God Box

END

2008-11-13T16:11:00.004+11:00

The Tasty Crayon Crew and I had our expo last night.
Everything went off without a hitch.
It was awesome to kick back with everyone and sink a few jars.

I'm going to miss the pain of Monday Mornings.
I'm going to miss the evil MAC computers.
I'm going to miss the stomach wrenching chicken wraps.
But most of all I'll miss HALO!!!

The question is should I post the full movie on this blog??

My email is superbeckmann@hotmail.com if you would like to contact me.

Cheers,
Boz

Hello and almost goodbye

2008-11-04T21:04:00.003+11:00

Friday 5:00pm Sharp.
That's it.
Its all finished.
WOW. . . that kind of felt good.

God Box is complete.

At this very point in time I'm burning the first DVD.

Tomorrow ill print off a few DVD covers and hopefully send off the poster for printing.

Things are good.

Glue

2008-11-02T13:37:00.001+11:00

Organisation will show now. Since I started God Box I have accumulated 59 gig of files. Keeping everything in its designated place and naming files is an easy to understand format.

Trying to maintain this type of working order is relatively easy. There are some applications which decide to try and organise you after a save or render. If you move these files then reopen the application it cracks the shits and you end up spending 15mins setting up file paths.

Anyway. . . 5.4 days left.

Computer Love Continued

2008-10-30T13:29:00.003+11:00

So in the end I had to use a different video format for After Effects because the stubborn app decided it didn't want to work with the format I'v been using since the start of time.
I must admit I do get rather angry at Ae.
I recall giving Adobe a bad rap on this very blog.

Karma?

In class today I came across some humerus ERROR'S.
Alex who is the creator of "Nerdy Nigel And The Last Action Figure" (on the right hand side you will find a link to his blog) had a good old fashioned chuckle.
While I almost cried.

This blog has turned from a happy working diary into a shit-canning old bitch-athon.

I chose 2D to get around such things as rendering and loading bars. It seems in this day and age it does not matter what digital project you are taking on, you will always walk leaning forward with a blind fold on into a wall made of steal with sandpaper stuck to its surface and nails protruding form it.

Almost over the wall. . .

Computer Love

2008-10-29T17:38:00.004+11:00

Finlay got all the FX in place.

Now, Export to After Effects.

Import to After Effects.

ERROR

What the hell??

Ok, Ill open an existing After Effects file.

ERROR

Urge to kill raising. . .

Repair Ae.

ERROR

Back to Premier, Export video in a different format.

Rendering. . .

To Be continued . . .

Command + P

2008-10-28T09:38:00.003+11:00

Almost there.
Friday week is submission.
My main issue is printing.

Printing check list-
Colour Testing. (Colour)
Mog Final Turnaround. (Mint Colour)
Flog Final Turnaround. (Mint Colour)
Final Audio brief.
Final Design brief.
Animation brief for Daniel.
Animation brief for Alex.
Time line.
Scene Check list.
Scene Planner.
After Effects Planner.

This check list is still open. . .

Must fort files into a clean and "User Friendly" manner. excuse the pun.

Comet Chaos

2008-10-26T13:59:00.002+11:00

After Fridays bitch D3D-MAN gave me a buzz.
Just to finish off my shitty Friday with more poo.
The comet that too two and a half days to render is all messed up.
Fantastic. . .
I should have gotten onto it straight away.

Sunday-
Fine tuning and fix ups.
Far Cry 2.
Basketball.
Food.
Sleep.

Where's My God Box?

2008-10-24T17:41:00.004+11:00

Before you continue ask your self if you can be bothered reading a hole lot of complaining.
Right now I wish I had a god like box.
Every time I tick something off the list another thing replaces it.
Today for the first time I found myself with my head in my hands, rubbing the sides of my temple gently.
Normally I can turn Work mode and School mode on and off like a light switch. Both exist in there own little would. Today "School" had found a spoon and has been making a tunnel into "Work".
Overflow is the result.
Tonight I'm going to turn the compute off, not hibernate, OFF.

Here's a screen capture of the opening scene.
D3D-MAN setup the comet.
Nice work D3D-MAN.

Here's some 2D animation i'v done for D3D-MAN.
It needs a complete Makeover.

Almost There

2008-10-21T22:08:00.002+11:00

Its all coming together.
By Friday I will have finished all I can do.
This week has been brain straining.
I'v pulled hair out and I'v sat back for the first time and watched it all come together.
There's a lot a lessons I have learnt along the way. One of them is make sure you have POWER!

People say it doesn't matter how good your tools are, its what you do with them. I believe this is only half true. These people do not factor in a little thing called time.

Tomorrows duties -
1. Render and review
2. Fix up and fine tune
3. User Friendly
4. Work

Nuke Progress 3

2008-10-19T14:25:00.002+11:00

Frame 211

Nuke Progress 2

2008-10-18T09:53:00.002+11:00

Frame 177

Nuke Progress

2008-10-17T16:28:00.001+11:00

Frame 76

Smoking my harm your Baby

2008-10-17T11:46:00.003+11:00

Today is modeling day.
I've almost finished the Arcade machine.
The Rubix Cube in finished.
All thats left is an 8-ball. The hardest model of them all. . .
D3D-MAN would be shaking fist at his computer screen right about now.
I've start rendering D3D-MANs Nuke.
The Nuke puts my Smoke to shame.

Heres the Smoke.

Before FX come After

2008-10-15T14:59:00.004+11:00

I stuffed around with smoke for about 4hrs this morning.
The result. . . Not bad but far from Hollywood.
You would think that After Effects (Ae) would have some sort of 'Smoke' preset to stuff around with. I mean it has lighning preset, LIGHNING!!!
Come on Adobe. Ae should have a list of elements, then once you combined these elements you can make other things for example 'lightning'.
I heard what you said about Flash bye the way, then you (Adobe) brought it.

If I have time I'll render the shot out and post it later today on this very post.

p.s Love your sweet software Adobe!!

It took Him seven days. . .

2008-10-13T19:17:00.005+11:00

I give you Earth.
Now its up to "User Friendly" to be user friendly and make me some smoke
Render time = 4.24 min per frame
After D3D-MAN = 30min per frame
Love your work.

Power to the Project

2008-10-11T14:46:00.003+11:00

Thank you to my brother.
I now have a power house for 4 weeks.

To tell you the truth, Im loving every bit of this.
I wake up in the morning and cant wait to get stuck into it.
Even after a punishing Friday night beverages.

Its going to be a sad day when its all over.

I dont have much to say about the progress of GB.
If I had to put it in one word. . . FUN.

Look out for the Tasty Crayon site. It should be up any second (i use the word "second" very loosely)
www.tastycrayon.com.au

Whoops

2008-10-08T17:22:00.002+11:00

Bad News:
I set myself back about 2hrs today. well technically I set my self back 2hrs about 3 months ago with out knowing.
Mog-Rex line work doesn't match any of my other assets.
So I'm forced to drop the animation I've worked on with him and snap on my doctor gloves.

Good News:
I pushed out two scenes today.

Back to the office

2008-10-06T15:40:00.003+11:00

Schools back today. So the quest to be an animator continues.
I need a new machine. How am i going to get a new motor without resulting to drug peddling?
It will sound something like this:

Dear brother of mine. Do you remember when I gave you that $50, well I need to borrow you gaming laptop for 4 weeks to achive a very important task.
You can use my laptop to play World of WarCraft.

How will this go down? Probably not real good.
Till then ill keep on chugging out animation.

Moving

2008-10-04T07:36:00.002+10:00

Its before 11:00am on a Saturday morning and im up.
The positive of this is that i didn't get wasted last night.
The negative is that i must have stuff to do.
Moving.
The worst thing you can put a person through. . . apart from Storm Ship Troopers 2.

As for work. Things were slower this week. I had one hell of a complex scene.
Complex + Flash = Chugging. Poor Pentium 3.4 is feeling the squeeze.
My mouse just got packed away, So the keyboard is next.
TAB, TAB, TAB, TAB.

Blog Frog Mog

2008-10-02T09:07:00.002+10:00

Pushing out scene after scene.
I figured out a way to "render" out movie clips perfectly.
I know I'm a bad boy for using them, but it gets me the required result.
I've taken what I lernt in Lightwave and applied it to Flash.
Flash has an option to export frames to images. Take the frames into Premiere. Dump them in the time line and there you have it.
Sweet sweet Flog and Mog action.
Heres a working still from scene 18.

Shake it off big fella.

2008-09-29T13:25:00.004+10:00

Massive weekend. AFL grand final. 12:00pm Saturday to 10:00am Sunday. Brick wall.

Monday.

I'm back in the drivers seat ready to squeeze out more Mog and Flog goodness.
Just pushed out two short scenes in about 4hrs. I'm getting faster.
No real hiccups since the RAM mayhem.

Calculating. . . 2062 frames animated (Not complete, may require fix ups)
Calculating. . . 1.3746666666666666666666666666667 mins animated (Not complete, may require fix ups)

How hot is my GF.

Preview

2008-09-26T16:34:00.001+10:00

Its Friday. Lets finish off the week with a bang.

RAMing into Flash

2008-09-26T07:40:00.002+10:00

Error. You have insufficient visual memory.

Things started freaking out in the land of Flash.
To many things all trying to do what they where born to do at once.
It doesn't help animating in HD.
So I hit the web looking for a solution to my 'visual memory' conundrum.
I didn't have to venture far till I found that 1G or RAM is an 'insufficient' amount of RAM for what I'm trying to achieve.

Fan-F-ing-tastic!

I had a look in the old coin purse and a moth fluttered into my face.
SOOooo I hit the web looking for a solution to my 'RAM' conundrum.

-SOLUTION-
eBoostr
Check it out.

Now back to work.

"A" is for Animation

2008-09-21T22:04:00.002+10:00

That's right, its time to dust off them almighty rules and apply them to the Box of God. I finished the character animation in the first scene. It took me a working day to get it right. 27sec scene in 8hrs. I'm not sure i want to upload a preview just yet. God Box runs for 2:56, you do the math.
Here's a pic just to make this post look interesting.

Hello Kitty

2008-09-15T19:32:00.001+10:00

I believe this is how dim sims are made.

Audio?

2008-09-12T11:21:00.002+10:00

God Box needs audio. A sound track, music, sound FX. We (as in "Tasty Crayon") are meeting with the sound students, or as they like to be called The Composers, every Monday morning. My/God Box composer is currently overseas working with his dad composing for a musical! I'm very much looking forwarded to working with him. Sounds like he knows his stuff. . . . Sounds. . . get it? Arrh, my material is wasted once again.

Snuffleupagus

2008-09-12T11:14:00.002+10:00

Sesame Street forgot to give Snuffleupagus his daily angry pills.

Magic green triangles of pain

2008-09-11T17:09:00.003+10:00

Note to self: Do not make hairy things in Flash.

Angry Mondays

2008-09-08T18:03:00.002+10:00

Everyone was angry today. thats all Im going to say about that.
I figured if i could polish off a background in one day then I must be able to smash at least two assets.
I was wrong. Still one asset a day is better the none.
I have a few pictures I would like to post but I'm required to have at least five entries a week so Ill spread them out.
Heres some eye candy of my second background. I'm stoked with the result.

Colourful Creature

2008-09-03T12:54:00.003+10:00

Here's your chance to colour a character.
Mog-Rex needs as lick of paint.
Pick your fav colour on the poll.

BuRp!

2008-09-03T12:49:00.002+10:00

Thanks to everyone who voted on the Poll.
BURP! is the victor.
If the people want an over wait dinosaur to express gas from his mouth, belch he will.

Mog is born.

2008-09-01T19:13:00.003+10:00

Ctrl+X, Ctrl+V.
He has his problems. ill go back and give him a spit and polish if time is on my side.

Just pretend they are all naked.

2008-09-01T15:24:00.003+10:00

We (Tasty Crayon) had to show off our animatics in a presentation to the Audio students. I was nervous due to the fact that God Box needs to be watched at least twice to fully take in everything. The Audio guy/girls seem really nice. It kind of scary showing something that isn't close to the finished thing. In my head i know what it looks like. It would be much easier to plug the projector into my head and let my brains speak for them self's. The path from my head to my mouth must be bumpy because I seem to loose things on the way. Do I blame Beer?. . .

Error Galore

2008-08-30T12:25:00.002+10:00

Well I managed to get my virus scan to stop popping up screaming at me in its language of flashing and beeping. Now I have to deal with error this and error that. Something is still hiding in the depths of windows file structure lurking in the mess of system files. Slowly planting its evil demon seeds on any .dll file it comes across. Only time will tell what monster ill have to tackle next and what further damage it will create. I’m preparing myself for mass evacuation. My bandanna is on and the nuke is set to drop. In the words of the Duke "COME GET SOME!"

Trojan Found.

2008-08-29T10:54:00.003+10:00

Im looking in your direction Utorrent.

Flog is born.

2008-08-27T15:59:00.004+10:00

He has his problems. ill go back and give him a spit and polish if time is on my side.

Monday. . . YAY?

2008-08-25T18:11:00.003+10:00

Back to building Flog today. Hes looking dumber then ever. Ill polish him off before I post him.
I also made a mistake with my edited pitch bible. Who would name a short film "Fallen Star" anyway?

Lets put it to the people.

2008-08-24T15:27:00.000+10:00

BURP! or RAAAAAHHHhhhh!?

Lazy Sundays

2008-08-24T11:34:00.000+10:00

Fine tuning the animatic today. I had to go back and edit the pitch bible a little because the story has been tweaked here and there, no big deal. everything is printed and ready to go.
I feel sorry for the sound guys having to read and make sense of this stuff. clarity is the key.

Animatic

2008-08-19T11:47:00.000+10:00

Almost finished with the animatic in Flash, then its export time, then its Import time. Stick it all together and get the timing so sweet it makes the Delorean look like a trash can on wheels.

Bust Ass

2008-08-17T17:56:00.000+10:00

After a massive weekend its time to come back to sanity. Ive had to put Flogs Flash character turnaround on hold because the animatic is due Monday week. I seem to be moving through the animatic at a steady pace. I must bust ass this week just to make myself feel comfortable.

Background

2008-08-14T15:32:00.001+10:00

Iv been working hard on this background as well as Flog's Flash turnaround.

Mog Final

2008-08-14T15:19:00.000+10:00

Here's the second character. Meet Mog.

Flog Final

2008-08-08T13:27:00.000+10:00

Flog is born.
Here's PROFILE and 3-4FONT view.
Mog is complete as well, ill save him for a near future update.
Now its time to Flash them up.

Tasty Crayon Logo

2008-08-07T14:29:00.000+10:00

Here's our class identity.
Nice BOLD looking logo.
To check it out click HERE.

Storyboarding

2008-08-04T18:27:00.000+10:00

The project is well underway. I just finished the final storyboards. The word final is used very loosely. I hate posting just text so here's one page of the storyboard.

Slack

2008-08-04T08:53:00.001+10:00

Iv been very slack with the God Box blog. Time to pull my finger out and start blogging.
Heres a quick sketch of Flog. The other caveman.

Welcome!

2008-07-21T10:38:00.000+10:00

This will be documentation of my short animation "God Box". Heres a loose sketch of one of the could be characters. Meet 'Mog'.