There are certain stories that always have me wondering about this market. Gen 13 was a very popular comic. For years there was rumor of an original video animation being made. Well it got made. With a 73 minute runtime and with voice actors such as Mark Hamill. I only ever hear great things about it. So... where is it?

My Sunday post certainly brought in quite a reaction from readers. I just wanted to thank all those who mailed me in response.

We all seem to be in agreement. Let's keep plugging away on our projects and show the mainstream those other roads!

More on my project as it develops...

Understanding Chaos went out on the internet almost three years ago and for many people changed the way they viewed animation. Not just in terms of content, but how it was made or could be made. Still, it was only a small beginning to what could be. That film merely knocked on a door, one which has yet to be opened allowing a wealth of new ideas and new methods of artistic expression to spill out. When that door is finally open, people will see that there are no limits. The technology continues to make it so.

"Chaos" made a statement. It said, "Don't wait! You can get your film made now. Just start making it!" Still, I wonder if it said it loud enough. Even now there are people, having seen "Chaos", who look at me like I'm crazy if I say I am going to make an animated film by myself. Maybe they think it'll take twenty years to do. For me it's a matter of simple math.

Those of you who understand "Chaos", or read here regularly, know how I do things. You know how to do it and are probably working on your own films right now. What do people say to the lone artist who dares to make a film? I realize there are those who will never believe, having heard from friends who have shown "Chaos" to people who outright refuse to accept that I did it all alone. That's fine. But there are those who just need to be shown and they will see it all in a new way.

"Chaos" was 29 days of nights and weekends, while working a day job, to complete the visual aspects of the film. For me, doing a larger project is just a matter of multiplication. Still, even among those who believe, exists people who look at it as something to get money, or break into Hollywood. They say, "Imagine what you could do with a team and a real budget." I imagine I would be making something I didn't care about. I say, "Imagine what I could do if I just did a bigger project." The whole point of "Chaos" was that you don't need funding from some studio. You don't even need a team if you so desire. This needs to be made more clear in a bigger and better way.

I think it is time for more "Chaos".

I should have mentioned a while ago that all 3D CG work for J4A episode 10 is complete, leaving only two more to go. Of course there will be plenty of Aura work to follow to wrap up the series. But that's not why I came here to post.

I've had a bit of a revelation during my time here. I don't know if I ever posted about heat issues with Dual Athlon system before, but back in Vegas it was a bit of a problem. It has been better since arriving here, but it does pop up now and then. Or at least at did. I don't necessarily know how Windows handles tasks and their assignments to processors, but I have been running with the task manager monitoring performance for the past couple of days. The thing I noticed instantly, was that the cooler of the two CPUs does absolutely nothing, as most programs are not multithreaded, while everything blasts the other chip, thus heating it up considerably.I don't know why this works, but by simply setting some affinity so that more programs run on the idle CPU, I have knocked as much as 20 degrees off the hotter chip and even them both out at a much lower temperature. Although this hasn't been tested with multithreaded processes like Lightwave rendering or Motion Designer, I think the new balance will solve a lot of problems.

While I continue to work on developing my manga skills and finish up J4A, I am sure many who read here are wondering what I am going to do next. Well, I am wondering that too. I can say this though, it will be bigger and better than anything than has come before.

All 3D Cg work for Episode 9 of J4A has been completed as we move forward with this groundbreaking production. Knocking down CG elements for the series as a whole as we near the final stages of production will speed up the production process tremendously. This is not to say there isn't a lot of work yet to be done, but the nature of producing this type of series lends itself to an increasing pace as more work gets done.

More on just what this means for future Studio ArtFX production, particularly the possibility of doing longer series work, as it develops.

As a show like J4A gets further into production, I find that Lightwave 3D plays a smaller and smaller role in its creation. In fact, within the next week, I will likely knock out all remaining 3D work for the series, leaving the rest of the project to be completed in Aura.

I should note that having a nice drawing tablet has very much changed the way I work since Chaos, so there is a lot more 2D in my current work. After all, for me it's not about 2D or 3D, it's about speed and quality. I know what I want the final to look like, I just take the best road to get there. More on this subject later....

I'm doing a bit of what in the world of Japanese comics is called "name". This is a type of storyboard/script phase of laying out a manga. Because it's quick and rough, it can give a great idea very early on how the manga will look and flow. It also adds the advantage of making the final pages that much easier to do.

As you know, I've been reading Shonen Jump which contains the wildly popular manga title Naruto, about student ninja. I was recently able to see clips from the anime now airing in Japan. Surprisingly, there are many shots in the show which jumped right off the manga pages. I was once talking to a manga editor who had mentioned that manga can be viewed as "storyboards for anime". Naruto illustrates that point perfectly.

I was recently able to view a clip from a promotional special advertising the new Ghost in the Shell TV series - Stand Alone Complex, and while the special did not contain much in the way of making-of features, there were some quick pans throughout the Production I.G. studio where the staff was working, particularly a room I was not allowed into when I was there almost exactly a year ago. Based on that, I can definitely say that it was Lightwave 3D seen on the crew's screens as they created some of the stunning CG for the series.

Although I only had a chance to see a few screenboards and printouts of final digital shots hanging on the wall before the door of that particular area of the studio was shut and we were told we could not enter, even at that time I already knew of the rumors surrounding the upcoming project. Now that clips of the show have been seen around the net, including a piece about it on the Luxology site, it's nice to be able to confirm that the amazing graphics seen in that show were done in Lightwave. The version on screens in the special looked very current, definitely post 6.5, perhaps 7.0 or even 7.5, the launch of which was the purpose of my trip to Asia last year.

AND THE WINNER IS:

Animation fans can rejoice this year, I believe, as Spirited Away, a truly worthy animated feature film, has won the Oscar for best animated feature! Not to speak against the other films in the competition, but this is truly precedent setting. Some even say that it may show Hollywood that an animated feature film doesn't have to be just a collection of gags, or that something different can be good.

It should be noted, though, that in Hollywood, box office numbers still reign king and that Spirited Away was only given a limited release, thus making performance hard to gauge. If due to this win they were to bring it back out and it were to do well, such as Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon did, then we may see a change in the future of animated features on the horizon.

I want to talk a little bit a popular new show out there in the realm of anime, Witch Hunter Robin.

I first heard about thias show from a friend of mine who probably brought it to my attention because of its use of CG. The crew of this show seem to have had the novel idea of building the main sets in 3D. The Witch Hunters' headquarters, the restuarant they frequent and randome city areas. Now you will not see any full 3D camera moves or jarring, our of place, graphics. They did this simlpy to render still backgrounds like you would see in any other anime. The advantage being that in the sets, they can quickly and easily make as many new backgrounds as they want. This is how I always thought CGI would best benefit the medium.

Now I don't want to imply that this show is anything short of amazing. Check any review site and you'll probably see five stars. So I'll say that my gripe is actually about this type of show, being supernatural action/horror, or even movies along the same lines. The main characters know they are in a supernatural world. They have seen people move objects with their mind, or burn someone alive. They deal with the most bizarre supernatural occurances everyday. Why is then, that when they talk to an old lady who claims her husband never ages and has looked the same for 80 years, they don't believe her? Worse, they assume first that she's senile rather than that something supernatural is occuring.

I forgot to mention, in respect to BLAME!, that there is apparently a BLAME! website which seems to be showing some form of web episode based anime based on the manga story and character. The look is really cool, however my connection seems to be on the slow side lately and I cannot view any of the clips.

Today was a pretty good day. (For me anyway. Not for a lot of people) Through an interesting twist of events I had a run in with BLAME!

BLAME! is a manga I have heard about and seen images from for quite some time. I have wanted to get my hands on one as you can imagine. I finally did. I guess I have to brush up on my Japanese skill, cause it's an original. I have a week to borrow it. Still, very stoked I am.

I also have a new issue of Shonen Jump on my desk, which means I can experience that much more Naruto, Shaman King, One Piece and many more cool manga stories from various Japanese artists out there. Speaking of manga, it looks like I'll be doing some serious drawing of my own in the very near future.

Now, of course, I said today was a good day. Emphasis on was. So what ruined it. Well, on the way home from my excursion which begat such manga goodness, I met with Shock and AweŽ as to the nonsense which is LA traffic. Even though I have been here for months, I have never actually had to experience it yet. I actually sat on a freeway, staring at rows and rows of cars going nowhere. Why does this happen?

Animation Magazine has a report on the African feature film The Legend of the Sky Kingdom, being selected for official competition in the feature film category for the 2003 Annecy Film Festival in June. The film is one of only five works selected from a field of 1309 submissions.

Imagine that... 1309 submissions. That's a lot of animated films floating around. How many of these will we ever actually see?

There is a new Animatrix trailer for the upcoming June DVD release to be found on 3Dfestival.com. All I can say is OH... MY... GOD!

GOOD GOD Y'ALL!

What is it good for? Absolutely nothin'!

Say it again...

All 3D model work for the J4A series is complete. We are entering the final stretch and preparing to wrap up the last episodes of the series. The great advantage of working in this kind of style is becoming readily apparent.

You see, when using 3D models and animation setups to do what is essentially a 2D show, the more you do, the more reusable assets you build up. Overtime, each new thing which needs to be created has a basis in something you have already done. This can work not only for models, but also for motions. Imagine the library you would have after years of doing this kind of work!

If you were trying to make evil itself into a character, what would it look like? The thing that most immediately penetrates my mind is something of a Grim Reaper type of figure. A similar idea would be the Nazgul. A faceless apparition draped in black robes. What spells evil more than that? I suppose a Disney executive, but that wouldn't make a cool character. :)

DON'T TELL ME ABOUT FORGETTING!

Years ago, while working on "Lands of Lore III" at the now defunct Westwood Studios, I had to create a cave escape finale for the game. For that I came up with a quick method to make a system of caves and passages for the cut scene. Some of you may remember a few images from this sequence in the galley on the old version of this page.

Now here I sit years later needing to create caves for J4A. They also have to be a more painterly style for the backgrounds of this show. Well, I forgot how to do it. This is one of the things that bothered me about my work there. We were always jumping around doing so many different things that no one was really allowed to truly progress as an artist in any particular field. An artist may get good at something, then be away from it for so long that the skill is lost. It got worse when the artist suddenly needed that skill again and was entirely too rusty.

I have taken this skill back. (Hmm... it's like being a SkillCaptor) I have decided that now I will not let such a travesty occur again. I will progress. I will only improve and make great effort to keep up the skills I have gained in anime up until now!

Now this is just my little theory here, and it may be totally baseless and unfounded, but I have been wondering for sometime about why the new "Ghost in the Shell" TV series is called "Stand Alone Complex". Now I remember reading about it on Usenet groups long before I had ever seen an episode, and I notice many comments that it didn't follow a single series structure with one continuous story. This seems to be the norm for anime TV series, so that makes this one a bit odd. ON the other hand, this is becoming more and more common in anime.

Recently when I was watching it, I noticed that the title page on one of the episodes stated "a stand alone episode", in plain english right on the screen. This got me thinking. I remembered that episodes 4-6 were the short "Laughing Man" story arc, so I decided to take a look at these. Sure enough, the title screen for those episodes is not only a different color, but lists "complex episodes" in the spot where the others wrote "stand alone.." That alone would be enough to make some kind of case, but I had to wonder if there's more.

What I had heard from many internet forums is that there is American money behind this series. It's not a totally American production by any means. It is still most certainly Production I.G., but its airing on American TV had been planned from the onset. Now as you may know, it has always been difficult to get "cartoons" with continuous storylines on American TV. Broadcasters like shows which can be shown in any order, so that they can rerun at any time and have episodes be interchangeable. I am left to wonder if their naming of the show has anything to do with such restrictions being placed upon them in creating this show. Is it, in fact, American broadcasters who have a stand alone complex?

Last night I was fortunate enough to watch a few episodes of a variety of shows. While I don't want to fill this page going into each of them, among them was Stand Alone Complex #7, which had some of the best action sequences I have seen in that series. As usual great writing as well. Surprisingly, though, this, as great as it was, was not the end all be all. In the end it all came down to:

WOLF'S RAIN

This show, which I think is from the creators or general crew of Cowboy Bebop, simply amazed me. Originality not often seen in any production these days. Not only that, the visuals were such that it could almost be a feature. This is a TV series. Things are most certainly changing. I need to think about where I am going to fit in.

Progress is always good, but there is also something to be said for the saying, "If it ain't broke...". I hate it when I load up old scenes, like the roof explosion in Shadowskin, into new versions of the software and they look different. Now often there are new features and great things abound which make the small differences worth it, but it hurts when all those new things add nothing to my one scene.

I HATE STICKERS

I was standing in the video store the other day looking for the recently released DVD of "Below". As my eyes scanned the shelves of new releases, I came across an interesting box. A sticker, price tag or something, was covering part of the main title on the box. First thing that came to mind from what little I could see was that the title was "The King". I thought hmmm... "Before you die, you see the king." An Elvis horror movie? Man they'll make anything these days.

That's not the only reason to hate stickers though. I was in Best Buy looking at anime, as I have pretty much exhausted my extensive collection, and as I picked up DVDs of Arjuna, I noticed that their oversized price stickers always covered up the volume number of the DVD. Since anime DVDs have never been all that great at letting us know what order they go in, or how many and which episodes are on a disc, I guess I was just out of luck.

I will refrain from going into a raging rant about the stickers which must be traversed in order to actually watch any DVD you buy.

Animation Magazine Online reports a bit on the continuing fight for Indie producers to get seen and heard. This time it seems that Disney is trying to put the smack down on the little guys. They say:

"Independent producers are frustrated with broadcast outlets like ABC, which gives priority to shows produced by parent company Disney."

I forgot to mention that last night, while watching The Shield. I saw a TV ad for Tenchu: Wrath of Heaven". Now I haven't played my PS2 in a long time, and haven't truly enjoyed games since Onimusha and FFX, but this looks like a game I must play! I loved the first two Tenchu games. In fact, this was one of the games that changed gaming for me forever, and has probably led me to this point, where I hardly play at all.

Tenchu simply offered so much more than the typical game of the time, that most other titles, even those I probably would have like previously, just stated to seem lame. Metal Gear came out about the same time. Two games that raised the bar to the point that I would no longer let some mindless shooter or beat-'em-up game pass. I notice Tenchu 3 has made "most wanted" lists. I will have to get my hands on it!

I sometimes wonder if I get set in my ways. I wonder if I become inflexible and unwilling to change even in the face of better ways to do something. I tend to think not. Just four months ago I had scarcely ever used a digitizing tablet and now I run my whole setup with one. Lightwave, Aura and navigating Windows is just plain more intuitive than using a mouse. Who came up with that thing anyway?

If there is a better way, and by better I naturally mean easier and faster, to make the films I want to make, I certainly want to hear about it!

Aaahh, the beauty of updating. As many of you already know, Lightwave 3D 7.5b update is now available on the Newtek website. I am one of those users who is rarely quick to update everything, especially if I am working on something. Today it is being done though. I also thought I would take this opportunity to install a few plugins I bought and never even tried. Every once in while, it's good to start fresh. Just like some say that your system should be totally reformatted every 6 months to a year, I say that it can't hurt to start fresh on a software install. Delete all configs and start from nothing. A time to rebuild.

RECOMMENDED VIEWING

Akira Vampire Hunter D Millennium Actress Patlabor I,II,III Escaflowne

Jin Roh Ninja Scroll Perfect Blue X Cowboy Bebop

Ghost in the Shell Spriggan Memories Blood: The Last Vampire Any GHIBLI Film

I was asked to post a list of recommended anime films. I decided to build my list as much from the point of view of a creator as an anime fan. The list is in no particular order and I'm sure you can find diehard fans to hate every movie on the list. When I consider a film I think about the overall experience above all else. I think anyone who wants to make films, particularly animated films, should view these pictures.

WADING THROUGH WATER

The more I explore the art, the more I seem to realize that I can go so much further with what I am trying to do. While the art of 2D animation has changed little in the last 70 years, particular if you ignore the recent addition of all too much CG in 2D films, the art of trying to duplicate what the experts of 2D animation developed over such a time, seems to offer new challenges and new solutions daily.

I am starting to see that this method of filmmaking will be a constantly changing and growing process. Every time I think I have achieved something, I find that I am that much further from the ultimate goal. I don't mean this in the same way as would be said of photo realistic 3D CG. The way of 2D character drawing for anime and manga hasn't really been altered by technology. I guess its the closing of that gap, after which my method of creating a film will produce results indistinguishable from many great anime works, which takes on the appearance of wading through water which gets thicker as you near the shore.

I finally watched Millennium Actress last night and naturally I was amazed. The film is more than deserving of the man awards and accolades it has received. I can only hope that the day will come when I create a work of art anywhere near that level!

MILLENNIUM TREATS!

I just got back from the post office where I picked up my [Millennium Actress] Region 2 box set from Japan. I have been waiting to see this film for a very long time. It is the next master work from acclaimed [Perfect Blue] Director Satoshi Kon.

I remember hearing about it a long time ago. Then there was nothing for a long while. Shortly after, a lone web page showed up offering some info. At the time, I think I even emailed the guy running this site to find out when and where it was coming out. It had played a few festivals to much acclaim, but not even a Japanese theatrical release date was known, if memory serves me correctly.

It has since come out, of course, and now even Dreamworks is getting in on the action having picked up the US distribution rights. I notice today that many sites carry info on the film. I can't wait to watch it. (I have a Japanese model 10000 PS2 on which to play such things.) Still, I must first finish up another series I am watching. Not to mention I got a ton of work to do, right?