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2005 YEAR END REVIEW Conclusion
So what does it all mean? Well, unlike past year end reviews I am very happy with this year. No, I didn't do any of things that were in the plan I wrote at the end of 2004, but what a year of continual learning and change! Who could ever predicted how things would change with the job at UFO, encountering Vue 5 Infinite and getting a Nomad in my hand? Who could have known how much what I do, how I do it, and even what I am interested in doing would change?
The reality is, there are many things from the past that I just don't want to do anymore. The interesting thing I also see recently is that I actually have little reason to look negatively on even those previous years. Looked at as part of a whole, they played their part to build something which I can see clearly now. I have been fed this year. Fed to the point of bursting. That bursting is going to result in some astounding animation.
THE PLAN
Make a show! With the Mirage Nomad in hand and Vue 5 at my disposal I will make a show that will look so much better than I could have even come close to looking in previous times. Moreover, this show is truly going combine my talents and interests into that which I will truly enjoy doing the most. This show will focus mainly on the Asian market, and contain a lot of Japanese dialogue. My music will be a big part of it.
This show will contain a lot of drawing. This show will use 3D as 3D. The wealth of knowledge I gained at UFO in terms of particles, hypervoxels, using dynamics to blow stuff up and high end compositing FX will be put into play to create dynamic sequences far beyond anything I could have done before. And the great thing is, these complex scenes will be calculating and rendering all the while I am drawing on my Nomad.
The key is to actually be making the movie. I recently looked at the Japanese edition of Howl's Moving Castle, which like all the Japanese Ghibli releases contains the full storyreel on one of the discs. The drawings are so rough, and Miyazaki draws so fast whole sequences could have been boarded in no time at all. Such sequences I can take into Vegas and cut to temp voices, temp music and sound FX so that I am actually working on the movie, not like mind animation which spends too much time on the finer details of a single scene with little concept of what is around it.
Things really have changed immensely over this year. Having a blog is a great way to see this clearly. So much learning, so much setup, like with IK Booster and my motion library, so many new tools which have changed how I work and am willing to work, have come into play that where I go from here may be wholly different than anything I could have foreseen in 2004. Could it happen again? Doubt it.
Anyway, tomorrow beings a brand new day and a brand new future. The ideas an dreams swimming in my head are huge. I can't wait to get started! See you in January and have a Happy New Year!
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2005 YEAR END REVIEW 04
October began with a different focus. I started more seriously looking at the best ways for indies to reach their audience.
We all want to create great shows. We all want creative control over our work and not have it go through some network or studio meat grinder. That's why we do what we do. But, of course, we also want to make a living doing it, right? It's not just about making shows, it's also about selling them. Marketing and distribution.
Naturally I saw the internet and tools like the Sony PSP as the way to go in this regard. Indies needed to maximze that which the studios could not take control of before they find a road to block us out. If it's possible to do, the big boys will do it.
Speaking of big boys, video game Giant EA was being sued for their treatment of workers of a period for three or more years. People I know where named in the suit and stood to get quite a settlement from it. Little did I know that I myself, would be included and eventually get the paperwork that I might participate in the action. I don't expect much as the list of employees is long, but I am glad that EA is not being allowed to "get away with it." They ruined many lives after all. I mean really destroyed lives.
I finally got Vegas installed on my system and yet again encountered a better way. Vegas was easy to get in and use without even looking at the manual. I could just start editing. In this case, I was going to shoot for doing the score for one of the UFO movies. Little did I know how busy we would soon become just on the VFX side of things.
MIPCOM took place in October and the word coming back frm cannes gave me many ideas about the future of animation. That a change was sorely needed became clear. This led me to start a series of articles on how to turn our indie animation into cold hard cash.
That wasn't the only thing that happened in October though. I also saw, for the first time ever, Beck: Mongolian Chop Squad, one of the most innovative animated programs I had ever encountered. Not because of technology or use of 3D, which was certainly present, but because of content.
Contrary to what many expect of anime, there are no aliens, robots, samurai or monsters to be seen in this TV series. It's about kids trying to make it in the tough world that is the record business.
The realism in this show and the separation from typical anime displayed here affected me greatly and me realize just how truly expansive the medium can be if someone is willing to use it to tell whatever kind of story they desire. This made it clear beyond anything previous, that "different" has its merits.
Even though October also saw Lucasfilm opening offices in Singapore and Samuel L. Jackson signing up to voice Afro Samurai and face Snakes on a Plane, I continued to focus on indie animation and, with my "cold hard cash" posts, wrote what was probably the most popular series of articles on this site.
November began with the first UFO Film worked on premiering on Sci Fi Channel. I didn't actually watch it on TV, but it was still cool to know that it was on. November also saw the release of Sony's own PSP media manager. They created their own tool to do all manner of video compression and preparation for the PSP. At first I wasn't too interested in this, because PSP Video 9 which I had been using seemed to do it all just fine, but more and more I am seeing the value of it. For $19.95, I am sure it is more than worth it.
One of the most interesting things I came across in November was the Duel Project Films, 2LDK and Aragami, which pit two dueling directors against each other to "create a feature length movie with only two actors, battling in one setting and filmed entirely in one week." Of course after reading this, I had to order them on DVD. While waiting for them to arrive, I finished up my "Cold, hard cash" series of articles noting how the AOL free web series Princess Natasha was heading toward major licencing deals.
Their free web series is now headed to TV and to the land of children's books. If popular there, can it be a big leap to a video game licensing deal? You could call this getting paid for all that work that went into producing and getting out those web episodes that made the show popular enough to score such a deal. It requires an investment, this path does. It's not an investment in capital, but, for the indie, an investment in time, skill and faith.
With the speed of Amazon, it wasn't long before I was actually watching the Duel Project Films. These films really made me think, not just in the way a good film does, but technically, about how they were made under such constraints and how I could apply this type of thinking to my work to be more prolific and more productive. Basically I wanted to try it.
As I continued to contemplate doing better in terms of productivity and quality, I did a test of some of my latest image creation ideas. That test can be seen by clicking here. This made me really think about how I want to work. MOst of what you see here is wholly 2D, with 3D, not seen in the final shot, used as a reference for the camera move. But it also showed some shortcomings and made me again think about better tools.
Basically, it made me think it was high time I got a WACOM Cintiq or a Mirage Nomad. I had a decision to make for sure. While I contemplated this, I delved deeper in Vegas, learning more of this powerful editor. I did a new version of the Daniel trailer for the website inserting some never before seen footage. Vegas supported all the latest codecs that I could want to use.
As the month came to a close, I noticed that Nick Toons seemed to have another powerhouse modern show coming on in their line up. Unfortunately, while the visuals were out of this world, the amazement stopped there.
The writing was not up to the level I expected and contained many blatant Star Wars homages. There were also strange and unnatural pauses in the dialogue. Some things seemed to just happen without reason. I still enjoyed it overall, but I would be curious to find out what the rating was. It seemed like it could be a bit slow for kids.
It didn't seem to be quite on the level of Avatar: The Last Airbender.
December introduced me to another height in the world of animation, the latest member of the Adult Swim family, The Boondocks. This show was amazing on many levels, not just because it had black characters or good voice acting and a crisp anime style, but once again it was "different". I guess I have been seeing different a lot this year.
Around this same time, there was another show I started looking at, but never wrote about, called Mushishi. Yes, different. No action, no weapons, no fighting. You can't even tell what time period it is set in. But it has some of the most amazing natural scenery drawings I have seen and follows a very intersting character who collects very interesting "mushi". How these "mushi" affect normal people's lives is th ekey to what makes an addicting show. Once again I was seeing "different" in such a way that made me want to travel a path not expected of the medium.
For about a week, then, I contemplated the next step. Cintiq or Nomad, and where to get it from. Finally a decision was made on December 9th:
The Nomad was mine! Not a bigger change could be made in my world of animation. I had a tool that would change everything. Some setup was necessary though, and it took some fiddling with WACOM drivers and adjusting settings to get that perfect hand drawing feel. I can never go back. Really. I finally understood why someone who used one said that when it was taken from him, he went back to drawing on paper and scanning it in.
For the next couple of weeks I spent all my nights and weekends playing with that tablet. I did however take a break long enough to realize that great things were happening on the PSP. I was two firmware updates behind and found I could not download and play the episode of Production I.G.'s Blood PLUS which was on the ANIPLEX PSP website. I updated my PSP so I could watch it. It seemed like each thing I encountered was positioned to reshape my goals and plans in some way. But that wasn't the end.
After a last great push to get the current film done at UFO, I had many days off work to look forward to. With a tablet to work on, I realized my desktop computer could be doing other things, and there were some problems to solve in Vue 5 Infinite. Complaints were about about texture crawling in the animation rendered. I knew there had to be a solution, and I found it. As with any good program, what I found was but one way. Someone on CgTalk told me yet another way to get around this nuisance. He wrote:
try and ignore the quality presets, they're confusing and generally not very useful. Use User settings and look under the anit-aliasing options. Dig around in the custom settings and play around with in particular the minimum and maximum settings. Don't rely too much on static frames to judge results, use short animations when you think you're close to double check what you think is right. Render regions for speed. You can try messing around with texture AA but for the most part I found I didn't need it.
He explained some of these things in a bit more detail, which I will go into when I have tried them. During this time off I also ran into Yahoo chat, which I kinda knew existed, but never messed with. What's interesting about it is that I have a method by which I can keep my Japanese language skills in tact through conversation. The internet is an amaznig thing if we make good use it.
That brings me to where I am today. SO what does this all mean?
(to be continued)
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2005 YEAR END REVIEW 03
July began with greater experientation on how to actually make video for the PSP. My plans for the PSP show underwent a change because of my view of the market. While I was previously developing older more sophisticated characters, I saw the need to add some younger, more anime-like characters to round thing out. My experiences and the things I was reading were affecting my production.
I also finally saw the much talked about Appleseed movie in july. I really couldn't get into despite some parts containing some of the most amazing images I had seen in anime. On the whole, though, even though I heavily used 3D in what I did, I did not want my work to look like this. I think this started to turn me more and more away from 3D in my creative process. My preference was still something along these lines:
At this time I was researching the next level of music production for my content creation as well. Eventually, in my PSP research, I figured out how to do true widescreen video presentation on the PSP. I had to then redo everything I previously created for the PSP in this newly discovered format. I tended to carry my demo reel and other trailers around on the PSP, because you never know who you might run into.
It wasn't long before some actual dailies were seen for my PSP show. It was actually quite an experience to see content I had created playing on that cool little device. I also learned some more interesting things though. I needed to change the ink style I used to get a beter look on the PSP. I also needed to work with colors in a different way. The experimentation continued. Then a new revelation came on the scene!
I had an apostrophe! Lightning had just struck my brain. Bauhaus Software had just intoduced the tool that would change everything. You may remember I was seriously looking at the Cintiq earlier this year, but this changed everything.
I thought a lot about the difference between a system like this and having a WACOM Cintiq. In the end I decided that while at home, using WIFI, my tablet would be my Cintiq. I don't need both, and then I have the advantage of taking the Mirage NOMAD out on the road. I would have loved to have had this when I was in China.
That wasn't the end though. I also made a decision on the music side of things. The choice being between GigaStudio and Native Instruments Kontakt 2. After much deliberation, I decided that Kontakt 2 was the tool for me. Of course, none of these things were cheap. I still had to actually purchase them!
While saving up to actually buy this stuff, I thought long and hard about content creation. I looked at video games thinking that for series creation, the way in whch video game characters are done, with great models and a library of standard motions, might be the ticket to being able to quickly get content out and thus focus on telling the story rather than getting bogged down in technology. In order to do this, the 3D models would have to be created to such a level as to need no touch up after the fact. It had to be possible. Look at the girls in Dead or Alive! To that end, it was time for a new way of working. I set out to learn IK Booster.
IK Booster, combined with Motion Mixer in Lightwave 3D, was a new way of advanced character animation which I had barely even touched in my years of using the software. They were hanging around for a while, but one tends to get stuck on a path of least resistance when it comes to using software. I just never bothered. I may have messed with Motion Mixer once and put it away because it was difficult. Now it was time to tackle them both, and I did that.
I bought the first of the many tools that would totally change my studio. Kontakt 2 was now in hand and the improvement in sound quality over anything I had heard previously was astounding. This little piece was the first thing I constructed with it.
FRIDAY, July 29th, 2005
My old, tore up Geo Metro died the death about an hour ago. The amount of repairs the car actually needs would cost many many times more than the car is worth, which is next to nothing. To do a minor repair to get it running temporarily would simply postpone the inevitable for how long... how long?
I have been on foot ever since.
August began with some with some popular game rumor sites using an image from my work as supposed graphics example for the next gen Nintendo system. I didn't care, though. I was more interested in a real media revolution.
I had the idea that in today's world, the things we used to love from fantasy art could actually be made into movies. It doesn't have to be big sweeping camera, million soldier battles, I mean things exactly like the art from all those old novels and magazines. They could small stories done by indies, but because of green screens and the latest CGI technology, they could look like the fantasy art of those days!
I continued to expand my music library wit the Giovani Edition choir. This really showed just how far one could go with a full sampler like Kontakt 2 rather than just using sound modules like I did in the past. My first demo combining Kontakt with Giovani can be found by clicking here.
My PSP craze most certainly continued as the 2.0 firmware update cameout including the web browser. I could now check my email from anywhere with a WIFI connection and even post on this blog using the PSP. More importantly, though, the web browser openeed a flood of new ideas for PSP media and how to deliver. I still think it hasn't been maximized to this day.
I also became more aware of the importance of design in a series. Not talking costume or mecha design, but the design of the show itself. In Soukyuu no Fafner, the designers crafted a show that had built in reusability. Like many mech hsows they had a bridge crew that was always on the same bridge in the same uniforms in the same positions. They had some cool mecha launch seuences which could be reused and so on.
With reusability in mind, I continued to build up my motion library, created with IK Booster and Motion Mixer such that it could be transported across any number of characters, even at different sizes, a great feature I hadn't seen since Kaydara Filmbox. And so the month the month of August continued on as I created motion after motion adding to this library that was t change the way I did series work. It was t make possible the creation of large volumes of animation in a short time, especially if the series itself were designed properly for it.
During this time I watched another incredible series, Last Exile in the bottle, which gave me more insights into designing a complete series and a great desire to do one eventually. But then something else came along:
Yet another tool that would totally change the way I think and work forever dropped into my lap. Newtek had been for a while offering an upgrade special that included a full package of Vue 5 Infinite free with the Lightwave upgrade. It seemed to good to be true since Vue 5 Infinite by itself costs more than the upgrade. Of course I jumped at it, havng seen the amazing videos on the e-on software website.
Being busy, I didn't dive in right away and play, but I also picked up a good WIFI router from Fry's which allowed me to get my PSP online from home. It seemed many things were really coming together.
September began with the Tv networks all looking for the next Dragoball Z. I was not really wanting to ride the mainstream though. I was continuing to expand my 3D arsenal with possible uses of video game techniques to make anime faster. In this case, using a video game style low poly character with a single UV map seemed a good cheat to quickly create minor characters, extras and soldiers. Combined with the motion library I was developing, this could make doing things which might otherwise be irritating, like crowd scenes, far easier to do.
I was now able to update this blog using my PSP, even from my favorite restaurant. That made keeping up with it far easier. Why not pull out the PSP and write something while waiting for the food to get done? I finally got down to playing with Vue 5 Infinite. Little did I know that I was only beginning to scratch the surface of this amazing program. Even though I have yet to look at the manual, the program is intuitive and I can get right in and start creating. That's the way it should be.
September also saw my first experience with "Loop Group", doing ADR on one of our mvies at UFO. It really felt like "show biz" going to one of the "real" studios and recording for an actual movie. It was a lot of fun too. It was mostly recording crowds being attacked and killed by bugs.
September also saw the advent of a new Final Fantasy all CGI movie. I went all out and got the "Advent Pieces" box set which includes all that it seen above. I always told people that there was chilli in the can.
Shortly thereafter, someone turned me onto Avatar: The Last Airbender, a Nick Toons show that quickly vaulted to a top spot in animated programming. I was obvious why, the show is amazing. It looks good and sounds even better. Anime dubs wish they could sound as good as this show, which uses top notch talent and some of the most noted Asian actors in the industry for voices. I was hooked very quickly. It comes out on DVD next month.
As for my own production, I continued to experiment with techniques that would improve speed and quality and allow me to create the shows I really want to make without barriers.
On the live action side of things, a new camera hit the market. The first truly low priced, affordable HD cam around came from Sony. It's not as good as those other big cameras I mentioned. It doesn't have 24P, it is interlaced, has a fixed lense and many other things that might detour would be filmmakers, still I chose this as the camera for me. I'm odd like that. I wanted an HD camera that I could also use for everyday things. Basically a replacement for the Sony Handycam I have now, but something that could still be used to make a serious film should I choose to do so. This is the only camera that gives me all that. Who knows, maybe I'll use this to do that fantasy art style film I think should be made. (to be continued)
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2005 YEAR END REVIEW 02
April began with some of my usual April Foolin' around. I continued to get deeper into production at UFO Films, seeing to what level Mirage could really perform for high end film work and compositing. I also decided to use this blog as a platform to really delve deep into the process of how I got my DVD projects made and ready to sell. This was inspired by my standing in a Best Buy and seeing that all the tools to make professional looking, boxed DVD's are available to anyone for a very reasonable price. Then, yet another big change occured:
I went and bought the recently released Sony PSP game system.I wasn't after a new gaming experience however. I saw another opportunity here:
I am imagining some kind of launch of a new manga title exclusively as digital manga for the PSP. It would be free, the point of which is to build a property and an audience and lead to future products like DVD anime or games based on that same property, which could then be sold from the site to that audience.
The PSP quickly took over my thought process. I saw in it a media device of the future, and rightfully so as how many companies are trying to copy it now with hand held media players? With talk of a web browser on the horizon, a keyboard and many other peripherals, I knew I had to make something for the PSP. "Could be a manga, could be a simple chapter oriented show, composed of two to three minute shorts. Could be anything really."
April was also the month that this happened outside my window. The full video of that little incident is still online here. I guess that's what you get living in a movie town. You may find a noted TV show shooting in your area. In this case, it was 24.
I was just about to go to bed when I heard the call, "Everybody behind the barricade!" Up until then, I figured they had already done it. Then I saw them setting up and decided to watch. Then it came to me, "I wonder if I have time to go and get my camera?" I almost talked myself out of it, but then I thought, "C'mon, how often does something like this happen?" So I got the camera.
I was far from done with the PSP though. I finished up my series of articles on Do-It_Yourself DVD publishing and then yet another great announcement was made:
Panasonic announced a true 24P 1080 prosumer video camera that would be in the prince range of high end DV! This was interesting to me, because before UFO I had my reservations about ever doing live action projects, but from what I was learning at UFO and seeing more green screen type films being made, I began to realize that I may desire to do this at some point as well.
April ended with a sighting of another favorite actor of mine. Peter Qwong, who played Rain in Big Trouble in Little China was in the studio. That is a story in an of itself, which will be told at a later date.
May began with more revelations about live action indie filmmaking made inexpensive. The CG Channel ran an article about a short film called Prey Alone in which the creators used 3DS MAX to realize scenes that would have been impossible to stage on their budget.
By this point we were well into our Locusts: The 8th Plague movie at UFO Films. A movie without a director. He seemed to shoot it and disappear. This was fine for us after the ordeal of the previous film where the director drove nearly everyone mad. We had freedom to do the visual FX the way we thought best. With each UFO Project I was laerning more and more about how to get films made. I was also learning many aspects of Lightwave 3D I might not have otherwise encountered, fueling new ideas on ways to create my personal projects quicker.
The biggest change for me though, as far as May is concerned, was moving. All this time I had been living in Valencia and making the long drive to work every single day. It was getting to point where I couldn't stand at. Some Friday nights were so bad I literally thought about sticking around, having fun and crashing at one of th emany motels around and going back in the morning with less traffic. There were says when it took more than an hour to get back on Friday. My roomate at the time worked somewhere just as far away, if not farther, but the drive never seemed to bother him. Of course, he had a waayyyyy better car than I did. :) I drove his Jeep Liberty once, and I could see that making a long drive a bit more bearable.
Moving itself was also Hell. It took a few trips in my little car, and each trip meant making that drive. What's interesting, though, is that after I got there I wrote this:
I had some strange anime dreams last night. I don't think so much that the content was as important as the idea that I need to make something and soon. That is precisely what I intend to do.
Strangely, that very dream came back to me recently, and has greatly influenced what I am doing now. That, too, is another story. NOw that I was in a new location and, sans traffic, able to have more control over my schedule, I needed to get that fire going.
That fire must come from the elements which move the artist to create the show. Or maybe it is the characters or the world or the situations. Whichever it might be, that has to be found. It could be a cool premise, or even just a scene that is the genesis of something greater. This fire is essential to entering into such a long term project as animation and sticking with it until it is done.
June saw the completed redesign of this website into a more PSP friendly version, which featured this blog. I also started really looking at the potential for truly target animation programming instead of the more television centric assumption of mainstream product.
UMD Movies began to immediately take off showing even more promise for the PSP as a media platform worth creating content for. I also continued to post tips and tricks on this site, including information about doing cloth in Lightwave. While real robots seemed to be the rage in Japan, I wanted to get focused on an animation project.
What project? Well I've been talking for some time about original content for the PSP. I've been working on a story as well. Now with it polished, I've started to employ mind animation techniques to its realization, and none too soon either as I felt like I was going soft not having worked like this in a while.
That's what I wrote then. And development began, but where would it lead? That's the thing about having a blog, especially one as long as mine is getting. The need to post on it regularly becomes apparent. If I include, the few news posts on my first site and the "All You See Is All That Remains Of My Crew" that Q hosted years ago, I have almost five years of material to study over. Looking back at that time, I wrote this:
The other day I was thinking about "the way of Chaos" and I realized, Wow! I am finally here! I live extremely close to work just like I did when I made Chaos. I have a job with reasonable hours, just like I did when I made Chaos. I have better equipment, and like to think I have great skills. This is it! Everything is in place to do that thing for which I came out here three years ago! It's strange how things turn out isn't it?
It was in this same month that I discovered Samurai Champloo, a new series from the makers of Cowboy Bebop. This just added fuel to the fire which was leading me to want to create something that was fresh, new and different. I continued to employ my mind animation techniques to the creationg of new characters for my planned PSP series. I knew it had to be original. I also knew it had to reach people in original ways.
I think indies need to consider paving their own path. The studios have their system. They own the content and the venues and it's like a closed club. Why try to break in when there are other ways? Before us lies a vast internet full of viewers on virtual journeys seeking something those studios aren't giving them. People want something different. This could just as well mean different in format rather than just content.
I was certianly looking at the PSP as that new way. (to be continued)
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2005 YEAR END REVIEW 01
Ok, it's time for my annual year end review again, where I look at what I did over the past year and see how close I have moved toward my goals of indpendent animation reality. I have my opinions about how this year went, but they usually pale in comparison to reading through a year's worth of blog posts to see what was actually done. With that in mind, let's get started.
2004 ended with me writing this:
THE PLAN
I am going back to work. I believe it is a necessary part of the way of Chaos and essential to doing a long term project. Remember, in 2003 I wrote:
I can tell you of a certainty that next year will see the creation of my first one-man feature Occult Salvation. It may not get finished next year. It will be a true feature at the best possible quality, thus taking time to do right, but it will get past a simple trailer!
I believe that doing it as Chaos was done, even if it takes two years, is the only way to see the kind of high impact project I really want to create come to life. Of course, Chaos tells me it won't take two years, but the method is more important than the schedule.
On January 3rd I will return to sending reels and resumes to all corners of the globe and go whereever my broad skillset takes me. I do have my preferences, but I am not holding out for anything. I want to get started on a solid plan. I will continue to post production information on how I did Understanding Chaos, Shaodwskin, J4A and Hartz until that plan is a reality. When I know where, if anywhere, I am going and what the plan is for my anime, you will see ti here first!
So that was the plan. Let's see what the blog tells us actually happened from that point.
January began in darkness. Totally broke and with little outlook for the future, I didn't post for the first two weeks of the month. Things started to pick up around the 17th of January when I posed this:
My job hunt continues. I haven't found anything yet, though I had one seemingly positive interview. Who knows. I did a little side job which helps out a bunch, but I see new job postings up for this week and I will certainly attack them.
I tried to keep active, saying I would post some tips and tricks used in my previous works, but in the end I didn't post for another week. Things did start happening though. I was talking to PJ Foley of Foleyfolio, currently the Visual FX Supervisor at UFO Films about a possble position there. On January 25th, the search was over. I was once again gainfully employed in the biz.
Now I can feel comfortable in planning a long term project, free of the worry of whether or not I'll be moving to who knows where or what I will do to complete it. Basically I can do exactly what was done to make Chaos a reality!
That was what I said. I went back to posting tips and tricks on layers and compositing, including my favorite about this image:
On January 31st came my first post from my desk at UFO Films, where I was getting setup with a computer system with a brand new WACOM Intuos 3 pen tablet. (I don't use a mouse for those who don't know.)
February 1st began with the realization that UFO was the coolest job I ever had, which it is. It was also the day I discovered not only the WACOM Cintiq 21UX, but also Vue 5 Infinite! See where this year is going now? I wrote this:
A friend also sent me notice of this incredible product! Scroll down and take a look at what Vue 5 Infinite can do! Are you seeing the picture now? A WACOM Cintiq, a little Vue 5 Infinite, and what can I make?
Among other discoveries in February was that of the H.264 video codec which would allow High Definition playback and delivery on computers, that Bauhaus Software, the makers of Mirage, were making a big push at the 2D animation market, and that while working at UFO Films, I would regularly see familiar faces like this:
It's strange how it all really doesn't seem all that long ago. The technology for what I do also continued to improve, making my life possibily all the easier with tools such as direct USB connections for audio equipment like Microphones and mixers.
Every analog step that can be eliminated will only increase the quality. It is around this same time I decided I would drop Premiere for my personal projects and make the move to Vegas!
Although I was not allowed to post about it at the time, since it has now aired, I can now say that I immediately dove into production on my first UFO monster flick called Manticore which was to be on Sci Fi Channel.
It has some known faces in it and seemed to be very well produced and directed. Of course, I would later find that the director seemed to really have it in for me, as very few of my shots made there way into the final movie, but that's another story.
March was spent mostly getting adjusted to the new liefstyle of studio work. After all, I had quite a drive to make everyday from Valencia, and traffic was horrible on the LA freeways. I tried a few different schedules to find out what would really work for me. I absolutely can't stand driving as it is, so having to do it through horrible traffic just makes a bad thing worse. It was mainly a matter of getting accustomed to yet another lifestyle change. The biggest thing, though , in March was this:
I finally saw Makoto Shinkai's first full length feature film. Of course it impressed me greatly and still does. About this project, I wrote:
If there was ever anything that truly gave me the kick I needed, and the motivation to realize dreams, this was it. Not just seeing art I wish I could do, but a story about dreams and accomplishments that I believe reflects a large part of its creator. I am fired up!
So we will see where that kick really took me in part 02 of my annaual year end review.
(to be continued)
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A NEW VUE OF THINGS
I hope everyone met with a merry Christmas day, but the holiday season is not yet over so I also hope many are enjoying time off work and are having fun. It's good to just relax. The good thing about relaxing, and having a Motion Computing LE 1600 Tablet PC, also known as the Mirage Nomad,is that my main computer, not being regularly used, can do something I normally don't get to allow it to.
A few months ago there came a deal from Newtek that offered a Lightwave 9.0 upgrade along with a free copy of the natural scenery creation software Vue 5 Infinite. I, like many of the people I worked with, naturally jumped at the opportunity. When the copies of Vue 5 arrived, I didn't have too much time to play with it, but a couple of guys at work, like many guys found in forums on the software, dove in and started creating. A topic that quickly came to the forefront of Vue 5 discussion was that it was impossible to get god quality renders from the package because the small details would "crawl" or "chatter" from frame to frame, making it useless for and real production work. E-onsoftware was aware of his and provided a fix to enhance the render. Many likely rendered tests with the new update and got the same results. With this, many simple gave up on it, saying it was a good tool for stills or matte paintings. I didn't believe it.
Even though I saw the evidence of this first hand at work, I didn't believe it. Like any new technology, I knew it had be about simply learning how it was done. When I saw this page here about how Darkside Animation used Vue for a Discovery Channel special, then I was certain.
Since I've been primarily learning my Tablet PC, this left my desktop free to attack this issue of Vue 5 Infinite's render engine. The first thing I gathered from the Darkside Animation article, was that Vue 5 needed to be treated like an actual 3D package. Surprise, huh? Many, from what I have seen, assume that because Vue 5 can do it, it is OK to haphazardly throw hundreds of millions of polygons in front of it and expect Vue to quickly create a nice image or animation for them. No one would ever dream of getting this to even render in the major 3D packages. So I decided that to get Vue 5 to create production quality images, I'll treat it like high end 3D production and work in layers.
Now true enough, when object or texture data appears smaller than a single pixel on screen, the render engine cannot resolve the same information on every single frame for the same pixel, and so you will get "chattering" or "crawling". For this reason, because Vue 5 is dealing with trees and small leaves, it's going to happen a lot. So to get chatter free renders it becomes necessary to render at higher resolutions. Now if you throw hundreds of millions of polygons at the camera and try to render at HD res, you can expect a single frame render to take hours if not days. The solution is to optimize, just like you would, nay have to, in your major 3D package.
So I did just that. I created this scene and broke it into four layers. There aren't millions of polygons off screen or behind the camera as is often the case in Vue 5 setups. I had an image in mind and create what was need to be seen on screen. I optimized. I found that 1920x1080 seems to be something of a sweet spot for Vue 5 rendering to eliminate the "crawling" and "chattering" but not take entirely too long as to be "unusable" as many like to say. The largest layer, being the background mountains covered with trees, took about 15 minutes per frame at this res, while the closest layer took a mere 7 minutes per frame. I mostly rendered overnight or while working on my Tablet PC. The resulting layers were composited in Mirage and the final animation can be seen by clicking here.
Ironically, doing this experiment, I ran into another issue, which you may have noticed with the front layer. This issue is actually not a problem with the Vue 5 render engine per se, but a problem with my "Supertree", for those who remember that post a couple months back.
Since my "Supertree" is not a single solid growth object, but is in fact multiple Vue trees smashed inside one another, appears to be sorting problems deciding which polygons to show in front of others and which shadow layers should cast on the other. So I guess the "Supertree" really is only for stills. Not that I am worried. The people in the Vue 5 forums on CGTalk have kindly pointed me to some great looking, inexpensive tree libraries to easily expand the Vue 5 arsenal of realistic trees. You can get a look at that by clicking here.
To sum things up, I think it's a shame how quickly people give up in this day and age. Many try something once and if it doesn't work exactly like they expect, it's considered broken or "unusable" and the proper way of doing things is then considered a "hack" or "workaround" because it doesn't suit tastes or expectation. You know what? I like new ways of working when they are actually better. There are some good threads in the Vue 5 forum on CGTalk which explain the new render settings in the animation panel to solve the flicker problems, and regular people, not pros working in Hollywood, are getting flicker free renders. It just took a little experimentation.
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HAPPY HOLIDAYS!
I hope everyone is having a happy holiday season and enjoying some time off work. I know I am. My website was down, at least to me, for the last couple of days and I couldn't even check my mail. Others could still get to it apparently and even use the contact form to send messages. I just couldn't see them. I was at Chandra Thai on my PSP and I realized it wasn't my website, it was something with my internet service.
After making a few calls the next day, Charter Communications informed me that it was a known issue and that engineers were working on it. With Christmas coming up, I thought the engineers would go home and I would be out of contact for the weekend. Luckily all is back in order.
I think I may have mentioned finding a full episode of Blood PLUS online for the PSP. I finally downloaded it and watched it and it seems like it could be a good show. While most images we see from it seem unrelated to Blood: The Last Vampire, the opening of this episode I found online looks exactly like the previous film version and does a good job of bridging the gap between the two. I will be on the lookout for more.
Things change when you suddenly find a Mirage Nomad Tablet PC and tools like Vue 5 Infinite in your hands. Things change considerably. What you can do changes. The speed at which you work changes. Things which may have seemed unapproachable before suddenly seem within reach. New ideas form and old ideas seem more possible than ever before. There is also a lot of testing to be done. The results of my Vue 5 testing will be made apparent very soon. As the picture above suggests, though, I am also having many new ideas for the Daniel project.
In the end I want to be more prolific. I see the Motion Computing LE 1600 Tablet PC as a big step toward that goal. The key is too make use of the time I have off now to really solidify how things will be done going into the future. Use it to find out just how much can be done going into the future. I know that Vue 5 and the Tablet PC have changed the way I work. I see it in the drawings I do daily, but only in real production will it become truly apparent just how much that change will do for me.
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What's Out There?
"Prior to the Second World War there were several dozen sizable groups of extraordinarily healthy humans remaining on Earth. Today, their descendants are still in the same remote places, are speaking the same languages and possess more or less the same cultures. Only today they're watching satellite TV. wearing jeans, drinking colas–and their superior health has evaporated.
During the early part of this century, at the same era vitamins and other basic aspects of nutrition were being discovered, a few farsighted medical explorers sought out these hard-to-reach places with their legendarily healthy peoples to see what caused the legendary well-being they'd heard of."
Sounds like the makings of what could be a unique and interesting story. This is one of the reasons I prefer anime over many other mediums. Even though it is not perfect and has fallen considerably in recent times, anime is not afraid to be unique or be "out there".
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REAL ENTERTAINMENT
The Sony PSP is really coming into its own in an attempt to grab the number one mobile entertainment device spot. Earlier today I went to a Japanese PSP site where I found a trailer for Blood PLUS, the TV series sequel to Blood: The Last Vampire. I downloaded it, and it didn't show up on my PSP at all.
It turns out I was about two, if not more, system updates behind. So I just went to the network update page and got the latest system/ A lot of new features have been installed including "Location Free Player", in the network gaming section. Of course, being Sony, the biggest install is DRM technology for copyrighted video. Now this could sound bad, but on a PSP it really isn't chiefly because it only affects video you choose to pull to the PSP.
What the DRM technology does is open up a new folder on the memory stick and automatically sends copyrighted video files to it when you download. It apparently allows the videos to be time limited as well, as when I finally downloaded the trailer to Blood PLUS it has a time limit. I don't know how long it was, I just watched it and deleted it, after all, the entire first episode is available on that site too.
The site is from ANIPLEX, and I don't know how to get to it except through the PSP. When you logon, click on the Japan link and follow the links which say Blood PLUS. It's worth a look just to see something cool on the PSP. Also, for those who aren't into major modding of the PSP, its worthwhile to get the update.
For those indies out there, it is seeming more than ever like time to use the PSP as a platform to get original content before people's eyes. With my Motion Computing LE 1600 Tablet PC, also known as Mirage Nomad, I did a full sequence of storyboards this night and you can expect more to come.
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THE FEEL
So today I finally did some real drawing. I did lot of practice with this machine but this is the first time I was really working on something. This Motion Computing LE 1600 Tablet PC really does have the feel of pen on paper. It really does make a big difference in drawing. I believe with my tablet properly setup, my artwork really does look a lot better.
Now that I'm really down to business, it's not about the quality of the Tablet PC or about the technology. Now it is about really making something. Why you ask? As you may already know, it's getting close to time for my year end review. Finishing this year and moving into next year is time for things to really grow and change. I expect to post some new image is very soon.
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To Much Enjoyment
It would seem that I'm enjoying my tablet PC so much I forgot to update my webpage. Don't think for a second that I'm actually doing nothing but playing here. I have learned a lot and did a lot more configuration to make the Tablet PC even more usable. Now it is truly time to get down to business.
The first step is to get back into doing storyboards. Imagine , with the tools available to me now how quickly could have board out a project? I did some final tweaking inside Mirage to make that can even better. I also did some fixes on the windows interface. Not everything was even faster and everything is easier. I also made sure that I had the latest greatest WACOM drivers installed. Now there's probably a little more than I could do. It is time to begin.
Originality has been one of my concerns for some time. The one thing I did not want to do was make a show that would in up as just another animation. I wanted to make something that would be fresh, different and still have an effect on people. After a lot of design work and some changes to my writing, I believe I have that idea.
On another note, getting back to the Tablet PC setup, I don't know what I did, but now the speech recognition works directly in every program even this blog window. Originally, I had to open Wordpad and write my messages separately in there and then copy and paste them into the window I wanted to use. This was still faster than handwriting or typing on a keyboard. Now one more step has been removed. It appears that I can talk directly into any window now and the speech recognition works perfectly. From this point, as time goes on, hopefully my posts will not be about how fun my tablet is, but will instead start to show images of an actual production.
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The Tablet PC Method
I did and learning new and great advantages to working with the Motion Computing LE1600 Tablet PC every day. It's like having the best of both worlds. It has the familiarity of using a pen and paper but also has the advantages of working on the computer.
In the past, when I wanted to develop a story I would open up a word processor and begin typing up my ideas. If however, an image came to my mind, I would probably open up Mirage and draw that image and then save it somewhere separately. The two processes didn't go together very well. Now, however, things are different.
Using a program called windows journal, I can handle write my stories and develop ideas just like I used to do on pen and paper. In this case, however, I still have the advantages of the computer. I have the ability to undo, I have the ability to copy and paste, I can zoom in and zoom out, and perform many other functions normally associated with working on a computer. The greatest advantage, however, is that I can also draw and sketch ideas at the same time. This is so much closer to what I used to do years ago when simply developing ideas in a notepad. It really doesn't get any better than this.
Lately, I am all about new ways of working. The Tablet PC is actually only part of it. I have also been playing quite a bit with Vue 5 Infinite. This program also offers a completely new way of working. When I say completely new, I mean that even previous versions of Vue did not contain this new method of working and creating art. Basically, I'm talking about the ecosystem generator. I am definitely seeing that the way that I have gone about creating my work is certainly not the best way. I will cover this subject more in future articles.
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MORE NEW WAYS
You know, a new way of working isn't just about the tablet PC. It's about a new way of thinking. The way things were done in the past could hold us back.
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Down to Drawing
I realize now that I overwrote one of my first posts about playing with my new Motion Computing LE 1600 Tablet PC, also known as Nomad. It basically went into my first learning experiences and realizations of a whole new way of working and using a computer. The tablet PC is incredible in that way and it does lead one to think differently.
Anyway, after really getting to know the machine and playing at length with speech recognition, which I believe I use to write the last post, I am now getting down to drawing, only to find that I didn't know the machine as well as I thought I did. Shortcuts are the name of the game in the tablet PC world, and there some things in Windows that don't necessarily have to be as click intensive as they are. Being able to start from scratch so to speak, with the Windows XP Tablet PC Edition, they were able to erase all that.
As you can see the buttons on the right hand side of the tablet, or if you're left handed you can flip it, they offer an entire extra level of power and productivity. Through programmability and button combinations you can do far more with them than it might appear at first glance. SO today I learned all about those buttons and have now set them up for operation with Mirage Nomad. I am just getting started, so there will be more to come as I get down to drawing!
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3D Epiphany
Contrary to what some may have believed Lightwave 3D actually runs quite fine on this Tablet PC. While I'm not saying that you could certainly do Lord of the Rings on this machine, it is certainly powerful enough to do that type of shows that I do. Because I use a lot of keyboard shortcuts in the program, it is not as easy to use on the Tablet PC. However, with enough advanced setup work such as in my motion library, I can easily carry enough files with me to continue working on my show even while on the road.
Of course, this assessment is based on a few minutes of working with the program. Just as I have found with many other aspects of working with a tablet, I'm certain that I will find a tablet centric a way of working with this 3D software to achieve the things I need to achieve as well. And now I will finally get down to some serious Mirage action.
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Recognizing Power
Continuing to setup and experiment with my Motion Computing LE 1600 tablet PC, I am still amazed at what it can do. I don't think I received such a captivating new toy since I was a kid! I still haven't got down to any serious drawing yet, but messing with the calibration tools, I can have full control over how the cursor meets the pen point to get the exact feel I desire. Also it's nice that in Mirage, you can make the cursor a very small unobtrusive point.
Still, I have been playing more with speech recognition. I did a few more training sessions and it continues to impress me how good it is getting. I can really see how having a Tablet PC like this on the road can be very rewarding. It really can be turned into a little animation studio in a compact case.
Of course I will play with the speech tool some more, but then I will get on with some drawings, for real... I mean it... really.
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IT HAS ARRIVED
The tablet is here! The Nomad is mine! What a weekend this will be. There will be much reporting on this wise over the next two days. Right now, though , I have to get back to work. Play later!
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DONE DEAL
It is done. All has been decided. The order has been placed. If all goes smoothly, the tablet will be in my hands tomorrow. I will get my first taste of a new world of drawing. We shall see.
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Decided
The decision has come down, and now the tablet dream is closer than it has ever seemed. In fact, it is now only matter of options and accessories.
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The Slate Before Christmas
So still it is not yet known. Will the Motion Computing LE 1600 be in my hands before Christmas? I would hate to spend the majority of this holiday break tabletless.
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Contemplation
So I sit at Chandra Thai and contemplate the tablet pc. I have wanted one for some time, but now it's actually within reach. What will happen in my quest for drawing perfection? I hope the outcome is a tablet in my hands sooner rather than later.
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SEEING STARS
In a previous article I wrote, "This makes me wonder about the upcoming TV series Oban Star Racers, which I know to be independently produced, but which was sold at MIPCOM this year. Remember the extremely popular, full 3D, cel shaded, little internet demo called Molly Star Racer which used a well known Ayumi Hamasaki song? That show is a full 26 episode series slated to begin running, on what channel I don't know, next year. I wonder how it will play."
Presumably in response to that, I received a message from a staff member working on the show. He had this to say:
I'm part of the staff of Molly star-racer (wich is called now Oban sTar-racer). It's now a mix af 2D and 3D. We worked with a japanese 2D studio team, but the also around 5 min of 3D per episodes. We've just achieved the new trailer of the show. You can watch it there: www.savtheworld.com
This comes as very good news. Not that I have anything against 3D cel shaded shows, regardless of my thoughts on Skyland, which certainly weren't against the visuals of the show, but check out the trailer for yourself, and see the images in their gallery. The show is looking great and seems to have quite the promising future from their MIPCOM event. I, for one, am rooting for them and can't wait to see it!
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