Dark Days

Hey guys. I'm posting a follow up to last week's post and letting everyone know what's going on. Well, for starters, I got laid off yesterday so I am no longer bound by the 9-5. It's been brewing for 3 months and the bottom of the company fell out temporarily and I happened to fall through. I'm not angry or anything since it is most likely a blessing in disguise. I can go to school full-time in the fall while collecting unemployment, and best of all, I'll have plenty of time to work on CC! And you know what plenty of time = ? Release!

Yes, that's right my friends, now that I am a bum at home with nothing better to do than play video games and drink beer (oh and do occasional homework, pff), I can devote much more time to working on CC. So really, it's not a bad gig, right? I mean, after taking a 30% paycut earlier this year, I'll probably be making close to that money on the unemployment bandwagon. I'm fine, really.

Also, in celebration of completing Act 2, here is a little screenshot of what's to come.



Enjoy!

Relive the Magic

Yup. It was 3 years ago today that I released the trailer and it is still being enjoyed by many. I wish the movie was out by now but it would not have been as good as it will be when it's been completed.

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/303079

Act 2 is going as planned. I had aimed to finish it by the end of this month, and will actually meet that goal. It's very exciting to see the light at the end of the tunnel and see all the hard work come to fruition. I've been working on the final seconds for Act 2 for quite some time and it's pretty intense as to what came out of it all. Additional pre-production for Act 3 will start soon and work on the final 60 seconds will commence.

Expect a new screenshot sometime next week.

On My Mind

Do you guys think NuShift.net needs a redesign? Cuz I do. I don't really have any idea what I want to do for it and as much as website design gives me indigestion, I still feel good when it's all said and done.

I rented Killzone 2 and it's amazing. I'm not really into console FPS but this one has changed my tune. Definitely check it out if you get a chance.

I worked on CC last night, just coloring up some frames really quick. Spring break is coming up this week, but I still have to go to work, so it's not much of a break for me. I'm sure I'll be loaded up with plenty of HW to carry me through.

Act 2 is still chugging along. Ideally, the best route is to do the drawing and animation at home, and then in my freetime at work, cleanup and color. The past few weeks at work there hasn't been anything going on, so I just worked on HW and CC for 8 hours a day. Nice, right? This week, not so much. Got some updates and new projects to do so my freetime has come to a temporary end. Hopefully it'll come back soon.

There's some stuff I want to get done in a relatively short amount of time but I usually only have the motivation at work during the day. When I arrive at home, I don't feel like doing anything other than chilling out. This blog post? Yeah, I'd never do this at home, that's for sure. Anyway, CC is looking really good. Everytime I work on it, it seems the new animation looks better and better. I wish Newgrounds enabled either other file formats or even more than 15mb swf files. It would be so awesome if I had the power of After Effects in the CC workflow. Flash is so limiting and I realize this everytime I work on the project. With AE, I could truly achieve the finesse and quality that I strive for. For example, to make glowing explosions look white hot, it takes a few mouseclicks and a couple glow setting adjustments to achieve that look in AE. In Flash, it requires converting every white ember to a movieclip and messing with the individual glow settings to get it right because even if there are multiple embers in one movieclip, the glow effect does not do a good job at maintaining the effect between each individual ember.

I've been reluctant to actually learn ToonBoom. As Adam Phillips has mentioned, it's supposedly really intuitive and a good piece of software. Maybe for a future project I'll take the time to learn it. It's got some nice features like a moveable camera, color palette customization (with names, OMG!), and rotable viewport. I think Flash for animation is becoming outdated. They keep adding features to the development side of things and while CS4 did add some stuff for the animator and designer, it's still nowhere as robust as it needs to be. IK bones? Seriously? I don't see myself ever doing puppet animation again. I could have used that feature like what, 8 years ago?

As far as I'm concerned, Flash can be used in a workflow but shouldn't be the ONLY program. It should be used in conjunction with some sort of post-production application to get the film-like quality if you so choose.

Bears, Beets, Battlestar Galactica

Hey guys. Act 2 is being pushed hard as I want that out of the way before I continue work on Act 3. I've been working on it here and there, quite a few hours logged over the weekend already. All of the animation is done for the last part of Act 2. All that's left is color, cleanup, and backgrounds which makes me happy. The project is still on track for a Christmas 2009 release as everything is looking good.

Here's some stuff I've been working on at school. The assignment was to draw a hero and a villain. More stuff to come soon.



Enjoy!

Total Time for February: 9 hours

Everyone Loves Updates

Hi guys! Nothing new and exciting happened this month in the way of anything whatsoever. Classes end next week so I need to finish final projects. One is a 3d animated short and another is for a business class which ranged in projects to choose from. My girlfriend and I are working together and are going to do a promotional package for Cosmic Chase, so you guys will see some artwork of hers soon.

Other than that, I might have to work over the holidays. Let's shoot for Christmas 2009 release, k?

October in Review

So October has come and gone and I didn't work on CC all that much. Currently I have no idea when I will get the motivation and time to work on the project, but I do work on it inbetween homework now and then.

Total time: 3 hours 45 minutes

Weekly Update #13

No progress this week. Computer was down for half the week as my power supply blew out late Sunday night. Had to order a replacement and what not. Been busy with school and other stuff.

Mega Man 9 came out today for Wii. Can't wait to check it out.

I'm selling this Guitar Hero 3 bundle of mine on ebay.

9-14 - 9-20: 0 hours :(

Weekly Update #08

Not much happened this week. Didn't have much time to work on it as I had hoped. Flash kept on crashing at work so I wasn't able to get anything done.

8-10 - 8-16: 1 hour 30 minutes

Weekly Update #07

OK, so, here's a screenshot.
You may recognize this image as the prelim was posted 10 months ago. The entire 60 frame animation of this shot has been completed, and this is just one of them. This takes place at the end of Act 2 after Sonic becomes hyper. Hope you guys like it.

8-3 - 8-9: 15 hours 15 minutes

Weekly Update #06

Lots of progress made this week. The new workflow seems to be very helpful in the development of accurate timing. The Act 2 pencil test has been finished and has received Ido's approval. There were a few things changed in terms of timing and shot composition, but it's good to go. It came to about 13-14 seconds of new animation over the course of 6 shots.

In other news, I'm still finalizing one of the shots with color so I can post a screenshot. Coloring it takes so long because the shot is over 30 hand drawn frames for 2 characters. It may take some time, but giving you guys some eye candy is a high on my to do list.

7-27 - 8-2: 17 hours

Weekly Update #05

This week I have started my new workflow which aims to tie down animation quicker and more efficiently. I am able to work with Ido more cooperatively in showing accurate visuals of timing and movement. Using this method, changes are easily made as we can add and delete frames in a more timely manner without spending much time tying down poses until they see final color.

Of course, this method doesn't actually speed up the animation process at all. Why? Because I've upped the animation quality yet again. What does that mean for the movie? Basically, now that I'm able to see exactly how a shot is going to look, I can play with the timing and make the characters move more realistically and fluidly, creating a richer viewing experience. More frames = smoother animation and overall raises the bar on production quality which is what I strive to do continually throughout the animation process. It's going to be good.

7-20 - 7-26: 5 hours

Weekly Update #03

I worked on finalizing the Act 2 storyboard with Ido and did some cleanup work on the shot I've been working on for a long time now.

Week 7-6 - 7-12: 7 hours

I'm going to change up my workflow in hopes of getting things done quicker, or at least make my time more efficient. In the past, I worked on a shot from pencil test to final color and shading. Now, I'm going to finish out Act 2 with pencil tests, which allows for an accurate visual for timing, and then go back after it's all drawn out and do the cleanup work and then finally coloring.

It will be helpful in the sense that Ido and I can go over the pencil tests together and tighten up timing in a much easier fashion. It will also enable him to play more of a directorial part in the production phase. Not to mention, I'll feel a whole lot better when I see some major progress by doing pencil tests for every shot for the rest of the movie. It'll feel like I'll have more accomplished and then possibly get another hand in on the cleanup/coloring phase to speed this everlasting project along.

I'm excited.

Weekly Update #02

Production is going well. I finally started cleanup work on the the shot that's been worked on forever, soon to be colored and finished. Not much else going on in the way of CC.

Week 6-29 - 7-5: 8 hours 45 mins

Last night, my sister and her friend and my girlfriend and I went to the Jimmy Eat World concert here in Michigan and it was the most amazing show ever. It was a small venue, about 200-300 people attended and we were front row, right in front of the band. My sister and her friend each got guitar picks personally handed to them by the band. It was so awesome.

Weekly Update #01

Hokai so, here's the deal. Spring semester ended recently and I have set aside time every night to work on Cosmic Chase. It doesn't have that much more animation left, but act 3 will definitely prove to be the best act in terms of animation quality.

Cosmic Chase was started as a side project back in late 2003, after the success of Chaotic Battle. It later was modified to accommodate a wider audience and Shadow was introduced. Over the years, my self-taught animation skills have improved greatly, and with the addition of going to art school, my skills have improved even further. The quality in timing and animation is quite apparent when viewing acts 1 and 2 and now 3. Some shots will be redrawn and the movie will be retimed to have a faster pace than it already has. In doing so, the movie length may be shorter than originally anticipated, which isn't really a big deal.

I'm thinking about adding in possible extras to the movie such as deleted scenes, concept art, and maybe preliminary animation. Whether or not these features will actually appear, I'm just thinking out loud so it may never come to fruition. Ido and I have some other fun ideas and subtle easter egg-like features that have yet to be developed, but I'm sure you all will enjoy it.

Week 6-22 - 6-28: 6 hours

It's time to get excited again.

On another totally unrelated note, Diablo 3 was announced and it looks insanely amazing and I'm totally geeked about it.

Long Overdue Progress Update

I'm going to keep this short and sweet. Spring classes have ended and I'm working on CC every night. I'm still finishing up the last few shots in act 2 and then it'll be full speed ahead on act 3. Even after act 3 is finished, we're still going to go back to acts 1 and 2 and do some editing.

The project is still alive and kicking.