Things are back on full swing with Fusion right now. I just completed a total overhaul of my video cube grid animation, it now renders about 85% faster and I've set the stage to upgrade it from only 8 videos to 10 videos. They want to use this cube grid animation to do a bi-weekly top-10 countdown.
I addition to this very long cube grid animation, I also have a specialty animation using only one cube of the 5x2 grid which details a special event like a live show or an interview. They also want a nifty side-bar animation that pops in the corner of a live-show or interview detailing the interviewer/interviewee.
In addition to all this, they want templates to make the production go faster. Understandibly so, this is a lot for me to do constantly. The specialty cube video and the pop-in animation shouldn't be a problem creating templates so that they can re-use the same animation with different text. But the cube grid top-10 countdown has proven to be extremely difficult to create a template out of. Way too many layers overlayed on pre-rendered frames, it's going to take way longer to create the template than it will to actually render out all the seperate video animation and composite them together. I don't even know if it will be posible and easy-to-use if I can even create a template, so we'll see how this one goes.
The cube grid is a 5x2 grid of cubes. On one side is the Fusion logo animation, and the other side is a video. All the cubes rotate around to display the video and then one at a time, the cubes pop out of their place and zoom towards the camera. They zoom in towards the camera at the beginning of the video, and then I use After Effects to bring the music video the rest of the way into the screen from the cube. When the video is over, the last few seconds appear on the cube as it animates back down to it's resting spot where it was before and the next cube comes up to introduce the next video. This repeats for all 10 videos. This one long animation is cut up into 10 pieces, each piece showing the final seconds of the last video and introducing the first few seconds of the next video, and in between each animation I use After Effects to show the bulk of the music video. It's a long process, and it takes about 3 hours to get all the cube animations rendered out, plus work in After Effects and that's about 5-6 hours total. The producer at Fusion is really excited about this animation, but is understandibly worried about production times. But if they get the things I need in a timely fashion, then this will go smoothly.
I'm just happy to be doing more now, things were getting a little too idle for a while, and I like to stay busy.
Friday, June 18, 2010
Monday, June 14, 2010
Phases
Almost like clockwork, I go through several different phases of computer interests in my life. Some can go on for a few weeks, others for several months, and none of them are the same each time they occur. Upon reflecting on my different phases, I've noted the most consuming ones below:
The Diablo-Imitation phase: This phase I'm currently neck deep into now, and it involves looking for games that imitate the Diablo addictiveness that I first experienced in the late 90's. I can't stand the original Diablo games, because it's just so old looking, so I try to look for new ones and I usually end up resurfacing games that I already own like Titan Quest and Silverfall, to name a few.
The Learning phase: This phase I just recently exited after about 7 months of really taking it to the streets. I learned so much it's hard to put into words, but basically the last 7 months have seen myself emerging from clueless amateur, to confident amateur. I'v gone through teaching sessions that range from After Effects compositions and video editing, to 3D animation and sound reproduction. Even though I am still practicing with Fusion Radio, I'm not actively looking for tutorials unless I get stuck.
The Machinima phase: Machinima is taking a highly modifiable game engine and creating cinematic pieces with them. Level design, animation, effects, all created with the purpose of telling a story instead of playing a game. I just got done with this phase, it lasted about 3 days and quickly led into the Diablo-Imitation phase, although I am still thinking about it, I need motivation. Long before, I was animating with the Warcraft 3 engine in 2003 and the Unreal engine in 1999.
The Music phase: I haven't seen any motivation in a while, and I've finally come to the realization that I am not a good music creator. I am musically inclined, but not in creativity. So, I've just put this aside probably permanently. It was in 2009 that I last tried to create any kind of music.
The Reflection phase: This is where I learn the most about myself, and what I'm currently experiencing now... starting today... the reason for this post. Usually I don't look at big events, but at the way I handle the emotions behind the events. Then I ask myself, why? Why do I think that way? Why do I (or don't I) connect with that? Why do I (or don't I) care? Things that are a big deal to me don't make sense compared to the things that don't. It's tough to learn about oneself when I'm inconsistent, I just finished college and all I can think about is playing video games, very strange.
I have several other smaller phases, like the Game-Creation phase. Programming to me is like my music inclination, I can do it but I get bogged down by lack of motivation. And my Classic Gaming phase where I break out old Nintendo and Sega games to relive nostalgia for a while. I even have an MMO phase where I try out many different Free to play MMO games to try and relinquish my thirst before Guild Wars 2 or SWTOR are finally released.
If you've actually read all of this, cudos to you. If after reading this, you come to the conclusion that my life can get consumed by video games, more cudos to you. And if you also come to the conclusion, after all this, that I really ENJOY this, you're wrong. I don't want it to be like this, but it still happens. I wish that my time was taken more by family, or friends, or even more video production stuff, things that actually MAKE SENSE to care about!
I wrote this more to declare that I am upset with myself in how I spend my time and my rare motivation, on the other hand though, I feel content with my life.
WTF...
The Diablo-Imitation phase: This phase I'm currently neck deep into now, and it involves looking for games that imitate the Diablo addictiveness that I first experienced in the late 90's. I can't stand the original Diablo games, because it's just so old looking, so I try to look for new ones and I usually end up resurfacing games that I already own like Titan Quest and Silverfall, to name a few.
The Learning phase: This phase I just recently exited after about 7 months of really taking it to the streets. I learned so much it's hard to put into words, but basically the last 7 months have seen myself emerging from clueless amateur, to confident amateur. I'v gone through teaching sessions that range from After Effects compositions and video editing, to 3D animation and sound reproduction. Even though I am still practicing with Fusion Radio, I'm not actively looking for tutorials unless I get stuck.
The Machinima phase: Machinima is taking a highly modifiable game engine and creating cinematic pieces with them. Level design, animation, effects, all created with the purpose of telling a story instead of playing a game. I just got done with this phase, it lasted about 3 days and quickly led into the Diablo-Imitation phase, although I am still thinking about it, I need motivation. Long before, I was animating with the Warcraft 3 engine in 2003 and the Unreal engine in 1999.
The Music phase: I haven't seen any motivation in a while, and I've finally come to the realization that I am not a good music creator. I am musically inclined, but not in creativity. So, I've just put this aside probably permanently. It was in 2009 that I last tried to create any kind of music.
The Reflection phase: This is where I learn the most about myself, and what I'm currently experiencing now... starting today... the reason for this post. Usually I don't look at big events, but at the way I handle the emotions behind the events. Then I ask myself, why? Why do I think that way? Why do I (or don't I) connect with that? Why do I (or don't I) care? Things that are a big deal to me don't make sense compared to the things that don't. It's tough to learn about oneself when I'm inconsistent, I just finished college and all I can think about is playing video games, very strange.
I have several other smaller phases, like the Game-Creation phase. Programming to me is like my music inclination, I can do it but I get bogged down by lack of motivation. And my Classic Gaming phase where I break out old Nintendo and Sega games to relive nostalgia for a while. I even have an MMO phase where I try out many different Free to play MMO games to try and relinquish my thirst before Guild Wars 2 or SWTOR are finally released.
If you've actually read all of this, cudos to you. If after reading this, you come to the conclusion that my life can get consumed by video games, more cudos to you. And if you also come to the conclusion, after all this, that I really ENJOY this, you're wrong. I don't want it to be like this, but it still happens. I wish that my time was taken more by family, or friends, or even more video production stuff, things that actually MAKE SENSE to care about!
I wrote this more to declare that I am upset with myself in how I spend my time and my rare motivation, on the other hand though, I feel content with my life.
WTF...
Friday, June 4, 2010
Stagnation
Since school ended, I've ended up with a lot of free time... but it's turned into more stagnant time than anything else. More relaxing, spending time with the wife, and even playing video games. The last time I pushed myself was using Cinema 4D for some opening animations for my only client Fusion Radio.
Fusion Radio is turning more and more into an at-the-last-second kind of client. For the last Comcast content, they decided to have a meeting on Saturday with the due date being the following Monday. At that meeting there were several changes that required me to re-render everything and I got it done late Sunday night just in time for them.
And they had 2+ weeks to get it finalized.
And then just recently they wanted a simple promo for their Pump Pavilion booth, for the NEXT day. But all they wanted was to change the color scheme and text on a previous animation I did for them on Valentines Day.
They even planned to do a commercial and asked for my help more than a week before they wanted to finish it. I of course said yes, but then after that... nothing, only to scrap the project a week later because they didn't have time.
In my opinion, they aren't using me enough.
They bought an HD camcorder a few weeks ago. It's a nice camera, but it's 1080i and DV tape based. I have NOTHING against DV, I think it's a great standard format, but it just doesn't fit their business style. For one thing, they lack someone with the knowledge of video editing and capturing from DV based cameras, plus a video camera that was hard drive based AVCHD would have been better suited for them because it would have been easier and faster to go from Shot-to-Post.
But they didn't consult me.
After they bought the camera they had several issues and had dozens of questions for me. And when they learned of AVCHD cameras and the benefits, they were a little disappointed because they couldn't return the camera... they eBay'd it!
I wish they would use me more. Sometimes it's a whole week before I get an email from them, and it's usually about 1am in the morning when I get it.
Don't get me wrong, I like the guys I work with at Fusion. They are a smart, collective bunch. But I just want soooo much more from our relationship, but it might take a while to get there.
In the mean time, I've got The Missing Bank Card 3 coming around the corner and I am super excited, plus some films with DuPage Film Group hopefully coming up afterwards. I have done lots of motion graphcs in the past 8 months but no films, hopefully the 2nd half of 2010 will be more productive.
Fusion Radio is turning more and more into an at-the-last-second kind of client. For the last Comcast content, they decided to have a meeting on Saturday with the due date being the following Monday. At that meeting there were several changes that required me to re-render everything and I got it done late Sunday night just in time for them.
And they had 2+ weeks to get it finalized.
And then just recently they wanted a simple promo for their Pump Pavilion booth, for the NEXT day. But all they wanted was to change the color scheme and text on a previous animation I did for them on Valentines Day.
They even planned to do a commercial and asked for my help more than a week before they wanted to finish it. I of course said yes, but then after that... nothing, only to scrap the project a week later because they didn't have time.
In my opinion, they aren't using me enough.
They bought an HD camcorder a few weeks ago. It's a nice camera, but it's 1080i and DV tape based. I have NOTHING against DV, I think it's a great standard format, but it just doesn't fit their business style. For one thing, they lack someone with the knowledge of video editing and capturing from DV based cameras, plus a video camera that was hard drive based AVCHD would have been better suited for them because it would have been easier and faster to go from Shot-to-Post.
But they didn't consult me.
After they bought the camera they had several issues and had dozens of questions for me. And when they learned of AVCHD cameras and the benefits, they were a little disappointed because they couldn't return the camera... they eBay'd it!
I wish they would use me more. Sometimes it's a whole week before I get an email from them, and it's usually about 1am in the morning when I get it.
Don't get me wrong, I like the guys I work with at Fusion. They are a smart, collective bunch. But I just want soooo much more from our relationship, but it might take a while to get there.
In the mean time, I've got The Missing Bank Card 3 coming around the corner and I am super excited, plus some films with DuPage Film Group hopefully coming up afterwards. I have done lots of motion graphcs in the past 8 months but no films, hopefully the 2nd half of 2010 will be more productive.
Friday, May 21, 2010
Improving
Since introducing Cinema 4D into my workflow (finally!), I'm looking into recent or past projects that could probably benefit from some real 3D. In the Comcast promo video there is a sharp contrast between the videos I rendered in C4D and those done in AE, at least to me.
Here is a video cube that was done in AE (top) several weeks ago, and then was redone in C4D (below). It was a little tricky getting the videos into the textures, turns out C4D is very particular about the kinds of videos that you can use.
This was an attempt to create a galaxy zoom-out animation to zoom out from the Earth to view the entire galaxy as a whole. I had a very frustrating problem in AE getting my high-res planetary textures to show up properly in high-res (top) but it never panned out. In C4D it was many times easier putting a much better looking planet Earth (bottom)
Here is a video cube that was done in AE (top) several weeks ago, and then was redone in C4D (below). It was a little tricky getting the videos into the textures, turns out C4D is very particular about the kinds of videos that you can use.
This was an attempt to create a galaxy zoom-out animation to zoom out from the Earth to view the entire galaxy as a whole. I had a very frustrating problem in AE getting my high-res planetary textures to show up properly in high-res (top) but it never panned out. In C4D it was many times easier putting a much better looking planet Earth (bottom)
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
The Comcast promo went up last week on Comcast On-Demand, if you are in the Chicagoland area you can view the promo by going to the On-Demand menu, selecting GET LOCAL, then CHICAGO CITY, then FUSION DANCE.
I did not edit the video, though I wish I did. Someone else edited the video, I think it was the Fusion marketing manager who did it. It's not a bad video, it's just that I wish they told me they were going to use some of my old (to me, outdated) videos that I created for them a month ago for the demonstration to Comcast. They used my old Cube rotating videos, wall-flash intro, and countdown.
They did have a scene in the video which was a live interview with a music artist, and it was HORRIBLE! Bad lighting, sound, overall quality was equal to a cell-phone-camera-shot Youtube video. I mentioned this to them (nicely of course) and they said they had many problems with the camera that they rented. They hope to iron out the issues by next time. I also made myself available for editing these videos if they need me to.
It is certainly nice to have my material for show on such a public and well-known distribution!
Right now, I'm going to be going through a revision of the old videos to make them more sleek and sexy, so that they can match the quality of the FUSION animation that I made for them last week.
For the next set of material, they will (hopefully) provide me with several music videos so that I can incorporate them into my updated animatics. Although, after this promo, I'm not sure of the direction in which they want to go with the next set of material.
I did not edit the video, though I wish I did. Someone else edited the video, I think it was the Fusion marketing manager who did it. It's not a bad video, it's just that I wish they told me they were going to use some of my old (to me, outdated) videos that I created for them a month ago for the demonstration to Comcast. They used my old Cube rotating videos, wall-flash intro, and countdown.
They did have a scene in the video which was a live interview with a music artist, and it was HORRIBLE! Bad lighting, sound, overall quality was equal to a cell-phone-camera-shot Youtube video. I mentioned this to them (nicely of course) and they said they had many problems with the camera that they rented. They hope to iron out the issues by next time. I also made myself available for editing these videos if they need me to.
It is certainly nice to have my material for show on such a public and well-known distribution!
Right now, I'm going to be going through a revision of the old videos to make them more sleek and sexy, so that they can match the quality of the FUSION animation that I made for them last week.
For the next set of material, they will (hopefully) provide me with several music videos so that I can incorporate them into my updated animatics. Although, after this promo, I'm not sure of the direction in which they want to go with the next set of material.
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Remote Collaboration
Saturday night, I held a conference meeting and webex on my computer for the Fusion producers to go over my designs and animation. We talked about changing a few things here and there, and they were able to watch me in real-time make changes to the project animations.
They were really impressed, not just with the animation, but with the ease of collaboration during that time and they felt that a lot was accomplished to allow me to produce the videos they needed. That was my first time using the remote collaboration software and it worked like a charm, it's so nice not to have to drive into the city and show things on my little laptop.
After that though, the changes they wanted required me extending an animation 200%, and that animation alone was about 22 hours to render, and they needed it by Sunday night. The animation finished rendering at 11:30 PM, so I was able to get an HD video to them before I went to bed.
I am currently waiting for word on when the video will be available on Comcast on-demant, can't wait!
They were really impressed, not just with the animation, but with the ease of collaboration during that time and they felt that a lot was accomplished to allow me to produce the videos they needed. That was my first time using the remote collaboration software and it worked like a charm, it's so nice not to have to drive into the city and show things on my little laptop.
After that though, the changes they wanted required me extending an animation 200%, and that animation alone was about 22 hours to render, and they needed it by Sunday night. The animation finished rendering at 11:30 PM, so I was able to get an HD video to them before I went to bed.
I am currently waiting for word on when the video will be available on Comcast on-demant, can't wait!
Saturday, May 1, 2010
Working with Reflections
At first I wanted to reflect a part of the Chicago city skyline onto the edge of the logo and zoom out revealing the entire logo, sorta like the way the Warner Brother's logo animation where they show the WB water tower reflected on the ege of the emblem before zooming out to reveal the logo.
But then the emotion changed. And I felt like I should give a "re-birth" to the logo. The "F" logo on the Fusion Website and all the animation's I have done in past incorporated the same sorta 2-D look with some 3-D elements, and now it's full blown 3-D with a sleek, elegant style giving the brand an updated look.
So I decided to reflect the standard "F" Fusion logo in the New logo and then zoom out revealing the new logo, like showing the Fusion brand "breaking out" of it's boundaries as an Internet Radio Station.
Here are some results:
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.jpg)
But then the emotion changed. And I felt like I should give a "re-birth" to the logo. The "F" logo on the Fusion Website and all the animation's I have done in past incorporated the same sorta 2-D look with some 3-D elements, and now it's full blown 3-D with a sleek, elegant style giving the brand an updated look.
So I decided to reflect the standard "F" Fusion logo in the New logo and then zoom out revealing the new logo, like showing the Fusion brand "breaking out" of it's boundaries as an Internet Radio Station.
Here are some results:
.jpg)
.jpg)
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