12-2-07

Well I notice that I totally failed to post about my last update or two. The game has gotten a few upgrades in the last couple months. I had a bug fix update that cleared out all the known issues in the game as well as a few issues that I hadn't known about. I finally have another enemy in the game. This one is called "gulp" because it's cute and because I couldn't think of anything better. He is definitely unfinished but the majority of his behavior is in place. I'm working on the projectile class in the game, which will allow him to actually spit projectiles instead of looking like he's ferociously burping a lot. I also intend to put in at least a little bit of warning that he's going to pop out of the ground.

The 3D work has been very slow as of late. It's mostly been a choice of working on 3D projects or working on the game and the game has been winning out with whatever free time I've been able to scrounge. Moving to a new city and starting a new job has been more time consuming than I thought, so my projects have been getting back-burnered. I'm settling into new routines though and I'm starting to find the time again. Every section will start to see more love soon (stupid robot keeps taunting me with its untextured state).

10-7-07

So there haven't been very many updates to the site in the last few weeks. The reason is because I have gained new employment working for Kingsisle as a Flash Developer. Consequently I've been spending the last several weeks moving from Phoenix to Austin and my current projects received only sporadic attention. There is a bit of an update for the game this week and I think it's mostly graphical. There are a bunch of new background tiles, I converted all the line drawings to vector and removed the white border (I thought it might make it easier to deal with Stabby if you could see what was going on more clearly), and I put in the graphic for the sword. There might have been other updates but it's been a busy few weeks and I've lost track of the things I've worked on. Normal updates should resume from here on out.

9-3-07

A nice update for the game this week; I've finally gotten some enemies integrated into it. I call him stabby because that's what he does. Even though I finished drawing all his animations I didn't have a chance to get them all scanned in before the weekend. In the meantime, there are placeholder animations for being hurt and dying. Next week I'll have the actual sketches in place. His walk cycle is also a little off, his arm is meant to look like it's being dragged behind him and it just doesn't right now. I think it's something that will be relatively easy to fix when I actually start creating the vector graphics for all the characters, so I'm not going to rework it just yet.

Nothing new to show for the robot this week. I found some errors with his rig and I fixed those up. I've learned a little more about how to properly and more quickly unwrap uv's but it's still going slower than I like. This week was also very busy at work so I didn't have much time to devote to it. I should have some good updates this next week.

8-26-07

Quite a lot of new updates this week. The biggest news is that I've got an updated generalist reel posted up online. I finally got around to incorporating all the new stuff from my ninja into it. There will probably be a few minor edits to it as I get feedback but this will generally be it until I get my next project finished.

In my 3D Gallery I've put up the robot for the Just Another Day production I'm involved in at work. There's not much there for the gallery yet but I'll be getting some videos of his rig in action posted this next week. The rigging presented some interesting challenges with his bendy arms and wires running to his various bits and pieces. In the process of rigging him I also wrote a new script, which is now posted in my scripts gallery. It automates setting up a stretchy spline ik, most useful for backs but, in this case, I used it to set up the robot's arms. I'm excited to see how he'll turn out for this production. I'm also in the process of uv unwrapping him right now so he'll have a real file map texture, unlike the procedurals I had for the robot ants.

My entire flash gallery has gotten an update. One of those things being, of course, the game. I've gotten switches implemented; there's one that opens a gate in the first area now. That marks the last programming landmark for a while, which means I'll be focusing on getting artwork created and implemented over the next several weeks. I also updated the whole gallery with a number of Flash sites and applications that I've done. I have a page dedicated to the image browser that I created and have worked into a number of areas in my site. The latest area get the upgrade was my entire 2D Gallery. This means no more clicking away in order to view the artwork.

So it's been a busy couple weeks. Now I think I need to go take a nap.

8-6-07

Not too much new to look at with the game this week. I spent most of my time working on animations for the soldier enemy and I have those posted on the page. I should have him fully implemented by next week's update. There's also a background in the game now but it will quickly be getting replaced with something else. I did a little research into game backgrounds and it looks like the backgrounds also tended to be tiled images, only larger tiles than the foreground. Since the background now takes up more file size than anything else, I'm going to be adopting this approach, so the next update should have a different style background although it will be no less cheesy. There are also some bad spike graphics in place but they don't do anything yet.

There's a new painting in the 2D gallery Before Day. Another ink wash with a tiny bit of watercolor for the cigarette smoke.

The model for the robot is finished and I'm mostly done with the rig. I wanted to have him posted in my 3D Gallery but I didn't have time to assemble a page. By next week that should be up and ready for viewing.

7-29-07

7-25-07

Well the last of the major updates is finally in place. I've incorporated a Lightbox-esque script of my own design onto most of the pages. The script basically puts Flash elements over the page instead of having to click away, which is most easily seen on the slaver ants page. I also have an image gallery script which is seen on the Sorceress Game. This is also a fantastic place for me to plug that I have some of the concept art up on the page there, as well as my hand drawn animations.

In 3D news, I've been getting a bunch of preproduction done for a couple projects at work. The first is called "Just Another Day 2" and, as one would expect, it's a sequel of sorts to another project that was done at the school. The concept we're working under is that you're being given a tour of the school and crazy shenanigans happen. Part of the fun of these is that they're all supposed to be handheld cameras, so I've done a quick test to learn matchmoving with Maya Live (I got a cube to look like it was sitting on the commons floor; I was so proud). I'm also modeling, texturing and rigging a big Lost in Space type robot. I was originally only supposed to be doing the rigging but the guy doing the modeling and texturing had to bail, so I've picked up where he left off. The other project I've been involved in is a Star Wars fan film but it's not really far enough along to talk about.

7-1-07

At long last my new site is up. The long gap in between updates is because my site was sitting in limbo, mostly updated but not enough to go live. So everything has a very new look to it and I've added a Flash Gallery section to the overall Gallery page.

I've been taking a little bit of a break from 3D for the last couple months and focusing mainly on developing my flash skills. Over the summer I'm developing a game, The Rise of the Sorceress, with my friend Daryl. It's come quite a ways already, although it doesn't look for much right now. I've completed a number of the programming landmarks on it and, over the next couple weeks, we'll be focusing on getting art assets into the game. I've just started putting in my sketches of the animations, which are still very rough but they're still better than the square I was working with (the orange square that will become an enemy is pretty much what she used to look like).

5-6-07

Well I've finished off my first animation in two and a half years and I would be lying if I said that it was easy to get back into. I was doing much better towards the end of this but it'll still be a bit before I'm good at animating again. The first of the ninja's cycles, the walk cycle, is up to view. My goal for the next couple months is to complete several cycles: a run cycle, an attacking run cycle and a sword strike. That should flesh out a game studio reel. Before I proceed to the next animation I'll be reworking the interface I wrote for the ninja a bit. I found a few bugs and some workflow changes that could be made to improve it. Once those are all done then I'm planning on posting the ninja's rig and interface online for anyone to use.

4-22-07

I've been getting a lot done but unfortunately it's nothing I can post in any of my galleries yet. Still it's been a while since I last posted so I thought I should give an update on what I'm doing. I finished off the ninja's interface, or at least the first round of it, and I'm very happy with how it's turned out. It has also proved to be a bit buggy, so I'm noting errors with it as I put together this walk cycle and then I'll go back and fix it up. Once that's done I'm planning on posting the ninja's rig and interface on this site for anyone to use. Getting back into animation is a little slow, since I haven't done any active animating for about two years, but it's coming back to me quickly. Once this first one is done I think I'll be able to move through them more quickly and I'm hoping to have something new to post every two to three weeks.

In other news, I'm passively working on a new site design. I put this site together over two years ago and during which time I've been working full time as a web developer. I've learned a lot in that time and at this point my own site makes me cringe a little bit. I'm working on the final tweaks and the new design should be rolled out in the next few weeks. Along with that I'll be opening up a tutorials section on the site, as I've learned a few useful tricks that I'd like to pass along.

The last newsworthy item is that I'm in preproduction on a Flash game with a friend of mine, Daryl, and I'll be actively working on that over the summer. This is something that I've always wanted to do and I'll be trying to keep a running log of the game progress and all the media that goes along with it.

3-22-07

Extremely exciting news, the ants are finally finished! Check out the finished video live on the site. It got finished in time to get submitted to the Siggraph animation theater and we'll also be putting it into the Horror and Sci-Fi film festival this next fall. I'm excited to be at least trying to get this short out there.

Work on the ninja's interface is going a little slower than I anticipated. Some of the functionality is turning out to be significantly more complicated than I thought it would be and I keep hitting unexpected roadblocks. I should be finished with it soon though and then I'll be posting the rig and its interface for download and feedback.

3-7-07

The ninja is finally finished. Well, except for any bugs that I find or feedback that I receive in the future. But, for all practical purposes, the ninja's rig is complete . Putting together the facial rig ended up being way easier than I thought it would; it only took about eight hours including the revisions I made to it later. I have a small demo of the facial rig in action up in the ninja's gallery. My next step is to create an animator interface to speed the animation process: being able to save, key and reset poses. Then I'll be taking a step back to focus on doing some cycle animations in order to put together a demo reel specific to gaming studios.

Speaking of demo reels, with all the things accomplished on the ninja I have a snazzy new rigging reel posted. This is extra exciting because this one marks a large enough change from last year that I'll be able to reapply to studios that I've sent things out to before. I'm also planning on recutting my generalist reel in the near future, but first I'd like to have an animation from the ninja.

I've also had a few new additions to the figure drawing section in my 2D Gallery. I'm taking advantage of the copious amount of good photographers on Deviant Art to keep up to speed on my figure drawing skills. I also decided I wanted to get better with my ink brushwork, so I'm working mainly with ink sketches and washes.

2-19-07

The basics for the ninja rig are all in place now. My friend Trent has given me some feedback on the usability of the rig (he's a full time animator, so I take his opinion seriously) and I've already made one round of changes to improve it. There will probably be more in the future as I get more feedback. I have some demos of the stretchy limbs and back, as well as some demos of his soft bodies at work. The stretchy limbs are set up to work with both the ik and fk independently and switching between the two also switches the stretching. With the soft bodies I've found a way to implement a sort of "volume" slider to turn them on and off or somewhere in between. It also eliminates the problem of soft bodies not being posable in real time. I'm especially proud of the fact that I've managed to find ways to turn on and off any extras or automation with this rig. This way animators will have the choice on how much they want done for them based on preference or scene needs. The next major step for the ninja is going to be the full facial rig. Since he doesn't have a mouth things will be a bit easier, but I'm going to try and put a lot of posability into his eyes, since they're his main form of communication.

I also added a new script to my scripts gallery, the attribute locking and unlocking script. It's not tremendously impressive but I find it to be ridiculously useful.

1-14-07

Well the holidays and strep throat conspired to keep my productivity low through December but I still managed to get a few things done. The ninja has progressed a ways and I have some new skinning demos up now. His rig is in a pretty functional state as is but I'm adding in some more complex things which are adding to his timeline: stretchy limbs, soft body controls for his bandana and belt and a muscle based facial rig (as opposed to the pose based one I did for Puffy). At any rate I was still able to take the skinning tests and put them in my first new rigging reel for this year.

I've also added a new bit of artwork to my 2D gallery and another site to my web gallery.

The slaver ant project has gone into post production hell. The higher ups at work consider it bottom priority for the video guys so progress is sporadic on it and I'm no longer sure when it will be done. Hopefully it will be sooner rather than later.