it a pain to get timing right in the scene. (And if I'm wrong on the process, please correct me!)
Lastly, I had to animate some props (in this case, sliding doors.) I chose some door props and plopped them down in the Set and again floundered when it came to working out how to animate them on my own. (Back to the tutorials I went!) This is another poorly executed function (in my opinion) where you have to puppeteer the movement of objects. For simple sideways movement like this, a keyframe system would have been 100 times easier. After much frakking around, and lots of earth-based swear words, I had the doors moving appropriately.
Exporting/Rendering was easy. The options are pretty limited, but that's not a problem as they had what I wanted (720p, uncompressed avi.) With my shots complete, I went to my editor (Sony Vegas) and did all the other fun stuff to finish off the scene. The end result is below.
One last thing before I finish this (longer-than-expected) blog entry. Muvizu was rather demanding on my system, and it crashed (and hung) quite a few times during this 2-3 day production. The timeline seemed to be something that caused the most issues, as it (temporarily) hung Muvizu when I tried to "scrub?" back many many times (thankfully, it didn't entirely crash, otherwise I would likely have abandoned the project altogether.)
I'm not sure I'll venture into Muvizu again. It wasn't as easy as I expected it to be, nor as intuitive. It also has that "cartoony" look that pretty much limits it to comedies alone. Maybe as the software is developed and matures, I'll revisit it.
Never say never!
After my latest film, UA3 (work it out for yourselves... lol), I wanted to try something different. A different Engine/software, actually. I considered delving into LightWave, which I'd been given as part of my Expo Prize from 2011, but what caught my eye was Muvizu instead.
For those that don't know it, Muvizu is a 3D animation tool, based on the Unreal engine. It has a particular "cartoony" style to it, which is cute, though it does kind of restrict the types of films you might want to make with it. I must admit their latest updates with various Superhero characters look really cool, reminding me of Pixar's The Incredibles (one of my favourite animated films).
I installed it on my PC, which actually took a while as the download is huge (or just slow from their servers, possibly) but as easy as any software can be to install. And when you start it up, you can load in some pre-built Sets from a small collection that comes with the software (and I later found you can also grab some other ones directly online, which expands the content considerably).
I fiddled with it a bit, but honestly didn't know what to do with it, nor how to use it. Luckily for me, Muvizu has quite a collection of video Tutorials on their site, which explain in sufficient detail many of the functions and capabilities of the software. So I sat down and watched a couple of the intro ones that explain the basics. They are very well presented and extremely helpful. The accent of the presenter is a little thick, so for people whose first language isn't English, they may have trouble understanding him (but I could be wrong.)
Still, I had no plans for what I wanted to use the software for. Then a blindingly obvious idea came to me: do another Empire Uncut scene! (I've already done two in iClone.) With that little epiphany, I went and grabbed a suitably easy scene (#17) that I could use to check out the software (and help complete the Empire Uncut project - which, for those in the dark, is the second such project where they take a Star Wars film, cut it into 15 second pieces, and crowd source the reconstruction of the entire film in a patchwork quilt kind of remake. It's fun!)
So, I had my scene and thus a goal to achieve with Muvizu. First thing I did was pick a Set. Easily done as they supplied a nice little mad scientist lab that I thought looked appropriate for my needs. Next was creating the characters (in this case, Han Solo and Princess Leia.) I think this was my favourite part of the process. It's very easy, and fun. The options are pretty good, though not extensive. I managed to come up with a couple of appropriate cartoon avatars that I then plopped down in the set.
Now I needed the characters to move. Back to the tutorials I went! The movement system is interesting, but clunky. Pretty much everything in this software is "puppet" based, meaning I have to puppeteer the actions in some way (in real time). I don't mind doing that for some things, but with others it's a pain. In particular, making a character turn left at a certain point was very frustrating as I had to get the timing just right, clicking on the turn gadget and hoping I hit the right one. I could alter things in the timeline a bit, but I felt it was awkward.
The scene called for dialogue between Han and Leia, and looking at the menus in Muvizu, I couldn't work out how to properly apply that dialogue (which I had pre-recorded and altered the pitch to match the cartoon appearance of the scene - hat tip to Scott Hather for the inspiration for the voices!)
I quickly watched the tutorials on lip synching, and it became obvious that the system wasn't particularly friendly. It appears you can have only one audio file that you can lip synch a character to, so if you have multiple lines, you have to have them all in one file, and spaced appropriately to match your scene. Not a good idea, not at all. Makes it a pain to get timing right in the scene. (And if I'm wrong on the process, please correct me!)
Lastly, I had to animate some props (in this case, sliding doors.) I chose some door props and plopped them down in the Set and again floundered when it came to working out how to animate them on my own. (Back to the tutorials I went!) This is another poorly executed function (in my opinion) where you have to puppeteer the movement of objects. For simple sideways movement like this, a keyframe system would have been 100 times easier. After much frakking around, and lots of earth-based swear words, I had the doors moving appropriately.
Exporting/Rendering was easy. The options are pretty limited, but that's not a problem as they had what I wanted (720p, uncompressed avi.) With my shots complete, I went to my editor (Sony Vegas) and did all the other fun stuff to finish off the scene. The end result is below.
One last thing before I finish this (longer-than-expected) blog entry. Muvizu was rather demanding on my system, and it crashed (and hung) quite a few times during this 2-3 day production. The timeline seemed to be something that caused the most issues, as it (temporarily) hung Muvizu when I tried to "scrub?" back many many times (thankfully, it didn't entirely crash, otherwise I would likely have abandoned the project altogether.)
I'm not sure I'll venture into Muvizu again. It wasn't as easy as I expected it to be, nor as intuitive. It also has that "cartoony" look that pretty much limits it to comedies alone. Maybe as the software is developed and matures, I'll revisit it.
Never say never!
Tuesday, November 20, 2012
Underpants Away! Episode 3 "Ewwww!" NOW PLAYING!
Ladies and Gentlefolk,
Please enjoy my latest iClone endeavour, Underpants Away! Episode 3 "Ewwww!"
(Don't worry if you missed or have forgotten the first two episodes as there is a recap at the start of the film.)
The long awaited conclusion to Underpants Away!, titled "Ewwww!".
Starring BiggsTrek, JetCityWoman, Sisch, Azuresama, Kuroken, Rjb2112, Fulkster, Josephkw, Nahton and a host of others (Well, that's the lot, really).
Filmed in Reallusion's iClone 5.
Written & Directed by BiggsTrek (so you know who to blame).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AlvTFzvUmc
http://www.tmunderground.com/watch/ecb0e40ebe40b2bde29f/Underpants-Away!-Episode-3-
Please enjoy my latest iClone endeavour, Underpants Away! Episode 3 "Ewwww!"
(Don't worry if you missed or have forgotten the first two episodes as there is a recap at the start of the film.)
The long awaited conclusion to Underpants Away!, titled "Ewwww!".
Starring BiggsTrek, JetCityWoman, Sisch, Azuresama, Kuroken, Rjb2112, Fulkster, Josephkw, Nahton and a host of others (Well, that's the lot, really).
Filmed in Reallusion's iClone 5.
Written & Directed by BiggsTrek (so you know who to blame).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AlvTFzvUmc
http://www.tmunderground.com/watch/ecb0e40ebe40b2bde29f/Underpants-Away!-Episode-3-
Thursday, November 15, 2012
The Premiere of 'Underpants Away! - Episode 3 - Ewwww!' will be Nov 19th!
At long last, please join me at the Premiere of 'Underpants Away! - Episode 3 - "Ewwww!"' at the Indy Showcase Theatre this coming Monday night, November 19th at 11pm EST (0400 GMT) - immediately following the Wolf and Dulci Show!
http://cctoolbox.org/indyshowcase or http://indyshowcase.org/theater
This is the long overdue conclusion to the Underpants Away! saga, starring Sisch, Fulkster, Josephkw, JetCityWoman, Kuroken, RJB2112, Nahton, Azuresama and myself. Featuring music by Fulkster made specifically for this film.
Don't worry if you haven't seen the earlier episodes (or you can't remember them), as the film has a quick recap at the start!
For now, here's the recently released excerpt highlighting Fulkster's fancy track! Please enjoy and see you at the Premiere!
Sunday, October 14, 2012
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