Hobbies
It Is Done
After over 6 months of toying with it, this video is a done deal! Just need to come up with a thumbnail for the video, but I’m finally done! It’s a load off my chest AND my Hard Drive. Now I’ll have to see what my next visual victim will be! I might troll my hard drives tomorrow to see what the next project will be. Maybe something with slightly less animation? :v I might see if there’s anything good in the Serious Sam Footage Dept.
It’s All Starting To Add Up!
Downloaded the latest version of Shotcut. I figured it would be a good idea before getting too invested in the project. I’m slowly stitching it all together, and feeling all kinds of awesome at the timeline growing larger and larger with all my crazy keyframing all coming together into an act 6 months in the making from audio recorded a few years ago. I have four minutes of animation so far! It’ll be cool to see what the final number will be, not that I expect people to watch every minute of it (or just a few seconds). Those who do though? I hope they enjoy the ride.
Phase 1 Complete!
After half a year of animating this I can FINALLY say I’ve finished! Well, with the SFM portion anyway… Then I can figure out how to use Blender to do deliver some Special FX! Not sure if I’ll have time to try tomorrow, but I should be able to experiment over the weekend if needed. I’m just stoked to finally get to the end! I might have to go into SFM one more time to animate the intro, but that will be easy rendering compared to all the other shit I’ve been working on since the start of the year.
Oh Look a Video!
I posted a small clip from BloodRayne 2 over on Mastodon if you want to check it out. I’ll probably do a full compilation at some point for YouTube, but for now I’ve decided to post shorts on Mastodon just to share and see what happens. 🙂 Speaking of videos I’m getting closer to the light at the end of the animation tunnel! I’m thinking just a couple more evenings and I’ll finally be able to render the end! More on that another time though… it’s time to chill on my Steam Deck and call it a night. It’s been a good weekend, but I need to get my stuff in order for tomorrow.
Meanwhile… Aboard Our Humble Starship
I’m thinking I might be able to wrap up animation on this in a few more weeks! Once I’m done with the SFM portion I’ll be moving onto Phase 2: Compiling the video. This might also be an opportune time for me to start looking into Blender for its compositor features. It’s become more of an all in one production tool over the last couple of years, no longer exclusive to just 3D modeling.
I got my miles out of After Effects CS6, but now that I’m more involved in 4K production it’s time to move onto newer software. I’m not going with the newer Adobe shit; Over the last few years I’ve been successful in getting rid of Adobe products from my everyday life. Photoshop has been replaced with Krita, Premiere has been replaced with Shotcut, Audition has been replaced with Audacity, and now it’s time to find a worthy After Effects replacement.
Leisurely Monday Open Thread
Today was pretty therapeutic! I woke up, made a nice breakfast, animated for a little, gave myself a small spa treatment and came out to a care package from a friend! The weather was also nice today for a change. It felt nice to sit out side, sip a little white tea and enjoy my Steam Deck for a bit. Played a bit of a Pac-Man game, and finished off the evening with a little of Crash on Desktop.
There was a lot of dying involved, despite all the times I said FUCK but I was patient about it. I managed to knock out a couple of levels. This is one of those games I like playing with a controller, even when I’m at my desk. Not all games feel right on a Keyboard and Mouse setup.
Tales From The Overlord’s Desk
Today was a little more work than play. I did some office keeping and organized my paperwork and writing stuff. Got rid of a bunch of paper, pictures and other items that are no longer of any use to me, and as a result I’ve freed up an entire cubbyhole! I figure while I have some time off I can get some extra tidying done.
I’ve been working on one large scene these last few days. One that requires quite a bit of time to look even halfway decent. I probably won’t finish this by the time vacation ends, but I’ll inch myself just a little closer to what feels like a never ending finish line in a sea of imagination.
I still made time for a bit of gaming on my Steam Deck! Continuing my way through Freedom Planet 2 on my Neera save. Just got to the Serpentine boss fight and decided to take a break. The Boss Battles in this game are much more of a challenge than the previous versions – and I’m still getting a handle for Neera’s Ice Staff. I might pick it up again before bed, if I don’t decide to scroll my RSS or Mastodon first.
Animated Improv Still Goin’ Strong
I’m still working on Operation: Airheads In Space. Some of these scenes take more time than others. The next scene in the video is going to take a little time for me to pull off, but it will make for a fun experiment in how over the top of an anime battle move I can create using nothing but a fishing pole and a little imagination!
This fishing expedition is taking longer than I thought, and I might be at it for awhile longer, but if it isn’t successful, it will be questionable.
Evening Open Thread
It rained today. I enjoyed a day’s worth of tea, and prepped for upcoming SFM scenes:
Other than that I messed around on my Steam Deck tonight, played a small game. I would have played on my desktop but wanted to cycle the battery. It didn’t get much play time last week and I wanted to make up for it. Meanwhile, my gaming laptop doesn’t get much use nowadays. Throwing 17 pounds onto my back has added up after awhile, and the Steam Deck has been a better traveling companion. I won’t be getting rid of my laptop, but I’ll probably convert it to a full Linux laptop. Almost everything I use works fine under Linux, and if I went that route that would leave my Desktop as the one last dualboot setup.
These are projects for another time though. It’s time for me to get some sleep while it still feels warm and comfy.