March Madness 2012

It's March again. I think this has been one of the fastest years in living memory. Of course, my memory of past years becomes more and more vague all the time, so I probably said the exact same thing last year. But anyways, since it is March again, it's time to make a bunch of posts and a bunch of progress. Today I am doing just that! I'm glad to say that I was able to work on animating The Battle for Axis Mundi today, and I got 77 frames of animation done, for one character. Still have to animate the other character during those 77 frames.

Also today I remembered how many hoops I have had to jump through to finagle this workflow to the point where it is possible. By that I mean that there are a lot of extra steps to go through in order to animate characters and render them in RCT3. It's making me look forward to being able to do a project where I use tools that were designed to do what I will use them do. So, happy March Madness, and I look forward to seeing you again tomorrow!

A regular update

Today there is no review of an awesome game, nor rant about the random things flying around in my head. Today there is only this: that I tried to make music, and failed.

Of course, I will immediately be trying again. Or you could say that I am continuously trying, and so far I have not come up with anything. But I will come up with something eventually. There is, after all, a finite number of crummy melodies that one can make (for a given time interval). Eventually I WILL run out of them. And then all that will be left are awesome melodies.

Cave Story

So you guys deserve a post. Well, sorry to say it, but I didn't really work on Axis Mundi at all this weekend.

I was distracted by a video game...

It has been a while since I played a game that was this hard to put down. The game I am talking about is called "Doukutsu Monogatari." The English translation is "Cave Story." Man that is a humble name. The truth is that this game deserves more fanfare than ANY game that I have seen in the past 10 years. The creators of Cave Story have achieved something that is basically never seen in the commercial realm of video games: perfection.

Perfection might seem like a bold claim, but let me assure you that it is absolutely true. This game is freaking perfect. I cannot put it any more simple terms than that. The art direction is awesome, the game play is silky beyond imagination, the weapon/inventory system is intuitive, and the story is amazing!

The only real way that you can know what I am talking about is if you play this game for yourself. The game does not cost anything at all; Cave Story is freeware. Don't look at any screenshots, trailers, or any other stuff. Just play the game. It starts out without any indication of how awesome it will be. Just keep playing until you pass the addiction event horizon. You will be sucked in. You will not be able to escape. At least I can't. And that's why I didn't get any work done this weekend.

Go to http://www.cavestory.org/ and go to the "Downloads" section for the game. Also check out the "Game Info" section for a description and review of the game (even though you just got one from yours truly ;D).

Tongue Twister Tues.... Aw crap, it's Wendsday

I didn't get to do that shot yesterday. So that's what I did today. I did the shot that I said I'd have done by yesterday, today.

Try saying that 5 times fast, haha.

That's pretty much it... I can't give many details about the shot, except that it was pretty short, and required impeccable synchronization between Animated CSOs, and the fireworks mixmaster. We're talking an acceptable margin of error of 1 frame. And I got it in 2 tries. BOO. YA.

Post 2 of March Madness, COMPLETED!

March Madness

Well, it's that time of year again, whether I am prepared for it or not. That's right! It's time for....... MARCH MADNESS!!!! It's time for me to make a crazy amount of posts in one month! I have a feeling that I will break last year's record, considering how I am starting at the very beginning of the month this time. It may very well also help me make faster than normal progress on Axis Mundi, since I am having to post so much! I know it has made a difference today, because I got back to work today because it was the beginning of March Madness!

So, about said progress; as of the writing of this post I have finished one new (animated) shot today. I will probably get another one done tonight, though. Also, the last time I gave a length of time for the film was a while ago, so here's a new one: 4 minutes and 16 seconds.

That's about 36 seconds of new footage from when I made this post, which was the last shot that I did before I stopped filming to do Research and Development on the Animated CSO aspect of the production. So you could say that I have done 36 seconds since January 15th, which is pretty much when I was able to start animating.