The rigging goes oN....

So I just finished the template rig for HSM... since I'm animating alone and I want to make HEAVY use of Cinema 4d's new NLA w/ Motion Clip system... I'll be using the same skeleton/rig for most all the characters... this way there's only one to rig/setup and I can share the motion clips with all the models...

With your generous donations ^ ^ Thanks AgaiN! I bought Cactus Dan's Character Suite of plugins... I used his Joints and Skin plug to create the joints or "bone" *cough* Then I used his C4DIK tooks to rig it all up AS I followed his FREE 4 HOUR video tutorial on how to set it up right....

I also LOVE C4d's visual selector... I used it a ton on WATS and will use it even more on HSM... So yeh... I'm also using Cactus Dan's new hand tags which allow you to store and re-use hand poses which will be... ummm... HAND_E...ha ha ha...ummmm yeh... but seriously I was able to make an easy to use superlight rig....

Since I'm away from studio strange at the moment as I stumble through Europe performing unspeakable acts of geek I'm doing all this work on my first gen Macbook Pro... the GFX card is pretty weak....this is GOOD though because if I can make a rig that performs ok on this old laptop that means its going to fly on my workstation...

I should say that I have done a lot of bone/skin/rigging in the past but it was all trial and error and I didn't really know what I was doing... and if I screwed up the rig I'd start over... now it seems I kinda know what I'm doing ^ ^ And I'm doing my best to make the rig and its controls as fast and efficient as possible... You want control YEH but not TOO MANY controls because it can really slow down the animation process... So I'm trying not to tweak out too much....

How much per minute for animated feature film?

I stumbled upon a discussion on cgsociety about the costs of animated films per minute... So it got me thinking about mine cause I always like laughing to myself about how cheap I do shit and the world will see with HSM and my future production that my quality is rising FAST MAYNE!!!

We are the Strange 2007 $20,000 budget
94 minutes- Cost per minute $212.00

Heart String Marionette 2010 $15,000 budget
120 minutes- Cost per minute $125.00

So I'm actually doing HSM for a lot less than WATS and you'll have to take my word for it that the quality will be 10 times that of WATS... Its cheaper because the technology used to make 3d films is getting cheaper and more powerful... Just for fun lets run the same rough calculation on some mainstream animated features...

Ratatouille 2007 $150 million budget
111 minutes - Cost per minute $1.3 million

UP 2009 $175 million budget
96 minutes - Cost per minute $1.82 million

I find it odd that Pixar and most all of the studios I looked at for 3d feature budgets from 2007 - 2009/10 went up?! Why would they budgets be getting higher when the hardware needed to create 3d features is always getting cheaper/faster? Shouldnt they budgets be going down? Should they become more streamlined and efficient with experience?

Its just a guess but I'm thinking because of increased competition in the media for viewers attention they need to spend more and more on P & A to stay relevant and to keep recouping they crazy costs... AND I've heard that the P&A budgets are not included in the production budgets....

So your probably laughing to yourself saying "he can't compare his films to Pixar hahahahaha" I'm just looking at them as "3d animated feature films" and nothing more as heavy handed advertising marketing techniques lose steam over time... Viewers of the future wont really care who made something they will just know whether they like it or not so I think its in a filmmakers best interest to get cheaper/faster with every step....

I'm not sure if I can do it.... BUT... I'm going to do my best to..... Produce HSM... do 120 minutes of full 3d animation in 12 months... So yeh thats what I'm shooting for... with my cheapo 125 dollar a minute self ^ ^

Ninjas Samurais NinjaS

Randomly.... in my brief chats with "Hollywood" back in 2007... a studio was interested in me directing a "Hard R asian themed action film shot like 300" They only wanted me to direct it... they wanted to adapt an anime into live action...they wanted a "Ninja" film... I told them I was making a Samurai film of my own... they said "ninja"... I said ok... well the only Ninja film I would work on is Ninja Scroll... the guy came back and said... "Naw we can't get the rights to Shinobi" uhhhhh yeh... Then I saw this news where Leonardo Dicaprio bought the rights in late 08 and plans to make a live action Ninja Scroll

Kind of a shame...

Some of my favorite 3d animation has come from Marc Craste of Studio Aka in London... If you have never seen Jojo in the Stars its a must see! I really love his style!

So I pop on over to his studios site to see what they are working on... and its kinda sad because I WANT TO SEE FILMS like Jojo in the Stars from them yet they are using all that WIN to make.... shampoo commercials <_>


I mean yeah everyone has to pay they bills BUT not everyone has that kind of originality and style so for me its kind of a shame to see it used on selling... like hair products... ya know what I mean?

There's a few other animators who have made short films I thought were amazing YET they went on to get absorbed by a big company or they just made random commercial things... Like "Canhead" by Timothy Hittle... I know he's at Pixar now... thats nice to make like family films BUT I think his short films were WAY more interesting than anything Pixar has made... and there's also "The Wolfman" by Tim Hope... I know he went on to make some music vids and a few other things but no feature films...

As you can see I have been influenced by all three to some extent... so yeh it seems they will never make features... So I hope you will make yours ^ ^ Because I want to watch some craZY new and different animated features NOT aimed at children or RUINED with "celebrity" voice actors... You'll probably mention Shane Acker's 9 which comes out this year which my last comment was aimed at... The short 9 was pretty suite BUT then producer Tim Burton got the woman who "wrote" corpse bride to write the script for 9...I mean what was the script like for Corpse Bride? Ok.... ummm... singing and dancing for no reason... two people meet and play piano together and apparently that makes them like in love forever or something then singing and dancing the end... I actually forgot what happened it was so BLAH?!!?!... so yeh and add all those voice actors and its the same as a shampoo commercial to me ^ ^

Hmmmm where will the next wacko animator or animatorS making crazy feature films come from? Hmmm I wonder if this d00d will try a feature next? He's in San Francisco I should go whisper in his ear ^ ^

Gotta enjoy the little things

So as much as I can I try to use practical fx in my films... Ya know like real fire and the like shot with a video camera... So yesterday I was shooting dust for an hour in my studio 0_o I know right.... AND I was excited about it! When your working on a huge animated film project there is a lot of monotony ON THE COMPUTER so whenever I get a chance to do something real its really fun... making stuff in the computer is so much more flexible and powerful but burning things in real life is much more fun ^ ^ So after I shot my dust and was exhausted from the excitement... WATS production artist Sean Boyles came over and shot FIRE for some stuff I need in HSM.

Now I'm back working on the compuTerZ...awwww... no risk or setting self in fire...awwww...

My music album permalink PosT

Since I erased my bookFACE the links to my old music albums like does not exist so here they is again... its not all of em as I'll eventually get around to posting them all so bookmark this post as I will add new albums to it as they come.

M dot Strange/Agent 2a03 MUSICOGRAPHY

Unavailable ALbums:::::

I am not Trowa : 2000
8 bits was always enough: 2000
Nintekno: 2001
Nes 3001: 2001
Showdown in Neo Tokyo: 2002
I dream in Lo Fi: 2002
The FeaR you can HeaRRR: 2004
Live and Indirect: 2005

Available Albums:::::

Songs for Strangers: 2003

Predator_E: 2004

Real Human: 2005

Return from hella nowhere: 2007

ALL_CAPS: 2008

Horror in slow motion: 2008

I M NIGHTMARE: 2009

"I.s.J.ust.A.M.ess" 2009

OLD Random unfinished demo tracks and the like

Here's a couple random Mp3's too ^ ^

GET RETARDANT SUPER MIX

Mega eg0 rapping demo

Beats and rhymes lost in time

And one MoAR BEEP BEEP BEEP!

Feel free to use these songs in your videos just be sure and give meh credit... if you want to use them in a commercial production please contact me to ask for permission.

Pixologic is flippin teh SCRIPT

So if you follow this blog you know I have become a big fan of Pixolgic Zbrush and I am using it for most everything in my new animated feature film... It allows you to create extremely detailed high poly meshes... for a face I'm going up to about 7 million polys... obviously you dont want a scene full of characters with heads that have 7 million polys....soooo I use lo res meshes with SPD maps applied to get the detail when rendering...it works but it adds a lot to render time.... and THEN...



Pixologic released "Decimation Master" a new plugin to reduce poly counts... I just tried it on one of my 7 million poly models...and I took it down to 50k.... and there's no real difference?!?! it AMAZING! I mean if you zoom in to an extreme close up you can see some detail missing but otherwise its great....so now I have to decimate all my models ^ ^

AND also Pixologic announced Zbrush 4 coming in August and they announced one new feature GO ZBRUSH which makes the 50 clicks and 5 minutes of time I spend getting models from Zbrush to Cinema into one click and one second 0_0 AND I can edit the model in Zbrush and the changes show up in Cinema....just AMAZING!!!

Well I've said it before...there really is NOTHING stopping an artist today from realizing they ideas in 3d today... well laziness is the only excuse... but DAMN this stuff is getting WAY to EASY ^ ^ Pretty soon I'll be making an animated feature film every year XD

Plugin drive over thank you everyone!

Thanks to everyones purchases and donations I was able to buy all the plugins I needed ^ ^

I posted the above image so you can see I really did buy plugins and am not wasting it on like monocles or something ^ ^

So what I got was the new Cactus Dan plugin suite..character animation tools $250

Zblur2 which is a plugin to do depth of field blurring etc $79.00

Splinespread... I'm going to use this to do some crazy particle stuff 69 euros

Scoobycam tools... A camera rig..does steady cams and all kinds of other awesome things 49 euros

Again thanks! Now back to read the manuals ^ ^

Old WATS stuff for saLE to raise money for plugins

UPDATE! Thanks to the donation by Cathy ^ ^ I got enough to buy the last two plugins.. SO thanks too everyone who donated! Adam, Ricky, Dean, Cathy and SamueL! Please no more donations as I got the plugins and I know we are all strugglin these days. Thank you my friends! I really appreciate it and you know I will do my best for you ^ ^

You can still buy the remaining images and DVD's... thanks to everyone who bought those too!



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I have to buy a few hundred dollars worth of Cinema 4d plugins before I begin production and since I had these these ghetto printed on my photo printer prints laying around I figured some people might want them and it would help me raise money for the plugins....

Since the Mdot-augraphed images are one of a kind please email me to buy one at Mike@wearethestrange.com... Just tell me what # you want... Paypal would be best but I can take checks too thanks!...

These are all from the "We are the Strange" art show at Anno Domini Gallery in San Jose from 2007

The are $25 USD each...shipping is included in the price

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M-DoT-Augraphed DVD's ^ ^

If you want an M-DoT-AUgraphed DVD made out to you personally you can use the paypal button below to get one for $30 USD with shipping to anywhere included. So yeh you can buy one with the button down there....

Who to make it out to?

If your just super nice and have extra money you can also just donate... anything you donate will go into the production of "Heart String Marionette" So please leave your name so I can include you in the credits ^ ^

THANK YOU and StaY Strange! ^ ^

Balancing the polygon budgeT

When working in 3d you have like a polygon budget... your system can only display a certain number of polygons on screen until it gets all glued up and you want to punch yerself in the face... you can get around this by using Subpolygon displacement to add fine detail at render time BUT this takes up more memory at render time AND adds significantly to render time as its a single threaded process that needs to be calculated every frame 0_0

So sometimes your working a long making stuff and it looks great AND THEN you notice how much memory its taking up or it takes FOREVER to render a frame so you must adapt your approach... and this goes on the whole time... enthusiasm and creativity THEN stifling technical limitations and calculations back and forth back and forth you must grind until all the shit is worked out and you can render a frame in a reasonable amount of time without your PC melting down... So yeh I was tweaking in the same character model for the past 12 hours doing this polygon/render budget thing.... and I'll do it for another 12 tomorrow... Then I'll do it for 50 other characters....SHET I must be a masochist ^ ^

Why is everyone else complaining?

I was reading this blogpost linked on some other film marketing blog I read...

It's just so odd... all these "independent" filmmakers complaining and talking how their opportunities are going away in this new digital world... well I have something to say to them all.... PEAS OUT! Haha... We are at probably the most exciting and interesting time for media makers right now and if you REALLY been doing your best for a long time and you still can't find an audience for your film or anyone who is interested in it... well then you and what you make probably sux0rs... thats the truth no one wants to hear BUT thats the way it is in this new world... you can't pretend... the audience either loves it, hates it or the WORST OF ALL they don't remember it at all... there's no faking because with the internet and the people on it well ummm... they are honest... its terrifying to a lot of filmmakers I talk to but its like if you can't stand the heat then DAMN you shouldn't be at the workstation ^ ^

You must walk the line between making whatever the fuck you want while somehow keeping your ear to the ground making something relevant to todays quickly adapting and morphing audience... NO ONE and NO STUDIO is going to back you with tons of P & A to beat peoples eyeballs into submission convincing them that you are somehow relevant... the majors can and still will do this and most everyone else will DIE..... Survival of the fittest it is...

I meet all these "filmmakers" who want to be "directors" or consider themself that or whatever... but without a crew, budget and all that...they are helpless...they dont make anything at all.. they are waiting for some perfect situation to come about so they can do the one or two things they know how to do and make a film... that may work in Hollywood but if you want to make your own films that shit isn't gonna cut it homieS...

I made most of my live action films in garages, on the street or where ever with who ever I could get and I shot with any camera I could get etc.. you get the point... You either have the desire and passion or you don't and if you don't your never going to survive in tomorrows world of independent film... and the audience doesn't give a fuck what you shot your film on or where or how or whatever... its the film that matters... lately all these people have been prematurely ejaculating about the RED camera... its like just because you have 4000 pixels of HORizontal resolution somehow now your Kubrick eh? And the audience is just going to be in awe of your film because...of the camera you shot in on??

Its actually very refreshing when you come to the realization that the audience doesn't care if you were poor as fuck living in a slum and like you shot your stop motion film on a polaroid and like went to Kinko's to scan them in and digitize them or whatever... ALL THAT MATTERS IS WHATS ON SCREEN... THE FILM... now how/why/when/where/who with....

So what would most hipster independent filmmaker types do if they got $50,000? Probably rent some artsy loft to live in and buy some fancy camera and waste the rest on cigarettes and "research" trips to foreign countries... ME...I'd live in a fuckin hole, eat sardines, buy a bunch of computers and bang out an animated feature...by the time that average "indy" figured out what they wanted to do and started trying to raise more money for it I'd be done... What would you do?

No one admires Kurosawa, Kubrick or Lynch for they lifestyles or what gear they used to make they films... people remember THE FILMS... So why should you care about how/why/where you make your films? Just fucking make them already.... or no don't make them and let me get all the glory ^ ^

I could be complaining about how I don't have Pixar's render farm and how I don't have a distribution deal or enough money or whatever... I could be complaining about how hard it is to do this... but you don't see me doing that... WHY? It's not going to make my film any better so its a waste of my time... I'd rather put my time and energy into the films I make.

The reason I share all this shit is because I WANT TO SEE YOUR UNIQUE FILMS... So if you have the WILL find the WAY today.

The reaL deaL

As you might not know I'm a fan of MMA and K-1... So tonight the half Brazilian half Japanese Lyoto "The Dragon" Machida dominated and KO'd an undefeated American champion and took his belt...he made the other guy look like an amateur... Both fighters were undefeated so how did Machida totally outclass the other guy? The other guy was 18-0 and hella hyped up...

Because Machida is on a whole other level... The other guy got into martial arts late in life...because of a reality TV show 0_o

Now what does this have to do with film? Well... before a fight theres all this hype and all the "experts" talk about how great a guy is... and how he beat all these other "good" fighters...... and people buy into it and believe it...

Just because someone has a belt... it doesn't mean they are a true champion....

Now think about a Hollywood movie... before the movie comes out... there all this hype..."expert" reviewers *paid off* talking about how great it is ....How it won at all these film festivals and how is going to win all these awards and people buy into it and believe it...

Just because a film wins awards.. it doesn't mean it is the best there is...

Now a movie differs from a fight in that they can use all this smoke and mirrors and loud fancy sound effects and flashy things to make you think the movie in winning...

Now in a fight once the two guys get in the ring... none of that hype, flash, and expert testimony matters.. and you cant use smoke and mirrors... the person who is more skilled and better prepared wins most of the time...

Sometimes true champions get belts...

Machida lives and trains in a small village in Brazil... He's been training in martial arts since he was a small child... he doesn't do it for the fame or fortune...he takes pride in being the best and thats why he does it... He can do everything... he can strike, he can wrestle, he can submit people... When you work harder and are more dedicated and focused than everyone else it puts you on another level...

No one really does this because of the time and dedication involved... hence the mediocrity that pervades all aspects of American culture... everyone wants everything FAST...they have "no time" to really develop anything of greatness...and this new "culture of brevity" as a new genius friend from Iceland described to me...its only getting worse... look at the world around you... mediocrity everywhere for the quick buck... because it was easier...

I get emails all the time from very young people who want to be animators or whatever and most of them expect too much too fast... it doesn't work that way... you have to GRIND for years to be great at something... its like grinding in games except it takes REAL years to get to level 68



You can work a little and fake it....but when the day comes that your tested against the real deal you will fall....How do you get there? You don't talk... you WORK... you GRIND... alone... in solitude... you lose yourself in your goal... you kill yourself to live again later as a better person... you sacrifice yourself for your goal....

Now the FUNNY thing was as the American d00d was getting his ass beat he was trying to talk shit?! His jaw was yapping and he was getting punched in it before he hit the canvas and was KO'd... Yeh thats what us Americans do... we make excuses...we talk shit... but in the end... you either win or you lose... it doesn't matter what you say... history is the ultimate judge... and we know the truth... So we can talk and make excuses but I think its better to just shut the hell up and do what we gotta do cause in the end we know the truth... you can't escape from yourself or the truth so why try?

Now I see myself as someone who trains in a small room in a city in California...and I have been training since I was a kid... I'm not doing it for fame and fortune... I want to be the best I can be and thats why I do it...

Hollywood will always provide it's WEAK directors with the crutches they need to make films with their huge crews and fancy effects teams and massive budgets etc... and hand them shiny awards.... If there were a competition where directors had to sit in a ring alone and make an entire film by them myself who do you think would win? Them or me? Thats not fair right? Cause they don't have all the skills? Why is it not fair? YOU SHOULD DEMAND THE BEST FROM YOUR ARTISTS...its not OK TO BE GOOD ENOUGH... Oh they don't have time to make great things yeh...... they don't have time to get more skilled they are too busy driving around in fancy cars and yapping on cell phones.... they gotta hurry and shovel garbage into your brain so they can get your money I forgot...

NOW I think this is what we should demand from the world around us... DEMAND GREATNESS... DEMAND things of value from your filmmakers... REJECT MEDIOCRITY... IF you accept it... IT WILL BECOME A PART OF YOU... now I think this applies to all aspects of life...

I don't know about you... but I see human technology advancing by leaps and bounds but I see the human race moving in the opposite direction here in America... WE ARE NOT OUR TECHNOLOGY it is a crutch... we need to take pride in ourselves and in our work... not in our technology... anyone can use the technology... but no one else can be us... IF we are honest with ourselves an we become the individuals we are supposed to be... no can take that away from you and no one can beat you at being a better YOU

Ask yourself... Do I want to be great or do I want to be mediocre? You can pretend to be great without making the sacrifices but one day you'll find yourself in the ring with a Lyoto Machida and he'll show you what you really are... a TRUTH you can never escape...

The day will come... will you be prepared? I M.

Concept art 2 point Ohhhhhh

So after I finished my layout work for the day I decided to set up one of the characters for animation...just for fun... well after messing with it for a bit I realized the style in which I've been modeling the characters has a FATAL design flaw and they are not usable for animation ... So I will will remodel them all... NOW these things happened for a reason... My original idea for the character design/style got lost amongst computer problems and rushing things... My original idea solves this problem and fits the film so much better soooooo... I will remodel them with my original plan which I should have just not rushed and done in the first place...

So I'm looking at the current models as Concept Art 2.0... I'll keep a couple but %90 will be redone... So yeh sometimes these things happen and you just have to look at the upside... at no point did I say "OH NO I HAVE TO DO THEM ALL OVER??! BOOHOOO!!!" I said to myself "Whatever, I'll do them over and they will be SO much better than before"

This I will dO and the film will be better because of it... I'm actually glad it happened because I know I can do better with the models...and now I get my chance.

64 bit 0_0

When making WATS my workstation had 2gb of RAM and my render nodes had 1gb... and I was using 32bit XP so I would get out of memory errors a lot in Cinema 4d when scenes got around 2 million polys... So now I'm using 64bit XP with 64 bit Cinema 4d and my workstation has 12gb of RAM and my render nodes have 8gb... The scene I'm laying out right now has 6 million active polys and tons of spd and it renders fine 0_0

THERE is a pitfall to this though... The scene looked suite with 4 million polys then BECAUSE I COULD I added more things in the scene to push it to 6 mil and it looked worse SO more is not always better ^ ^ I took it out and left the better, simpler version... I can't let me myself get seduced by the tech and start making massive scenes for no reason... I have to remember that the solo feature filmeratOR_ER needs to be light, efficient and FAST...these heavy scenes will just slow things down AND I want this film to be an exercise in minimalism...

The design is very Japanese... instead of beating you over the head with visual mayhem and eye burning rgb values... I'm pushing that stuff to the background and letting the story, the characters, the mega melodramatic dialogue and cryptic narrative take center stage... Yeh I could probably make the craziest, most stylish, visually explosive thing ever BUT styles can easily be copied AND I'm not making a music video or a commercial *cough* even though MANY mainstream films seem like 2 hour commercials or music videos to me *cough*

Theres this song by Peace Division I like and the d00d in the song is talking about dubstep and he's like " I don't need a big buildup and light and smoke and shit... all I need is a good bassline, a snare and a hi hat... all that other shit is just confusion"

If something has no soul... no real substance or depth then it needs that confusion to keeps you entertained, distracted or confused...

I did my best to make sure HSM has depth, substance, heart and soul... so I need not the confusion.... but I'm still gonna make it look crazy as FAWK!!! XD

Finally decided on book

Even though I've been too busy to return the query letter to the publisher that was interested in me doing a book for them 0_0 I'm going to do a book and figure out how to release it when its done... but yeh I've decided that the best thing I could right now is to make a guide to making solo animated cg feature films... because there is no book for that... I'll release the book when HSM comes out so then I'll have made 2 animated cg features alone using my process which I will share in the book... It will be both technical and motivational/philosophical... think of a mix between "Rebel without a crew" and "The war of art"... So yeh thats what I'm gonna do... I'll interview the other people that have made solo animated feature films as well and put them in the book... My goal with the book is to turn you into an unstoppable one man army animator ^ ^ I will share all my techniques and tactics...

Y0 Thorgin! I just posted the complete c4d/Zbrush vid ^ ^

The home for solo animated feature films?

Ya know I used to visit the Terrence Walker's site to keep up on tools and techniques for solo animators doing longer form projects but he quit blogging years back and now I'm wondering where would a person go to get information about how to create cg animated feature films alone...

I know two other d00ds who have made or are finishing up animated feature films alone... Jeff Lew wif his notorious KIller Bean and Dave4096 and his forthcoming "Archon Defender" Oh yeh I forgot about my paL John Bergin and his "From inside"

Are there any other people out there doing solo 3d animated feature films? I know the mega hardcore Bill Plympton has been kicking out solo 2d features for years...he's amazing.... but yeh any other 3d people out there doing features?

The reason I'm asking is that I think to help others do the same.... we, the psychopaths who have done should share our process and techniques with you so you don't make the mistakes we did.... So yeh please post some links in the comments if you know of anyone else so I can contact them and make a place for all the info.

If your an animator and thinking of jumping into the feature and a little scared watch this video

There's always a catcH

So one of the big reasons I was so excited about using Cinema 4d version 11 on this new film is because of the NLA system in it... I had tested out creating some motion clips and all seemed to work fine... then I was reading in the cgtalk forums about people having poor viewport fps when converting animation to motion clips... So I got some of shots from the MSI video I did years ago and converted them to motion clips...

Shot1: Normal: 37fps Motion Clip: 20fps %46 slowdown
Shot2: Normal: 35fps Motion Clip: 30fps %15 slowdown
Shot3: Normal: 35fps Motion Clip: 28fps %20 slowdown
Shot4: Normal: 38fps Motion Clip: 20fps %48 slowdown

So based on this short test it seems converting to motion clips which you need to do to use the NLA system negatively affects viewport performance from roughly %15 - %50.... AND for everything Cinema 4d does GREAT which is a lot of things... the viewport performance was NOT one of the great things... and so it seems using the NLA system will make it even worse...

I was looking forward to using the NLA system to reuse and modify motions and to create my own library I could use to speed up production hmmmm...

Ah if it ends up being so slow its unusable I'll just use the same workflow to animate I used on the robot scenes on WATS... I just didn't reuse anything haha.... but the NLA can be REALLY handy to retime clips and mix them.... I'll have to do a lot more tests with it.... but I'm still doing layout for now....

Not enough time in the day...

So to stay on schedule I have to layout and light 36 sets in 20 days... I'll have to cut out all human interaction pretty much haha... I seriously would be more productive when working on a film if I lived on a deserted island or something... to do this stuff you pretty much have to get lost in the world of your film and its nonstop challenges... every time you interact with a real person it takes you out of that world and it takes time to get back in... UNLESS your talking about OpenGL problems and the best way to render volumetric fog that interacts with geometry...

I technically finished modeling all the 3d elements BUT I've found myself redoing things as I'm laying sets out... I rushed a bit through some of the models and I find myself remaking them in a much better way of course ^ ^ So far things look good and my system is dealing with the sets ok... just have to keep grinding day in and day ouT.... I know the way...

WHen your not satisfied improvise...

So its not 7am now and I started working on laying out this scene at 7pm yesterday haha... its finally done now... I came to the point where I wanted some burning tree branches in the scene... At first I tried making it look "real" by using an image sequence of real fire stock I got off the web on top of specially textured wood to make it look like it was burning and some Xpresso controlled visible lights to mimic flickering fire... ahhh the stock fire sucked so I got my Canon hf100, some crumpled paper, rubbing alcohol and matches... it was 5am still dark... I burned some on the back porch and shot it... the close ups of the embers looked really nice but smoke was spewing in my face...my eyes got red and I choked but I still got the shots ^ ^ So then I had to convert and luma key the footage...while AE was rendering that I got a new idea and made some "motion graphic" fire using Cinema 4d's Mograph module...and it was SUITE! ^ ^ So forget the real thing... just improvise and stylize I say...

Actually I've been using the Mograph module a ton in the film... its great to layout scenes and disperse objects with random patterns... I use it pretty much everyday... and oh yeh this scene after being optimized came down to 1.6 million polys... even with everything turned on I get 40+fps in the viewport...not too bad... I'll use layers to turn everything off but the "Main area" where animation takes place once I get down to that... ah render is done...now I can go to sleep I guess...another battle tomorrow...

More thoughts on workflow

btw thanks for the comments on my last post... I put my faiL behind me and dedicate myself anew to this wonderful art and make the best thing I can for youZ ^ ^

So I finished laying out the first set... and it looks AWESOME ^ ^ BUT I decided to layout all the sets first then go back and light them... I can tweak on lighting for a LONG time so its better to get all the sets layed out before tweaking too much... Optimizing the scene took the longest... moving the objects in was very fast since I have all the concept art done for the set... I just matched it up to my concept art and added a few other things and there it was...

Without characters the set is 2.5 million polys and I'm making heavy use of SPD so at render time the scene takes 4.7gb of ram to render... not bad... all my render nodes have 8gb of ram so that leaves a few gigs for the characters BUT theres very few shots that need the whole set so I hide the parts that are not needed... but yeh if I do a set a day I will finish them all this month...

How serious?

I'd like to think that I'm very serious about what I do... it is the #1 priority in my life... but even I slip sometimes... I think I am VERY lucky that I get to do what I do... There have been a few instances in the past few years where I can see my own destruction... I am a very extreme and.... well.... I'm a fucking maniac some times... but I just want to let you know... I do what I do for you...

I cherish the sincere and heartfelt emails I get when people tell me about what my work means to them... All them years of training and dedication I have put in... but I've realized all the hard work I've done can be lost in a single moment of stupidity...

To change my ways I have to stop hiding it...

When the WATS DVD's were first made in late 2007 I had just come back from Europe and my first night back I went out with some d00ds I just met and got all stupid macho and drank straight whiskey for 4 hours at this bar.... I don't know how I got home but I woke up on the floor in a pool of vomit and WATS DVD's... at that moment it was pretty clear... it's happened a few times since then... this stupid behavior can cause me to waste all my hard work... it can all be thrown away in one moment... It will cause me to fail and let everyone down...

Last year I was invited as a guest to the Berlin talent campus... the last night I got wasted.... thrown out of a restaurant and crashed this Berlinale party and I was acting like a thug, pushing people around... until I woke up in a strange place with no memory... I broke my laptop and lost my passport... luckily a nice person was watching over me and found my passport... and luckily they looked past my horrible behavior and invited me back the next year

Last year in Slovakia I did the same thing... I got all stupid macho drinking with these Slovakian guys... lost laptop and passport and woke up in a strange place with no memory... AGAIN luckily someone was watching over me and found my laptop and passport...

I used to think I was like so clever for killing myself working so hard on films and the like then going off and getting wasted like a maniac, hurting myself and others around me... I thought I had learned my lessons already...I've had so many chances and still i haven't changed...

So this morning I woke up in a strange place with no memory...in a pool of vomit... Pretty pathetic I know... I guess I feel obligated to post this because I omit a lot of negative aspects of what I do...but I am a real person and I make mistakes like everyone else does...

Working alone on a huge task like animated feature films does take a toll on you... but instead of facing up to the fear I had to drink like a coward to deal with it... using it like a crutch... I have no excuses but I don't want any...

Well now I want to show a new dedication to my art and I want to show that I can be a stronger person too... So no more crutch for me... I will deal with the fear straight on and sober from now on.

Early on one of the tag lines for WATS was "To fight a monster do you need to become a monster yourself?" I'm changing my answer now...

Scene optimization--> Layout---> Lighting

So now that I've finished all the character models for the film...even though I'll probably go back and redo a bunch.... but yeh the character phase is done... and if you've been following along you know I finished all the props and the like before the characters soooo...

The next step is to optimize all the models... NOW I could have done this while making them but I wanted to work fast and sloppy... So what is there to optimize? So say I was making a building and like I duplicated a window frame like 80 times and they all have the same texture... well then I will go in and connect all those to make one model and apply one texture to it... C4d doesn't like scenes with hundreds of little objects and it really slows the viewport down...it makes renders slower too....

So the workflow is.... Create project file for scene... lets say Forest.c4d .... then import all the objects needs in the scene...trees, hills, props etc... then I optimize those objects... then I lay them out in the scene... then I light the scene... once it all looks good I move on to the next scene.... look at my note there are 20 main sets in the film I now need to lay out...

I start on that tomorrow... I allocated a month to do it in...then next month is rigging...

You need 200 million for that? ^ ^

I was just reading about James Cameron's new 3d-3d film "Avatar"... he was talking about what a huge task it is even with they hundreds of people and 200 million dollar budget... he said

"We have 1,600 shots for a 2.5 hour movie. It's not with a single CGI character, like King Kong or Gollum. We have hundreds of photo-realistic CG characters."

That made me laugh because HSM has 2,147 shots and its only 2 hours AND it has close to 100 photo-realistic characters ^ ^ and I'm just one guy.... now I'm using "photo-realistic" according to its definition NOT what has been accepted in the word of cg... usually when people say photorealistic character they are talking about a realistic human character... THATS NOT what I choose to take photos of ^ ^ So my photorealism is a bit different as I choose to photograph fukD little freaky dolls and monsters...

But yeh these mainstream types need to get they heads out of the tech because it is trickling down into the hands of people like me so were not that impressed with technical achievements... they need to get they heads out of the machines and focus on they ideas...innovate in more ways than with the tools they are using... because then your not making films... your making demo reels...

Oh yeh I finished modeling all the characters for HSM just now.... now its on to layouT.

Exciting times for independent media MakeRRRs Thanks Youtube!

As I've been working on the new feature film sometimes I stop and go WAIT how am I going to make enough money from this thing to make another film?! Because right now I make almost all my money from DVD sales... thanks to FIlmBaby the DVD sales have funded this new film BUT as we all know DVD's are slowly fading away AND after learning about all the costs involved with making physical discs and getting reamed to make them available through retail I don't know how much I want to do that again... OR if I'll be able too....

We all know downloads are teh future....

The holy grail for me like me seemed to be to get your movie sold in the Itunes movie store...we all waited but it never happened and the other download options were cumbersome OR on some site no one visited... So yeh just last week I was kinda bummed out thinking about the lack of options...

AND THEN

Youtube emailed me saying I had been approved for the new download program which I applied for months ago and forgot about... NOW as you can see in the graphic you are able to set any price you want and the type of license... I THINK THIS IS PURE WIN!!!! People can still watch them all for free and if they want to download them as an ipod/zune/mobile compatible film they can for super cheap... I think this is that way of the future!

I turned the download on for We are the Strange and left it at the default .99 price... Now I proB don't get all .99 as google needs they cut BUT imagine if I set it to make a dollar per download and if only %2 of viewers bought a download that would be $14,000...that the budget for my current film!! haha... Thats %2 of the english version which has 770,000 views... with all the languages its like 1.3 million... push that up to %5 of viewers download and thats pretty great!

I think that this is the trickle income that the longtail needed.... I've been able to do ad's on my videos for awhile but I don't get enough views to make significant income that way even though it did deliver %10 of the new films budget

So yeh I'm really excited about this as youtube has given us something we desperately needed... I don't care about Itunes anymore... Youtube has always been there for me... if it wasn't for youtube no one would have seen my film and I wouldn't be able to have the life I have now making this new film with total freedom and with all you WIN people as my new media friends ^ ^

So thanks to youtube and thanks to YOU... I plan to use the download options to trickle in enough income to pay for my NEXT film after HSM...

And oh yeh if anyone is all fancy wiF the CC licenses please tell meh... If I want people to be able to remix my stuff but not sell it commercially which license option should I choose? So I want them to be able to recut the videos and do anything they want with them as long as they dont try to resell the stuff...

How is the strangest the most "popular"

I thought this was kinda funny... you probably know Youtube has been reshaping itself...they added tons of feature films and shows from studios and the like... I was watching the original HE-man yesterday it was pretty great... but yeah so right now if you go to youtube.com/movies and click "Most Popular" look what is the first one there?! haha... So show your friends what the "most popular" feature film on youtube is and they'll be all "oh that retarded thing you showed me? OH WHAT its popular OH NOW I LOVE IT"

Crowdsourcing = SPIRIT BOMB

In the last few days I've been making some baZAAR connection between abstraction layer theory and filmmaking and the seven major circuits of the brain... but I'll probably save that for my book whenever I get around to that...

BUT I was rewatching old DBZ movies when something hit me... ya know in a lot of those films when everything else fails Goku harnesses energy from every living thing on the planet and uses that to make a "Spirit bomb" to destroy the gigantic unstoppable enemy... and he can only do that because his intentions are true and just... So I was reading about the Pirate Bay trial and how supporters of the Pirate Bay are attacking its opposition... so yeh CROWDSOURCING=SPIRIT BOMB

It will allow an individual or group to defeat enemies or to break through barriers once thought impossible...creative work, computing power, promotion, DOS attacks ^ ^ etc....... but only through working together for a just cause...

So yeh think about that for a biT...its pretty exciting... and remember that people will not lend their power to MONEY HUNGRY FAKE MATERIALISTIC BASTARDS so if you want to use these spirit bombs in the future... be true to yourself, stay down to earth and do your best to do what's best for the whole...

I plan to use many of these Spirit Bombs in the future ^ ^

You are simply a machine...nothing more.

Ya know being a "computer animator" er whatever its easy to lose sight of whats really important when making films with computers... you begin to put too much emphasis on the technology...on the system specs etc... Like yeh having a PC with 64gb of ram will make a better film than one wth 8gb?! So yeh I've been guilty of this lately.... tweaking with the system WAY more than I should be... I made WATS with a dual core 2.2ghz PC with 2gb of ram and an old AGP video card...I need to remember this... the tech doesn't matter... the ideas do... So I pledge to move forward with 12gb of ram or 4gb whatever it doesn't matter as long as it doesnt get in my way... HERE I GO! THIS HAND OF MIND SHINES WITH AN AWESOME POWER AND ITS TELLING ME TO DEFEAT YOU!!!!...oh wait thats just carpal tunnel....bye.

And may the truth cause they END

So a few days ago a new Hollywood movie "X-men origins" was leaked onto the torrent scene...news here

I myself am a very active like torrentY person btw ^ ^ but I didn't download that cause I knew it would be CRAP...

But anyway I have a point... Over the past years I studied modern film marketing a bit... and I remember one phrase in particular by the man who designed the marketing paradigm that Hollywood still uses... the phrase it is based on is something like this

"With enough money you can lie to all the people all the time"

So you may have figured out through time that MOST ALL Hollywood films are hollow derivative consumer whorING garbage these days... NOW why do people keep spending they money to see them? BECAUSE they believe the HYPE... the FAKE QUOTES, the PAID OFF reviews, the hyper hyperbolized trailers and commercials... people buy into it time and time again....like they forget they were lied to before BUT thats another ranT....

So the Hollywood system is all based around spending TONS of MONEY to LIE just to make a big opening weekend... THEN once people have seen that it is crap they will tell others and people will stop going to see it...

NOW these torrent leaks BREAK they system because if you know the truth...that the film is crap ahead of time you won't go see it.... SO I SAY LEAK THEM ALL hahaha and let the Hollywood system and its boardrooms full of bloated ignorant executives DIE a slow painful death LULZ for years to come!!!!!

They only have two options.... DIE or actually make good films... they are too far gone to change they ways and make good meaningful, passionate, innovative, creative and truthful films so they will DIE.

This makes me HAPPY ^ ^

Tutorial RequesTS

I will be creating some new tutorials just because when your modeling or rigging all day making tutorials seems fun...so...

I'm going to be doing them on Cinema 4d, Zbrush, Photoshop, and After Effects... cause thats what I use all day... I guess I could also do ones on Reason and Ableton Live hmmmm....

I've already done some introductory videos for C4d but I might redo those now that Youtube has HD... I'm already planning an intro to Zbrush...

So let me know what you want me to cover in these new tutorials and I will do meh best to get them in.

A different "reality"

I was sitting eating breakfast here in Ireland overlooking the river Shannon a few minutes ago... Some overhanging trees were reflected in the water... it got me thinking about the "reality" I am creating with HSM and just overall at the worlds I create...

I'm not interested in portraying reality as it is... I'm more interested in how it is reflected in the water... the reflection is always undulating and changing slightly... To me its much more beautiful and exciting because of the constant change and it can quickly be transformed into something totally different but it always returns to its original base form... If the glimmering reflected form is the reality I create the ripples in the water are caused by emotion... because that is my guide when I am creating anything... some times the emotion is so strong is temporarily destroys the image and causes chaos before eventually returning to its original shape... just think about what strong emotional reactions do to your life... turning it upside down or temporarily blinding you, preventing you from seeing the big picture or original form... but it always returns to its original form albeit with slight differences just like the surface of water... its never the same...

So until recently while working on HSM all of my aesthetic decisions were based purely on instinct...but now I am beginning to understand the method behind meh madness ^ ^ SO I will be able to explain it... I started writing a treatise on it last year and it should be finished when HSM is done.

Artwork by ini... She's helping me with HSM too so like yeh thanks ini! ^ ^


Thats my reflectioN.

Multidimensional MAYNE

Its funny from time to time I'll post some music or something online and peoples will message me asking if i am "still working on HSM" or "if I will be a rapper now" haha... Well I guess from most peoples understanding a person can only do one thing "professionally" maybe thats right because I do like 9000 things UNprofessionally ^ ^ But just so you don't worry that I'm not working on the film.... I've always done everything all at once... I pretty much just do what I feel like doing from day to day... The film is my priority but if I feel like making music I'll do that...if I feel like chatting with weirdo's online I'll do that...if feel like making a short film or music video I do that....or I might do all those things at once... but I never "stop" because its all part of the same thing... art is a conversation and I use several different forms of media to express myself... but I am always communicating the same thing no matter the media type...



Oh yeh next week I will be in Limerick, Ireland for the Fresh Film Festival where I'll be doing animation workshops for kids aged 9-18... So if your going to be around there and like want to meet up contact me... then after that I'll be thuggin it up in Scandinavia for 2 weeks to work on some top secret HSM related thangs AND I'll still be working on HSM during all that ^ ^ Trust me I can multitask!

And oh yeh I have a new band for live performances... Its called "The Church of Strange" we do our first show in June....

One man army filmmaking causes MPD?!!?

I guess one of the most difficult things to do when working on a film alone is to seamlessly switch hats without letting one job affect the other....So these days I'm constantly switching back and forth from Director to modeler/art director and then to Producer to end the day...

So I start the work day by sketching in my sketchbook...scenes and ideas.. then I look at the work list and make notes as to what I want to try... and then I act out some scenes in my head over coffee... then...

I turn on the computer and become modeler/art director... I look at my work list and model and texture things... I'm only thinking about how it looks...I don't even really care too much about poly count or scene optimization cause some other personality can do that later... So I push my computers hard for hours then stop...

Then I turn into the Producer... I look at the list of things I need to buy before production...Plugins, hard drives and maybe a new Mainboard+Proc+ram (HOPE NOT) but yeh so I think about time and money... Look at the schedule and budget time...So right now as producer I'm worried about time and money...but when I start my next work day I need to get that all out of my head so I can be Director guy again...

Sometimes I turn into music guy and it throws my routine off...and other times I actually... like... talk to other people in real life.... but I try to avoid them unless they have time machines or money to give me ^ ^ Producer says bye.

Selective sensationalism?

Some time ago from poking around /b/ I found a video from the Ukraine that was shot by some teenagers as they physically destroyed a living human being with hammers and screwdrivers...easily the most horrible thing I have ever seen... after looking into it more I found out they killed 21 people in a month summer 2007... I thought it was ODD that there was NO news stories about it anywhere in English and why not? Mass media LOVES to sensationalize EVERYTHING so why were they avoiding this? The only organized kinda press place that covered it in English was at boingboing. Immediately when I saw the video I thought of the "torture porn" films such as Saw and Hostel and they various sequels and spinoffs... these kids did exactly what has been portrayed in the films but in real life... What disturbed me about those "torture porn" films when they came out is that I knew that people would copy them... As a filmmaker you have a great responsibility...you need to choose carefully what you portray in your films and how you portray it... Since the Hollywood filmmaking system is only concerned with the $$$ they could give a fuck about actual people and how they multimedia trash affects them but YOU have a choice when you make your films....

About the Ukraine killers...the reason the video of they murder was online was that because they filmed all the murders with a mobile phone camera...

But oh yeh why did I write about this now and not back then when I first saw that video... I stumbled across some movie called "Eden Lake" and flipped though it... Its about a group of teenagers who torture and murder some couple and guess what? They film it all with they mobile phone camera... It came out after the murders...

I could go on and on about this... but all I have to say is that films are not just films... and if you wield the imagery without considering what it might do to men, women and children then you might be in for some surprises later on... When you watch someone being destroyed physically in a film or game...it does something to you... to your mind they are just images and as games and films get more realistic how are the core parts of your brain supposed to know what is real or not? I have some friends that are psychologists and I talk to them about these things now and then... You hear a lot of desensitization... Now if you've watched thousands of graphic murders in films and games your whole life does it make it easier for you to commit such acts in real life? Its interesting in the Ukraine snuff video...they put plastic over they hammer cause thats really the only difference in real life.. you get your hands dirty.... if you can get over that its pretty much the same.

Last year I talked to a woman who worked in marketing at Sony Pictures I think it was... we got to talking about the focus groups she does... ya know test screenings of films... She said they do polls where they ask people what they want to see more of in films... She said that it disturbed her that the biggest request was for more "Torture" Why would people want to see more torture? I think the more desensitized you become the more you desire more and more shocking imagery etc because it gives you a little jolt that makes you feel like your still alive... and when you don't feel it anymore... congratulations you are a psychopath!!! AND since the Hollywood system is only interested in $$$ and not the well being of people..what did you think they did? Well look at your new cinema releases...

What I'm saying is that as a director its your choice what you put in your film...NOT your audiences! NOT a boardroom of executives! NOT FUCKING FOCUS GROUPS! If thats how you decide what is in your films your not a director your just a little batcH and thats all you'll ever be! Are you being the person you know you are? Or are you being a person other people want you to be?

After saying all that... remember that the tagline to my new film is "You will die... inside"

Physical pain eventually subsides but psychological and emotional pain is eternal.

People say they want more torture? They can watch physical torture all day long... but start to torture THEY mind and they run away screaming.

Yes yes your a very attractive human... but I'd rather fuck your mind.

So when speaking about my new film I must quote Combichrist in saying "THis shit will fuck you up"