It hit me pretty hard.
I've submitted 6 After Effects templates to VideoHive within the past 2 months and they have all been rejected due to quality (or lack thereof). I don't have any approved-for-sale templates on VideoHive (VideoHive ID: AnglerDigital), except for a random piece of stock footage I took of some fireworks a couple years ago.
After some heated emails and discussions with VideoHive staff, I finally settled on some pretty important self-reflection and taking a good look at myself and my skills.
The bottom line: I'm just not quite there yet.
At least, certainly not VideoHive quality. I still think that some of the templates I have created are worth distributing to other people so that they can learn or just use it, but I also don't feel right about just giving them away for free, after all I worked long and hard on them.
So, while also pursuing other After Effects template stores in which to sell my stuff, that doesn't prevent me from providing the templates myself through my website. The problem is, how do I go about accomplishing this?
I've got several options:
1. Create a point-of-sale micro transaction for each template I want to sell, user buys through Paypal and then through a 3rd party system (which will require some money, and maybe quite a bit for large storage) is provided a short-time-usage download link to get to the template.
Difficulty: Hard
2. Employ a donation system, that with each individual donation, that user can select a template of their choice in which I will provide a download link (or location, maybe dropbox) for them to grab the template files for a limited time.
Difficulty: Medium
3. Continue to only sell through 3rd party sites like VideoHive and Revostock.
Difficulty: Medium
I just envisioned option 2 today, and I feel really good about that option. Maybe make the minimum donation of $2.00, so anyone can grab these templates for 2 bucks each. And I would make some of my simpler templates for free, like the MrFatalix intro.
I'm open to suggestions.
Saturday, February 25, 2012
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Done (again) with Gorgeous Knight
Finally done with the last scene of "Gorgeous Knight", and now it's really done as the premiere date of the film has been set to October 15th! The film hinged on the final scene that needed to be completed, a car chase scene.
For those that don't remember, "Gorgeous Knight" is a film shot entirely with over 30,000 pictures instead of actual film. The producers reached out to about 50 design artists and animators (including me) to create the motion using the photos for the film. However, the car chase scene was originally done by other animators a few weeks ago but they didn't like the outcome, so they asked me to take on this last scene for the film.
The next two and a half weeks I built a CG city, complete with traffic, and animated a car chase throughout the busy streets. With all the car and building and other models like a train, the project file in Cinema 4D turned out to be about 270mb, my largest project to date.
With ambient occlusion, a sun array for soft shadows, and hundreds of reflections it took about 57 hours to render out 35 seconds of animation across 6 shots. Then about 6 hours in After Effects to position lights, lens flares, camera shakes for violent motion, a unique design style, explosions, and a dramatic hero shot in the middle of the chase.
About halfway through the building and designing of the city and chase animation I started to lose focus. There were days in which I didn't even touch my computer, luckily the producers put a hard deadline in front of me and I forced myself to complete and meet it. I didn't have to meet the deadline, I was doing this scene for free anyways (all my work on Gorgeous Knight has been pro-bono).
But once the animation started rendering out and I got my glimpse of the final animation, I knew it was worth it. The hero shot alone was totally worth it, everything worked the first time surprisingly with no re-renders and fixing scenes after I had finished the first render. There are a few mistakes in the animation, but using some camera trickery; frame movement, and heavy camera shakes, I was able to create something fast paced, violent speed and overall epic.
The producers were extremely pleased with the results, and with the completion of this scene the film is finally done! Check out the Facebook page for the Gorgeous Knight film! I, alone, designed several key shots, including the opening cinematic titles.
So excited to finally see this film come about!
For those that don't remember, "Gorgeous Knight" is a film shot entirely with over 30,000 pictures instead of actual film. The producers reached out to about 50 design artists and animators (including me) to create the motion using the photos for the film. However, the car chase scene was originally done by other animators a few weeks ago but they didn't like the outcome, so they asked me to take on this last scene for the film.
The next two and a half weeks I built a CG city, complete with traffic, and animated a car chase throughout the busy streets. With all the car and building and other models like a train, the project file in Cinema 4D turned out to be about 270mb, my largest project to date.
With ambient occlusion, a sun array for soft shadows, and hundreds of reflections it took about 57 hours to render out 35 seconds of animation across 6 shots. Then about 6 hours in After Effects to position lights, lens flares, camera shakes for violent motion, a unique design style, explosions, and a dramatic hero shot in the middle of the chase.
About halfway through the building and designing of the city and chase animation I started to lose focus. There were days in which I didn't even touch my computer, luckily the producers put a hard deadline in front of me and I forced myself to complete and meet it. I didn't have to meet the deadline, I was doing this scene for free anyways (all my work on Gorgeous Knight has been pro-bono).
But once the animation started rendering out and I got my glimpse of the final animation, I knew it was worth it. The hero shot alone was totally worth it, everything worked the first time surprisingly with no re-renders and fixing scenes after I had finished the first render. There are a few mistakes in the animation, but using some camera trickery; frame movement, and heavy camera shakes, I was able to create something fast paced, violent speed and overall epic.
The producers were extremely pleased with the results, and with the completion of this scene the film is finally done! Check out the Facebook page for the Gorgeous Knight film! I, alone, designed several key shots, including the opening cinematic titles.
So excited to finally see this film come about!
Monday, September 19, 2011
New Beginnings
Two weeks ago we finally moved out of our extremely cramped one-bedroom condo. And we moved into a 3 bedroom town-home. Needless to say, the extra space is intimidating. Considering I've lived in one bedroom apartments for the past 11 years (Sharing a 3 bedroom apartment with 2 roommates is the same thing), it really feels like home to me, but it also feels like it doesn't really exist... if that makes ANY sense :)
I come home from work, which is a really comfortable 5 minutes from home, and park in my garage (first time EVER parking in a garage), it really feels natural. What is really unnatural is my new office. The bigger of the two extra bedrooms is what my wife refers to as my "Man Cave", she even got me a sign to hang on the door. To me, it's my office. A "Man Cave" is something a man can come into and relax, watch a movie, play video games, watch the "big game" on a big TV screen and not have to worry about being too loud.
This room is not that. It's an office. A place where I can come and not be interrupted while I work on video/animation and be isolated from the rest of the house. I'm not used to being isolated, so I've found myself actually spending less time at the computer. Unfortunately that has also meant that work has not been getting done, so I've had to force myself to go in there and continue working.
Because of the move, my wife has had to quit her job. It was inevitable anyways because of the baby on the way, but it wasn't supposed to happen until February 2012. So the extra income of freelancing has instantly turned from fun extra change, to a necessary second job. It's still fun though, I'm enjoying the variety of work I'm working on at the moment, but it's feeling more like a chore now than an extracurricular hobby.
I love the potential of the office though, I've got tons of space to store my equipment and a nice big blank wall for a green screen and testing special effects, something I never had available until now. But it is taking a while to get completely settled in to see that.
I come home from work, which is a really comfortable 5 minutes from home, and park in my garage (first time EVER parking in a garage), it really feels natural. What is really unnatural is my new office. The bigger of the two extra bedrooms is what my wife refers to as my "Man Cave", she even got me a sign to hang on the door. To me, it's my office. A "Man Cave" is something a man can come into and relax, watch a movie, play video games, watch the "big game" on a big TV screen and not have to worry about being too loud.
This room is not that. It's an office. A place where I can come and not be interrupted while I work on video/animation and be isolated from the rest of the house. I'm not used to being isolated, so I've found myself actually spending less time at the computer. Unfortunately that has also meant that work has not been getting done, so I've had to force myself to go in there and continue working.
Because of the move, my wife has had to quit her job. It was inevitable anyways because of the baby on the way, but it wasn't supposed to happen until February 2012. So the extra income of freelancing has instantly turned from fun extra change, to a necessary second job. It's still fun though, I'm enjoying the variety of work I'm working on at the moment, but it's feeling more like a chore now than an extracurricular hobby.
I love the potential of the office though, I've got tons of space to store my equipment and a nice big blank wall for a green screen and testing special effects, something I never had available until now. But it is taking a while to get completely settled in to see that.
Monday, August 22, 2011
Tron Defiance - Last Update
I've thought long and hard about the Tron Defiance film, it has been coming along very nicely but many things have kept getting in the way. Lots of distractions, like trying to move to a new house, baby on the way, other paying gigs and short films taking up all of my extra time. I lost heart.
I knew it was something to be proud of, I had kept watching what I had completed in Tron Defiance and I was really excited about finishing it, but time just got in the way, so the project has been scrapped. Luckily I had finished enough to be a great animation piece to show, so I polished what I had and uploaded it to YouTube.
I'm sad that I won't be finishing it, but I'm also very relieved to not have that production weight on me. It was quite surprising the amount of work per shot and the workflow was frustrating:
-Animate the character in Daz 3D studio
-Bring animated character in Cinema 4D, apply textures (created in Photoshop) and position correctly. Then render 3D elements with separate passes for material luminance and 3D data.
-Bring rendered animation and 3D data into After Effects, apply 3 glow layers and 7 lens effect layers. Position other 3D elements like clouds and reflections into the scene. Render out the final animation
-Bring final render into Premiere, position into sequence, use Soundbooth for any sound production.
-Render out final piece.
The hardest, most time consuming part were the character animation in Daz Studio and bringing it correctly into Cinema 4D. That was just nuts! If one little piece was wrong it would screw up the entire animation key frames and I would need to start over. Daz Studio was just not a good idea to do character animation in, I probably should have used Poser but I was not familiar with it. I SHOULD have used Maya, considering THATS WHAT IT'S FOR! Argh.
I still believe that animated characters were the way to go, but I think I just went about it the wrong way. I couldn't imagine trying to use green screen actors instead. Costumes, actors, green screens, motion tracking, composition, refilming, etc., wow, that's like double the work per shot. And if I didn't do motion tracking, then I would not have been able to have the great sweeping cameras, it would have been pretty flat.
All in all, I'm proud and excited that I was able to finish enough to be a viable demo of my skills, in a way this is part 2 of my updated demo reel which I just released last week.
Here's to the future!
2011 Demo Reel
I knew it was something to be proud of, I had kept watching what I had completed in Tron Defiance and I was really excited about finishing it, but time just got in the way, so the project has been scrapped. Luckily I had finished enough to be a great animation piece to show, so I polished what I had and uploaded it to YouTube.
I'm sad that I won't be finishing it, but I'm also very relieved to not have that production weight on me. It was quite surprising the amount of work per shot and the workflow was frustrating:
-Animate the character in Daz 3D studio
-Bring animated character in Cinema 4D, apply textures (created in Photoshop) and position correctly. Then render 3D elements with separate passes for material luminance and 3D data.
-Bring rendered animation and 3D data into After Effects, apply 3 glow layers and 7 lens effect layers. Position other 3D elements like clouds and reflections into the scene. Render out the final animation
-Bring final render into Premiere, position into sequence, use Soundbooth for any sound production.
-Render out final piece.
The hardest, most time consuming part were the character animation in Daz Studio and bringing it correctly into Cinema 4D. That was just nuts! If one little piece was wrong it would screw up the entire animation key frames and I would need to start over. Daz Studio was just not a good idea to do character animation in, I probably should have used Poser but I was not familiar with it. I SHOULD have used Maya, considering THATS WHAT IT'S FOR! Argh.
I still believe that animated characters were the way to go, but I think I just went about it the wrong way. I couldn't imagine trying to use green screen actors instead. Costumes, actors, green screens, motion tracking, composition, refilming, etc., wow, that's like double the work per shot. And if I didn't do motion tracking, then I would not have been able to have the great sweeping cameras, it would have been pretty flat.
All in all, I'm proud and excited that I was able to finish enough to be a viable demo of my skills, in a way this is part 2 of my updated demo reel which I just released last week.
Here's to the future!
2011 Demo Reel
Friday, August 12, 2011
Massive Update
Lots of great things happening in the last few weeks; I finished several paying gigs which earned me enough money to buy a Canon EOS T3i, yay! And this camera will be shooting at the Windie City Shootout starting tonight! We will also be shooting with a 60D as well. The 72 Windie City Shootout is a film contest in which groups that enter are given a set of 3 requirements (A prop, a line and a location) that have to be implemented into the film. Then we have to shoot, edit and finalize a 5-10 minute film for the Monday deadline.
So, this weekend is going to be pretty busy, I don't foresee any special FX shots, but we might have a green screen shot for a short newsreel that might be used in the story. If that's the case then I might be the Director for "Unit B" while the main "Unit A" shoots the actual film.
We have a tentative script all thought out, with enough vagueness to accommodate the variety of requirements that we get tonight. Both the Story and the Production team are meeting tonight in Carol Stream to go over the requirements, finalize the script, and set a shooting schedule for tomorrow.
In other news, our recent film "Just Add Water" was screened at the 4th annual Land of Lincoln "21 Project" film contest, and we were nominated for 4 of the 5 categories. While we didn't win any awards, it was still an impressive set of nominations for a film in which I thought was a very small step backward from last year's entry. In addition to the other entries being a vast improvement over the previous years, we had a large pool of competitive short films to compete against. Overall it was a satisfying time in the midst of the Decatur festival, I only wish we could have stayed longer.
Other film updates; "Gorgeous Knight" is still being worked on. I got an update from the studio that the final "chase" scene came back from their animators wasn't good enough. So they may be looking to me for either technical advice, or to have some hands in it, not sure yet. They want me to review the current state of the scene and go from there. Right now they have me near the top of the Credits list as "Technical Advisor" and as top "Animator" / "Special Effects", so that's fantastic props already.
And more paying gigs coming up as well as non-paying gigs (just because I like to stay busy), so no rest for the weary!
So, this weekend is going to be pretty busy, I don't foresee any special FX shots, but we might have a green screen shot for a short newsreel that might be used in the story. If that's the case then I might be the Director for "Unit B" while the main "Unit A" shoots the actual film.
We have a tentative script all thought out, with enough vagueness to accommodate the variety of requirements that we get tonight. Both the Story and the Production team are meeting tonight in Carol Stream to go over the requirements, finalize the script, and set a shooting schedule for tomorrow.
In other news, our recent film "Just Add Water" was screened at the 4th annual Land of Lincoln "21 Project" film contest, and we were nominated for 4 of the 5 categories. While we didn't win any awards, it was still an impressive set of nominations for a film in which I thought was a very small step backward from last year's entry. In addition to the other entries being a vast improvement over the previous years, we had a large pool of competitive short films to compete against. Overall it was a satisfying time in the midst of the Decatur festival, I only wish we could have stayed longer.
Other film updates; "Gorgeous Knight" is still being worked on. I got an update from the studio that the final "chase" scene came back from their animators wasn't good enough. So they may be looking to me for either technical advice, or to have some hands in it, not sure yet. They want me to review the current state of the scene and go from there. Right now they have me near the top of the Credits list as "Technical Advisor" and as top "Animator" / "Special Effects", so that's fantastic props already.
And more paying gigs coming up as well as non-paying gigs (just because I like to stay busy), so no rest for the weary!
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Upgrading
I'm all tingly just thinking about it, my first dive into the DSLR realm is about to commence! I ordered a Canon EOS Rebel T3i camera today and it's all I can think about right now. I didn't get the kit, instead I got a 50mm f/1.8 EF lens to start off with. Along with a bag, lens hood, and a new 32gb SDHC card, I'm all set to begin my journey.
The reason why I bought the T3i and not a 60d or 7d or *gasp* 5D mkII, is that I'm all about the video. The video on the T3i is comparable to the 60d and 7d, and the 5d is definitely better, but it's also $2,000 more. And it's a canon DSLR, even though it might not have as many megapixels as the 7d, it still takes great photos. So, with my needs in check, I think this is a great place to start and is definitely a much sought after upgrade from my Canon Vixia HG21. I've worked with a 60d and a 7d before so I know what I'm getting myself into, and I like it.
Although, I'm going to say a few words about the HG21.... you were a great little camera, don't let no one tell you otherwise. You've been to 3 weddings, 4 interviews, 2 films, and countless special effects testing without having to worry about drive space or battery life. People never gave you respect in person, but they always enjoyed the video you produced, especially me *sniff*. I hope you will be able to go to a good home soon with someone that will appreciate your Samsonite heart.
And to my Panasonic TZ5, you were my first HD camera. You provided me with great video for my first special effects tests, and while your audio was atrocious you enabled me to grow and able to film some of our first anniversaries. We'll find you a good home too!
The reason why I bought the T3i and not a 60d or 7d or *gasp* 5D mkII, is that I'm all about the video. The video on the T3i is comparable to the 60d and 7d, and the 5d is definitely better, but it's also $2,000 more. And it's a canon DSLR, even though it might not have as many megapixels as the 7d, it still takes great photos. So, with my needs in check, I think this is a great place to start and is definitely a much sought after upgrade from my Canon Vixia HG21. I've worked with a 60d and a 7d before so I know what I'm getting myself into, and I like it.
Although, I'm going to say a few words about the HG21.... you were a great little camera, don't let no one tell you otherwise. You've been to 3 weddings, 4 interviews, 2 films, and countless special effects testing without having to worry about drive space or battery life. People never gave you respect in person, but they always enjoyed the video you produced, especially me *sniff*. I hope you will be able to go to a good home soon with someone that will appreciate your Samsonite heart.
And to my Panasonic TZ5, you were my first HD camera. You provided me with great video for my first special effects tests, and while your audio was atrocious you enabled me to grow and able to film some of our first anniversaries. We'll find you a good home too!
Friday, July 15, 2011
Checking things off...
The VFX for "Just Add Water" is finished. And 4 days early!!!! The last 4 years working on projects with Paul, it's usually been an exhausting task trying to get things looking good and done right up until the absolute final deadline (with deadline extensions). But this year I've been able to finish all my FX 4 days before the first deadline! I also believe that Jason is also like 99% done with his music and scoring, and Paul just has to do coloring and tweaking in the edit which looks to be all done by Saturday.
Albeit, they have had a couple all-nighters with editing and sound, but I've managed to keep my sleep schedule intact and pace myself. Plus it didn't hurt that, overall, the FX wasn't that hard (or maybe I'm just getting better?)... maybe.... Well, there was no green screen, 3 small FX sequences, 1 moderate FX scene, and the end credits. Yep, it was definitely easier. But this was my first film compositing 3D animation over live film, so this was really depended on accurate motion tracking which was tricky in R&D, but I was able to pull it off in production.
I really like the concept of this film, more so cause I really like fooling the audience and going for the unexpected. The first half of this film gives the impression of a low-budget, just-another-short-film, nothing special. But the last half gradually leads up to what is, hopefully, a shocker that the audience won't be expecting. In R&D before production I also tackled my first character animation, but sadly was not able to use it for the film. Instead I did what Pixar usually does, and added in the character animation during the credits.
In other news, I recently filmed 3 interviews at Fusion Studios and I developed a motion graphics template for introducing the music artist being filmed. The interviews are all done, they just need to be rendered and delivered which I will be able to do this weekend.
We are also putting together a group to enter the 72 hour Windie City Shootout in Chicago next month. So, that will definitely be fun to work on, plus it will be the first time I've worked with this group since "Orbit Control" which was a nice production.
Well, two more productions down, one coming up next month, I just may be able to startup my "Tron: Defiance" short film again in the next week or so!
Here's the Fusion interview template I designed:
Albeit, they have had a couple all-nighters with editing and sound, but I've managed to keep my sleep schedule intact and pace myself. Plus it didn't hurt that, overall, the FX wasn't that hard (or maybe I'm just getting better?)... maybe.... Well, there was no green screen, 3 small FX sequences, 1 moderate FX scene, and the end credits. Yep, it was definitely easier. But this was my first film compositing 3D animation over live film, so this was really depended on accurate motion tracking which was tricky in R&D, but I was able to pull it off in production.
I really like the concept of this film, more so cause I really like fooling the audience and going for the unexpected. The first half of this film gives the impression of a low-budget, just-another-short-film, nothing special. But the last half gradually leads up to what is, hopefully, a shocker that the audience won't be expecting. In R&D before production I also tackled my first character animation, but sadly was not able to use it for the film. Instead I did what Pixar usually does, and added in the character animation during the credits.
In other news, I recently filmed 3 interviews at Fusion Studios and I developed a motion graphics template for introducing the music artist being filmed. The interviews are all done, they just need to be rendered and delivered which I will be able to do this weekend.
We are also putting together a group to enter the 72 hour Windie City Shootout in Chicago next month. So, that will definitely be fun to work on, plus it will be the first time I've worked with this group since "Orbit Control" which was a nice production.
Well, two more productions down, one coming up next month, I just may be able to startup my "Tron: Defiance" short film again in the next week or so!
Here's the Fusion interview template I designed:
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
New VFX and Workflows... No Longer Necessary.
New film I am working on "Just Add Water", the last scene is huge VFX wise. It originally involved some fancy camera tracking, CGI water animation, and some character animation. All of these would be my first real production use of new workflow and programs. As my excitement (and frustration) increased, the scene gradually decreased in complexity (for time and story's sake) but my realization of this didn't come until today (5 days after filming).
Several days of trying to animate and render CGI water ended in frustration and I was at my wits end to find the "solution" to the problem. I was desperately trying to find import/export settings to work with each other to successfully transfer models and animation between Cinema 4D (modelling and animation) > Maya (Realflow Export plugin) > Realflow (animating and generating water, splash, foam, mist) and then back to Maya for final rendering composite and then compositing the final footage in After Effects. Getting caught up in inconsistent settings and metric conversions and excruciatingly long simulation times, I really wanted this to work.
But it finally hit me today, it's all unnecessary.
I came up with a new simple workflow; using a few displacement maps, some positional tracking, a few water splashing assets and some photos positioned in 3D space... all in After Effects. There might need to be a 3D model, but certainly no character animation, and exporting Cinema 4D > After Effects is a breeze.
I like to think I'm a good problem solver when it comes to visualizing working through FX shots, but I just shake my head at just how long it took me to get it.
Maybe I need a break, well that's what this vacation weekend is for!
Several days of trying to animate and render CGI water ended in frustration and I was at my wits end to find the "solution" to the problem. I was desperately trying to find import/export settings to work with each other to successfully transfer models and animation between Cinema 4D (modelling and animation) > Maya (Realflow Export plugin) > Realflow (animating and generating water, splash, foam, mist) and then back to Maya for final rendering composite and then compositing the final footage in After Effects. Getting caught up in inconsistent settings and metric conversions and excruciatingly long simulation times, I really wanted this to work.
But it finally hit me today, it's all unnecessary.
I came up with a new simple workflow; using a few displacement maps, some positional tracking, a few water splashing assets and some photos positioned in 3D space... all in After Effects. There might need to be a 3D model, but certainly no character animation, and exporting Cinema 4D > After Effects is a breeze.
I like to think I'm a good problem solver when it comes to visualizing working through FX shots, but I just shake my head at just how long it took me to get it.
Maybe I need a break, well that's what this vacation weekend is for!
Thursday, June 23, 2011
One finished, another begins
Gorgeous Knight is finally finished! The film is going through the final touches as we speak, still no exact ETA when it will be shown, but it's all up to the editors and sound crew to make the final adjustments. Here's a list of scenes that I worked on for the film, in no particular order.
- Final death scene (stop motion)
- Reunite scene (stop motion)
- Escape scene, final shot (stop motion)
- Where's Gorgeous? Locale zoom in/out animation (street to earth to street)
- Opening Chase scene, Jeep fitted with missiles - CG
- Opening Chase scene, missiles firing and destroying an suv.
- Opening Chase scene, final shot with rubble, debris, smoke and fire (motion tracked)
- Gorgeous Knight opening title sequence
As soon as the film can be viewed online I will post a link to the video as well as times for the vfx that I worked on.
And in other news, I got a call from Manny at Fusion Radio yesterday, very surprised to hear back from him. Fusion has been getting bigger and bigger and they just purchased their next door building to be used as a studio. And they want me to direct and produce an interview/documentary on the band "The Japanese Popstars", this is something that I've been wanting to do for a looooong time. Short documentaries with music and digital flare... totally my style! I've also been wanting an excuse to create a new animated intro for this kind of film, I absolutely love the minimalistic yet sexy look of BBC One's Formula 1 graphics when they first introduce the circuit. I want to take that and turn it into Fusion style. Because of the work involved (also will be using all my equipment) they are going to pay me $300 to put it all together. Cheap I know, but it's a start and better than nothing!
The small problem is that the interview is July 8th, the week after my vacation weekend and right smack in the middle of hopefully finalizing the film "Just Add Water" with Paul. That will be our 4th film for the Land of Lincoln Credit Union's film contest, and has nothing to do with ancient debates or fancy portals! ;)
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Another Milestone
Today I finally received payment for my first paid production. I'm quite surprised that it's come so early, I was not expecting to get here this year. Unfortunately it was a rush job and I wasn't able to create any sort of official contract document, everything was word of mouth, but we got all the way through it. I held off of uploading the final HD animation until I had received payment which I received today, so tonight I need to make one final adjustment and then upload the final render. W00t!
In other news, I think I've finally come to grips at how I'm going to approach the freelancing business. For one, I'm not going to actually own a business. Angler.digital will remain my visual moniker, but I will employ myself as a contractor doing contract work for other companies. So I will rely on agreements and contracts from the company that I will do work for.
This way I don't have to concentrate on the stress of owning a business (been there, done that, never again), liability being the primary concern here. And I can concentrate on the "doing" part which is all I really want to do anyways.
I've been working on so many different projects lately, but unfortunately I can't show anything yet! As soon as these projects get officially finished and out the door I'm going to be doing some serious updating on my demo reel!
In other news, I think I've finally come to grips at how I'm going to approach the freelancing business. For one, I'm not going to actually own a business. Angler.digital will remain my visual moniker, but I will employ myself as a contractor doing contract work for other companies. So I will rely on agreements and contracts from the company that I will do work for.
This way I don't have to concentrate on the stress of owning a business (been there, done that, never again), liability being the primary concern here. And I can concentrate on the "doing" part which is all I really want to do anyways.
I've been working on so many different projects lately, but unfortunately I can't show anything yet! As soon as these projects get officially finished and out the door I'm going to be doing some serious updating on my demo reel!
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
A rare lull
Enjoying a lull right now. After a hectic few days at work, and last week's crazy deadline (yes I had my first hard deadline last week!) I've been relaxing, and catching up on some Formula 1 (missed 3 races!) and Game of Thrones.
Last Sunday night (5/15), the animation project with Origin Nile was finally approved, but it had a hard deadline of Wednesday 5/18. Only 3 days to work on it, and it was a decent sized project. I had to create and animate a performing stage along with a crowd for the intro animatic for H.O.T. It would also be complete with a light grid behind the stage spelling out "H.O.T." and a lone performer on stage. The crowd and the performer had to be static sihlouettes which made it easier, and I had to create a whole bunch of stage lights. After everything was done I think I had about 85 lights total that I had to animate.
Day 1 was creating the model for the stage. Day 2 was creating the light fixtures, the crowd, texturizing the stage and rendering out the different passes (4 total passes) overnight. Day 3 was compositing all the renders and lights in After Effects and preview 1 was ready and sent to the client. Only minor changes came back later that night and I had the final uploaded to them by 11pm that same night. Whew!
On top of that, there might be another project to add to the list. I got an email from a company in Los Angeles who is looking for an environmentalist / compositor for an big upcoming project. NDA has been signed so I can't talk about it now, but it's big and a little intimidating, but the guy likes my work and the first part involves Tron, so I can't go wrong! :)
Other projects are on hold or still developing right now, we'll see how the next week pans out.
Last Sunday night (5/15), the animation project with Origin Nile was finally approved, but it had a hard deadline of Wednesday 5/18. Only 3 days to work on it, and it was a decent sized project. I had to create and animate a performing stage along with a crowd for the intro animatic for H.O.T. It would also be complete with a light grid behind the stage spelling out "H.O.T." and a lone performer on stage. The crowd and the performer had to be static sihlouettes which made it easier, and I had to create a whole bunch of stage lights. After everything was done I think I had about 85 lights total that I had to animate.
Day 1 was creating the model for the stage. Day 2 was creating the light fixtures, the crowd, texturizing the stage and rendering out the different passes (4 total passes) overnight. Day 3 was compositing all the renders and lights in After Effects and preview 1 was ready and sent to the client. Only minor changes came back later that night and I had the final uploaded to them by 11pm that same night. Whew!
On top of that, there might be another project to add to the list. I got an email from a company in Los Angeles who is looking for an environmentalist / compositor for an big upcoming project. NDA has been signed so I can't talk about it now, but it's big and a little intimidating, but the guy likes my work and the first part involves Tron, so I can't go wrong! :)
Other projects are on hold or still developing right now, we'll see how the next week pans out.
Friday, May 13, 2011
Start of the Busy Season
This year things have continued to grow exponentially. By the beginning of June I could be working on 4 big projects simultaneously. I am also currently working with a Lawyer to help put together the legal requirements for contracts to be used for paid gigs. This will in turn protect me and my clients, make sure I get paid and they get quality work. Of course they always get quality work from me, so I guess it's really to make sure I get paid :)
Tron: Defiance may need to be put on hiatus if all these projects make headwinds at the same time.
One of the producers of last year's film "Orbit Control" is directing a new film right now and wants me to edit it when it's finished at the end of May.
Origin Nile Studios in Atlanta is keeping me busy, a new project called "H.O.T" is preparing it's pilot to be pitched to major network studios. It's essentially "American Idol" only based around unknown Hip Hop artists.
And finally an unknown film with writer/director Paul B. should be breaking ground soon (I hope) in time to be completed by the July 31st deadline.
I'm going to have to start saying "no" soon.... :)
Tron: Defiance may need to be put on hiatus if all these projects make headwinds at the same time.
One of the producers of last year's film "Orbit Control" is directing a new film right now and wants me to edit it when it's finished at the end of May.
Origin Nile Studios in Atlanta is keeping me busy, a new project called "H.O.T" is preparing it's pilot to be pitched to major network studios. It's essentially "American Idol" only based around unknown Hip Hop artists.
And finally an unknown film with writer/director Paul B. should be breaking ground soon (I hope) in time to be completed by the July 31st deadline.
I'm going to have to start saying "no" soon.... :)
Saturday, May 7, 2011
Tron Defiance - Sneak Peak and Behind the Scenes
The animated short film Tron: Defiance is still coming along nicely. I just finished all the models necessary to complete the story and I uploaded a behind the scenes video showing some new models and the end titles sequence for the film.
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Character Animation
It might be too early to declare this, but I hate character animation. I just don't have the patience or attention span for it. Maybe it's the tools I'm using, or maybe it's my limited knowledge in the tools (very possible). I think that if I had some sort of moderately reliable motion capture system then I would probably like it, but I don't.
I'm right at the point where some character animation is necessary in my animated short film Tron: Defiance and it's slow progress. Every time I try to do it, it sucks so I back out some complexity, then it still sucks, so I backout even more complexity, and then even more. Now it's just a static model that morphs between two positions and I'm going to position the cameras and the scenes so that it won't be noticeable.
I have some basic animation presets like running, standing, one-knee, etc. But some of the scenes require non-standard animation, like mounting a motorcycle, or grabbing the disc off of their back. Hopefully with some clever trickery I might be able to cheat my way around having to do complex character animation.
Other than these obstacles, so far this is coming along very nicely. I've already completed the End Credits sequence which is modelled and animated just like the movie, and I'm going to put in some behind the scenes stuff after the credits to help fill in the awesome music.
I'm right at the point where some character animation is necessary in my animated short film Tron: Defiance and it's slow progress. Every time I try to do it, it sucks so I back out some complexity, then it still sucks, so I backout even more complexity, and then even more. Now it's just a static model that morphs between two positions and I'm going to position the cameras and the scenes so that it won't be noticeable.
I have some basic animation presets like running, standing, one-knee, etc. But some of the scenes require non-standard animation, like mounting a motorcycle, or grabbing the disc off of their back. Hopefully with some clever trickery I might be able to cheat my way around having to do complex character animation.
Other than these obstacles, so far this is coming along very nicely. I've already completed the End Credits sequence which is modelled and animated just like the movie, and I'm going to put in some behind the scenes stuff after the credits to help fill in the awesome music.
Friday, April 29, 2011
Gorgeous Knight Title Sequence
When I finally got the musical score and the credits for the opening sequence, things changed. As I've said before, music means quite a bit to me when it comes to emotional content. And after listening to the wonderful music from composer Malek Jandali (YouTube) things changed quite a bit. For one thing, because the music is so awesome, I played on some of the many brooding subtleties found in his music as a precursor for the scene.
Instead of trying to tell a story or using complex animations like we had originally discussed, I created a simple stone wall with missing person's posters on it. I combined it with a dark maroon motif, windy dust and particles, windy sounds, audio from missing person's reports, police chatter and lights reflecting on the wall, posters flailing in the wind, and a play on specific letters throughout the animation.
The "KNIGHT" part of the title I animated in using a halogen bulb effect, the letters all flicker randomly for a moment before turning on. I used this same animation to animate single letters in the rest of the cast and production crew.
I wish I could show you the whole animation, but that will have to wait until the film is finished and released. Until then, here are some screenshots:
Instead of trying to tell a story or using complex animations like we had originally discussed, I created a simple stone wall with missing person's posters on it. I combined it with a dark maroon motif, windy dust and particles, windy sounds, audio from missing person's reports, police chatter and lights reflecting on the wall, posters flailing in the wind, and a play on specific letters throughout the animation.
The "KNIGHT" part of the title I animated in using a halogen bulb effect, the letters all flicker randomly for a moment before turning on. I used this same animation to animate single letters in the rest of the cast and production crew.
I wish I could show you the whole animation, but that will have to wait until the film is finished and released. Until then, here are some screenshots:
Friday, April 22, 2011
Motivation
Being of sound mind, body and attention deficit syndrome, I am often amazed at my level of motivation when working on projects or thinking about them. Most of the time my motivation is really bad. And other times, my motivation is so high, I won't do anything else until it is done.
Looking back on the last year or so my motivation has been extremely random. I'm not one for tedium, I like to see results fast or I lose interest. One of the ways that keeps me going on projects, especially if they are long sequences is actually working on the final compositing during the creation. For instance, I'll take single cuts rendered from Cinema 4D into After Effects, do some color fixing and compositing, then immediately take them into Premiere for sound and music for review.
Honestly though, my motivation lies with a foundation of music. If I don't feel the emotion of what I am trying to create, then I lose motivation... fast. This is probably the main reason why I'm still doing Tron effects. Daft Punk created something very special with the Tron soundtrack that for some reason severely resonates with me like very few things do, it's difficult to explain.
So that music is still speaking to me emotionally, so that's what I work on to recreate that emotional epic ride that I felt in the theater.
But, the lack of motivation is exactly what I'm staring down the barrell of right now.
Working on the title sequence for Gorgeous Knight, I've been waiting for musical scores to accompany the intro. The other three effects shots were easy in comparison, they were simple shots that didn't really require much emotion to complete. But this intro needs special care to make sure the emotion of the music captures the feeling of the video, and vice versa. It's all about complimenting each other.
I have yet to get the scores, and every time I sit down with an idea I can't get off the ground. They are supposed to get me the scores today or sometime really soon, so hopefully I can then understand the emotions and finally have something to work with.
Looking back on the last year or so my motivation has been extremely random. I'm not one for tedium, I like to see results fast or I lose interest. One of the ways that keeps me going on projects, especially if they are long sequences is actually working on the final compositing during the creation. For instance, I'll take single cuts rendered from Cinema 4D into After Effects, do some color fixing and compositing, then immediately take them into Premiere for sound and music for review.
Honestly though, my motivation lies with a foundation of music. If I don't feel the emotion of what I am trying to create, then I lose motivation... fast. This is probably the main reason why I'm still doing Tron effects. Daft Punk created something very special with the Tron soundtrack that for some reason severely resonates with me like very few things do, it's difficult to explain.
So that music is still speaking to me emotionally, so that's what I work on to recreate that emotional epic ride that I felt in the theater.
But, the lack of motivation is exactly what I'm staring down the barrell of right now.
Working on the title sequence for Gorgeous Knight, I've been waiting for musical scores to accompany the intro. The other three effects shots were easy in comparison, they were simple shots that didn't really require much emotion to complete. But this intro needs special care to make sure the emotion of the music captures the feeling of the video, and vice versa. It's all about complimenting each other.
I have yet to get the scores, and every time I sit down with an idea I can't get off the ground. They are supposed to get me the scores today or sometime really soon, so hopefully I can then understand the emotions and finally have something to work with.
Monday, April 18, 2011
New Tron Project
Yes, I've started another Tron project. After 4 months of seeing all the crap animations appearing on YouTube, I know I can do so much better. I've proven it once with my Tron Intro animation, but this time I'm going all-out, I'm going to use every piece of modelling and animation I've ever created for Tron in one complete animated short film.
It's tentatively titled "TRON: Defiance". It's based in the TRON world but somewhat unrelated to TRON Legacy. It's about an assasination attempt on CLU. Basically, a lone, unnamed assasin program infiltrates TRON city and the Grid, plants a bomb on CLU's craft, destroys it and narrowly escapes Rinzler. Simple, epic, and no dialog. :)
I've already got the entire film outlined and visualized and the first 45 seconds completed, so it's definately happening. New, never before seen models like the Light Jet, a fully modelled Tron city, stealth suits and gliders, and CLU's personal craft will make an appearance, as well as a completed and fully-realized Lightcycle arena and a new style off-road lightcycle.
Music is all planned out, I will be using two scores from the movie, "Recognizer" for the first half (infiltration) and "Flynn Lives" for the second half of the film (escape).
The only things I am worried about are sound and character animation. I'm going to try and use some sound from the movie, but character animation is going to have to be created by hand. Although with some camera trickery I might be able to get away with minimum effort, but we'll see. For the first 45 seconds, static models have worked pretty well.
For the visual aspect of the film, I've employed a "dirty" digital feel to help contrast the 3Dness of the film and given more natural camera movements using tracking from handheld cameras.
I was also thinking about creating a TRON credit sequence at the end of the film, it would be kind cool to show that off as well.
I am still working on other things, but they are at a lull right now, waiting for things to be filmed so that I begin working on them. Until then, I'm working on Defiance.
It's tentatively titled "TRON: Defiance". It's based in the TRON world but somewhat unrelated to TRON Legacy. It's about an assasination attempt on CLU. Basically, a lone, unnamed assasin program infiltrates TRON city and the Grid, plants a bomb on CLU's craft, destroys it and narrowly escapes Rinzler. Simple, epic, and no dialog. :)
I've already got the entire film outlined and visualized and the first 45 seconds completed, so it's definately happening. New, never before seen models like the Light Jet, a fully modelled Tron city, stealth suits and gliders, and CLU's personal craft will make an appearance, as well as a completed and fully-realized Lightcycle arena and a new style off-road lightcycle.
Music is all planned out, I will be using two scores from the movie, "Recognizer" for the first half (infiltration) and "Flynn Lives" for the second half of the film (escape).
The only things I am worried about are sound and character animation. I'm going to try and use some sound from the movie, but character animation is going to have to be created by hand. Although with some camera trickery I might be able to get away with minimum effort, but we'll see. For the first 45 seconds, static models have worked pretty well.
For the visual aspect of the film, I've employed a "dirty" digital feel to help contrast the 3Dness of the film and given more natural camera movements using tracking from handheld cameras.
I was also thinking about creating a TRON credit sequence at the end of the film, it would be kind cool to show that off as well.
I am still working on other things, but they are at a lull right now, waiting for things to be filmed so that I begin working on them. Until then, I'm working on Defiance.
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Out of the Blue
My website has been hosted by SquareSpace for over a year now, it's been a great service. I've enjoyed 4 GB of storage and being able to upload very large files and the ability to provide secure logins for external clients to login and retreive files. It's been a great, client-facing, high-support site with a lot of options.
In their online help section, they mention that they do not support file sizes larger than 20 MB, their reasoning was that "Uploading via a web browser is somewhat unreliable with very large files. Also keep in mind that most cable modems and DSL connections upload at 15 kbps", this is their reasoning.
Now, I upload at about 300-500kbps/second and uploading through the browser has been pretty reliable for me. So I just ignored this, because it says that they only SUPPORT file sizes <20mb which means that you can upload file sizes larger than 20mb but they wont support you if you have issues. Totally understandable!
However, I get an email from SquareSpace support saying that they have not enforced this <20mb file rule and will now be enforcing it full-stop. If any files are found after 5/4/11 that are larger than 20mb, they will remove these files automatically. Oh, now it's a rule all of a sudden? I'm paying for 4GB of space but I can only fill it with <20mb files?
Well, so long Square Space, you were a great hosting site that enabled me to be professionally client-facing with impressive results. But seeing as I work with video and that I very rarely have video file sizes less than 20mb, you no longer work for me.
For now I will stick with Drop Box, which works great for sharing large files between individuals. But I will need to create a new website for Angler.digital for a more professional, client-facing site.
I think I'm going to turn it into a less personal, more professional blog here on Blogger.
Let me know what you think of the new site: http://anglerdigital.blogspot.com/
In their online help section, they mention that they do not support file sizes larger than 20 MB, their reasoning was that "Uploading via a web browser is somewhat unreliable with very large files. Also keep in mind that most cable modems and DSL connections upload at 15 kbps", this is their reasoning.
Now, I upload at about 300-500kbps/second and uploading through the browser has been pretty reliable for me. So I just ignored this, because it says that they only SUPPORT file sizes <20mb which means that you can upload file sizes larger than 20mb but they wont support you if you have issues. Totally understandable!
However, I get an email from SquareSpace support saying that they have not enforced this <20mb file rule and will now be enforcing it full-stop. If any files are found after 5/4/11 that are larger than 20mb, they will remove these files automatically. Oh, now it's a rule all of a sudden? I'm paying for 4GB of space but I can only fill it with <20mb files?
Well, so long Square Space, you were a great hosting site that enabled me to be professionally client-facing with impressive results. But seeing as I work with video and that I very rarely have video file sizes less than 20mb, you no longer work for me.
For now I will stick with Drop Box, which works great for sharing large files between individuals. But I will need to create a new website for Angler.digital for a more professional, client-facing site.
I think I'm going to turn it into a less personal, more professional blog here on Blogger.
Let me know what you think of the new site: http://anglerdigital.blogspot.com/
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Quality trumps Accuracy, but they can't flourish without each other.
Production on the Gorgeous Knight intro has halted a bit, still waiting for images from the studio so that I can begin putting things together. They've said that they are having some difficulty trying to get together all the images that they want me to use to tell a story during the opening credits. So, still waiting to begin working on that.
In other news, me and Multifunproductions have parted ways. We couldn't agree on a good balance of quality/accuracy. Specifically he kept wanting to use images from the Tron movie itself as textures for the 3D models, which made it look like a cheap video game. In this mindset, he kept thinking that accuracy was way more important than quality. I kept wanting him to learn how to actually create the geometry to make it look awesome, but he never took the time to learn or have me teach him. Not to mention what he was doing was stealing copyright imagery from the movie itself to be used and promoted as his own work, not smart.
In my experience over the past few years, quality trumps accuracy EVERY time. If you take a look at my Tron videos, none of them are movie-accurate and I never, EVER make that claim because it would be rediculous to do so. Instead I created my videos out of the design aspects of the film, made them my own, and made them look as best as I could. Every single bit of animation, modelling, special effects, etc, is from my own two hands, but the IDEA is of course not mine. The IDEA should serve to inspire creative escapism. Unfortunately, his idea of "accuracy" totally threw quality out the window.
He kept saying that the industry does shortcuts and cheats like this all the time. And he's absolutely right. The difference is that he did it poorly... A shortcut or cheat in this industry can't be noticeable or look like a video game. If I were to create a shortcut or cheat on what he was trying to create, I would have built the geometry first, did a high-res render of that geometry, and then use THAT as my shortcut not having to render out additional geometry and still look awesome.
But whatever, I couldn't seem to get my point accross and we argued about it on several occasions in the past month (this was certainly not the first time he did this). We are still friends and I will still help him out if he needs it, but I won't be creating models or videos for him anymore or assisting with his film, that's his own mess to create.
What I am left with now, are some pretty sweet looking (and accurate) models of both the Lightcycle arena and Disc Wars arena complete with a fully rendered and dynamic crowd particle system.
Hmmmmm, what to do now? :)
In other news, me and Multifunproductions have parted ways. We couldn't agree on a good balance of quality/accuracy. Specifically he kept wanting to use images from the Tron movie itself as textures for the 3D models, which made it look like a cheap video game. In this mindset, he kept thinking that accuracy was way more important than quality. I kept wanting him to learn how to actually create the geometry to make it look awesome, but he never took the time to learn or have me teach him. Not to mention what he was doing was stealing copyright imagery from the movie itself to be used and promoted as his own work, not smart.
In my experience over the past few years, quality trumps accuracy EVERY time. If you take a look at my Tron videos, none of them are movie-accurate and I never, EVER make that claim because it would be rediculous to do so. Instead I created my videos out of the design aspects of the film, made them my own, and made them look as best as I could. Every single bit of animation, modelling, special effects, etc, is from my own two hands, but the IDEA is of course not mine. The IDEA should serve to inspire creative escapism. Unfortunately, his idea of "accuracy" totally threw quality out the window.
He kept saying that the industry does shortcuts and cheats like this all the time. And he's absolutely right. The difference is that he did it poorly... A shortcut or cheat in this industry can't be noticeable or look like a video game. If I were to create a shortcut or cheat on what he was trying to create, I would have built the geometry first, did a high-res render of that geometry, and then use THAT as my shortcut not having to render out additional geometry and still look awesome.
But whatever, I couldn't seem to get my point accross and we argued about it on several occasions in the past month (this was certainly not the first time he did this). We are still friends and I will still help him out if he needs it, but I won't be creating models or videos for him anymore or assisting with his film, that's his own mess to create.
What I am left with now, are some pretty sweet looking (and accurate) models of both the Lightcycle arena and Disc Wars arena complete with a fully rendered and dynamic crowd particle system.
Hmmmmm, what to do now? :)
Monday, March 21, 2011
More work on Gorgeous Knight
As of now, I have finished effects and animation for 3 scenes for Origin Nile's Gorgeous Knight film. They are extremely happy with the results and wanted help with "just one more scene". :) Even though they were hesitant to ask my help for yet another scene, they felt that the other people that they've employed to work on the film weren't good enough to tackle this scene.
They wanted to see if I could do the title intro sequence for the film, along the lines of the intro sequence for the movie Watchmen. *cue goosebumps*. I personally consider the Watchmen title intro to be one of the best film intro's of all time and is incredibly powerful in art and music. The movie itself is fantastic, but if I were to just see the intro, that's enough for me!
Here's the intro: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14vTrFyHO94
Needless to say, I've been dying to create something as powerful and emotional as this, and Origin Nile is going to give me the oppourtunity to take a stab at it! But they don't want it to be recognizeable, they don't want people to say "Oh cool that's from Watchmen!". So I've got a lot of creative leeway to help make something just as emotionally powerful and put my own spin on it.
This is going to be one for the books! AWESOME!
They wanted to see if I could do the title intro sequence for the film, along the lines of the intro sequence for the movie Watchmen. *cue goosebumps*. I personally consider the Watchmen title intro to be one of the best film intro's of all time and is incredibly powerful in art and music. The movie itself is fantastic, but if I were to just see the intro, that's enough for me!
Here's the intro: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14vTrFyHO94
Needless to say, I've been dying to create something as powerful and emotional as this, and Origin Nile is going to give me the oppourtunity to take a stab at it! But they don't want it to be recognizeable, they don't want people to say "Oh cool that's from Watchmen!". So I've got a lot of creative leeway to help make something just as emotionally powerful and put my own spin on it.
This is going to be one for the books! AWESOME!
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