I've done a few things recently

It's true that my demo reel animation (Ninja Summer Camp) isn't rendered yet, nor is all the textures complete, nor is the animation itself quite finished (I want to fix scene 2 for sure), but I've done a few other things on the side. I believe my time was well spent too.

For one, I've made a simple character rig for Game Production Workshop. No textures on it yet, but it'll have cel shading. I don't normally do modeling, but eh, I'd say this was a good attempt. The rig works exactly how I wanted it to as well. I didn't add any stretch though. The model is actually done in pieces, rather than enveloped. This wasn't too difficult, but I had a hard time remembering how to rig.







Another thing that I've been doing is working on 2D sprites. I used to make sprites a long time ago, and they weren't all that great. However, ever since I've been to CATO, I've learned more things about animation, character design, and all that stuff. So, I decided that I'd take my skills back into sprite making, and see how far I've gone. Even though these are just idle animations, they're looking pretty good from my perception.

I'm making these sprites for an action game that a friend of mine is making. These idle sprites are still beta. I've also got a rough run cycle going with one of the characters. It's pretty fluid, but it's still rough. One of my goals are to make idle animations for each character with each weapon they use. The main goal is to make sprites for every action each character does with each weapon, such as movements, attacks, etc.. This is a fairly large project, and I rarely have the time at the moment to work on sprites.

However, there's another project that we're working on that uses smaller sprites, and it's for a different type of game; an SRPG.



This is only a concept sprite, not a final version. I should make a side sprite as well. Weapons will be handled on a separate layer from the character sprite. The game will have 32x32 tiles, so having 32x32 sprites is ideal. We plan on having this game for a portable device. Not quite sure about iPhone yet.

For all I know, Aftermath Saga will take several years to make (game using the larger sprites). We're pretty much a two man army, and we're limited in our skills. Mercenary Saga is ideal to release first since the sprites are simpler to make, and overall, it's just easier to create an SRPG. I don't know what I'm going to do for when a character goes into battle. He mentioned that it should be Fire Emblem style, or Disgaea style... I'm not sure how everything will work out yet. We plan to keep things 16-bit for Mercenary Saga. There are several other game ideas for the same series (Essell Series), but we're keeping to these two for now. Until we can get a bigger team, we'll be pretty slow moving, and we'll be working on these games on our spare time.

SCENE 1, 2, 3, and 5 UPDATE! (March 19, 2011)

Woo! Lots of things to update today! Scene 1 I touched up on Thursday. I didn't update my blog until now though. I DO have a better rendered version, but that will have to wait until I put it all together.

CLICK HERE TO VIEW SCENE 1

Scene 2 took WAY longer than it should have... and yet, I dunno. It's at least better than it was previously. The arms are actually animated! (Animation layers saved me on this >.>)

CLICK HERE TO VIEW SCENE 2

Scene 3 is still in the works. This is the only scene that isn't exactly complete. I hope to do this scene this weekend. Wish me luck! (Holy hell the fire walk is hard to animate! @_@)

CLICK HERE TO VIEW SCENE 3 (or whatever I have of it)

Scene 5 is working out... I don't really get what Derek was saying about the "GUAR-AN-TEE" part, but apparently he didn't like it, while everyone else seemed to like it. Confusing critique. >_>; Oh well, I did what I could. It followed my reference well enough I thought. Also, Moom is a bit more animated. What happens to Moom in the end wasn't intentional, but eh, I guess it replaces the gag from scene 4.

CLICK HERE TO VIEW SCENE 5

If you're wondering about Scene 4, well, it's not gonna happen. For some reason, these 4 scenes take up plenty enough time on their own. Scene 4 had to be scrapped. I do apologize to those who really wanted to see Moom get decapitated by a shuriken.

I really can't wait until next week... I'll finally have some free time for once! ;_;

Pi Day update (3/14/2011)

I decided I'd show what I have of the whole reel so far.

DOWNLOAD

For some reason, the audio doesn't seem to have the right sync. It's not a HUGE worry though. It's just a matter of moving the audio a frame or two. The music will need to be re-edited.

Scene 3 is currently what I'm working on. The fire walk animation. That... is pretty difficult. I just recorded some reference of myself to hopefully help with what I'm animating:

Scene 3 will be worked on this week, and if I have time, I will get around to working on tweaking all of the scenes to near-perfection (I will try for perfection).

Scene 5 - Updated further (March 9, 2011)

Guy's animation is there, and Guy's lip-sync is there. all that's left now is to fix up Moom's run a bit more, and then I can move on. Honestly though, Guy's animation in this scene was probably the EASIEST thing I've done in this whole demo reel. I'm eager to start working on Scene 3 again, and finally finishing that up.

For now, have a look at Scene 5 (nearing completion):

Scene 3 is still in the very early stages of blocking... still a lot to do in that scene. I think the fire walk itself may actually be the hardest part of the whole demo reel. I better get to it.

Scene 5 Update - March 7, 2011

I've been working on Scene 5 (closing scene) for the last few days. I think I've got Moom's running and jumping finished, but I still need to animate him falling, and getting crushed under the cabin. That'll come after I finish Sensei's animation in Scene 5. I've done SOME work on scene 4, but not enough to get it critiqued. I've also done some work fixing Scene 2, but it's unfinished, and it's a mess right now.

For now, here's a close-up of Moom's run and jump animation:

And here's what everyone would see of Moom from the actual camera in Scene 5:

NOTE: Camera movement isn't final. I think I did a shitty job implementing the changes made to the camera. Moom used to be jumping a lot higher (basically jumping to the moon and back within a second), and that I changed the timing for when Moom appears on camera. It will be changed in the next capture. The other reason I changed the camera was because my original camera didn't show Guy's body all that much (it just showed his head at the bottom of the screen), so I found a better camera angle to show Guy and Moom better in this scene. The trees are also hidden for now. Cabins still don't have a finalized texture, but that's not my main concern.

The next plan of action is to block in Guy's animation in Scene 5. I had a block in of Guy V1, but that was from 3 months ago. I have some actual video reference for it now.

Scene 3 also has some video reference of Guy. I have reference for someone fire-walking, and failing, but it's not the greatest. For some reason, it's hard finding reference for people failing a fire walk. However, I will do the best I can with what I have.

Scene 1 (Finished! March 1)

I'm calling Scene 1 finished. Or rather, it's my Scene 1 - V1.0. It's all there, it's animated. I'm moving on. I'll render out Scene 2 after I fix up what needs to be fixed, and when I've got time to kill. Scene 3 and scene 5 are my next priorities for the next 3 weeks.

Scene 2 (I'll say it's complete. Feb. 25, 2011)

This is probably the closest I've gotten to completing Scene 2's animation. Guy's lip-sync is there, and the animation is getting closer to being final... however, now I'm stumped with a random glitch that my Guy V2 rig has. When he animates his arms in IK, they work just fine. However, when animating in FK, it seems to work, at least until you go to capture the animation, or quickly scrub through the animation. The left arm will either explode, or implode. I figured one of the problems had to do with the stretchy arms, but well, this is the best I could get it. Only the left arm is animated partially in FK.

Download Video

Before I move on to finishing Scene 1, I'm going to draw up an exposure sheet. For some reason, my thoughts are better organized on an exposure sheet than they are when I look at the Keys or FCurves on the time-line. So that'll be my approach to finish the rest of my demo reel.

EDIT (Feb 25, 2011): I found the problem with the GuyV2. It turns out that any amount of stretchiness caused by IK will affect FK somehow. I made the decision to animate all of Guy's left arm in FK, and that seemed to fix the problem for when I capture it. However, if I do jump frames, there's still some glitchiness happening, and that is something I cannot fix now. For now, I will call Scene 2 done, but there are still a few things I can improve with it, and that will have to wait for later. Right now, I'm in the process of re-animating Scene 1 (more or less from the ground up). All of the jaw movement is in, the head and body movement is finally done. Now I need to fix the eye movement, completely re-animate the arm/hand movement, and get the lip-sync done. After that, I'll say Scene 1 is done, and I'll move on to doing Scene 3. No progress video until I say it's complete.