M dot Strange's blog

UPDATED 2_27_13!  RENDER USING EXR Lossy Zip16! Since I'm working on a new feature film that will generate over 1500 shots made up of image sequences I need to make sure I choose the right file format to render to lest my hard drives explode. What I need from my format is  at least 16bit, an alpha included and preferably small size. I rendered out a frame from my film tallied up all the file sizes here- their all different types of codecs listed from smallest file size to largest. The render includes an RGBA pass, Depth pass, and Material Luminance pass because thats what I always render out. 1.00mb 8bit-Photo Jpeg %100 1.27mb 8bit-PNG 4.65mb 16bit- EXR lossy ZIP16 5.75mb 8bit-PSD 6.23mb 16bit-EXR lossy PLZ 6.44mb 16bit-PNG 7.94mb 8bit-TIFF 8.50mb 16bit-EXR Lossy 24 9.05mb 16bit-EXR Lossy Run Length 14.6mb 8bit-TARGA 22.4mb 32bit-EXR ZIP16 24.6mb 32bit-EXR Zip1 25.6mb 32bit-EXR PLZ 29.3mb 16bit-TIFF 29.3mb 16bit-PSD 40.0mb 32bit-EXR Run Length 58.7mb 16

I don't watch TV so I didn't see the Oscars( nor would I ever waste my time with such trash ) BUT I do know what has been going on in the VFX industry- and I heard that some d00d won an Oscar for his VFX heavy film in which the artists DID NOT get their just due AND he said he wished it was cheaper - so he pretty much said he wished the poorly paid artists would make even less because it was sooo hard for poooor little him to have other people make his film relevant while he heard complaints from greedy studio peeps. I've been complaining that most blockbuster films owe their success to the VFX director, VFX artists and animators because VFX and animation are the showpieces in most all of those films. Their the most important element but they are not treated that way SIMPLY because the greedy peeps at the top of the food chain in the film industry don't care who starves or who gets treated like a slave- the directors don't seem to care- they just want it faster an

I just animated the first shot with lip sync for the film which is the above wherein two characters (BOG and TEENEE) are talking to each other while walking. I can't say enough about how AWESOME the voice actors I got for the main characters are! I've only done one shot with dialogue but the characters are MORE alive then any I have ever done already ^_^ I'm starting off slow with these shots- with every new project you must adjust to the workflow and allow yourself time to readjust/replan the workflow lest you waste time in the long run A new thing I'm doing with this film is that I created a bunch of background character animation like these people sitting at this table talking and drinking- they all have their own different looping animations To populate and make the town in the film seem  more alive- I'm going to have a bunch of people standing around/talking/walking through town- NOW if they are all actual 3d geometry it can really bog down the scen

So as you can see with the above checklist all the walk-cycles done. It got a little mind numbing toward the end but I'm glad their finished and by having them all pre-made it'll save me a lot of time in production. So the way it works is like this- if I ever need a character to walk or run in a shot- I just load the motion clip for that animation- I store the motion clips at the root of my project directory I even made special motion clips for when characters need to walk/run while carrying objects like so Marie carries a bundle of sammiches If you don't create the motion clips with the extra objects in the hierarchy it can turn into a nightmare- it is possible to add extra objects into an already created motion clip but its much easier to just plan ahead. The film's soundtrack is really coming together as well- I've created twelve new songs for it that I'm really happy with and my homie Dash who is collaborating with me on it just keeps making a

We just recorded the latest episode of the Forever Alone Filmmaking Podcast with special guest David Firth - creator of Salad Fingers, Spoilsbury Toast Boy, Burnt Face Man and many more Download the episode mp3 here  or Subscribe to the Podcast in itunes here It was an honor to have David on the show, his amazing body of animated work has inspired me and has kept me in awe for a long time and I'm sure there's many others that feel the same way. So enjoy the interview and lets hope we can have him back on the show in the future!

I'm still waiting on the audio from the voice actors- February 15th was the early bird deadline- I'll email them tomorrow (18th) and hopefully start to get some lines trickling in. Whilst I wait for that I'm creating walk/run/idle cycles for all the characters- They'll all have to walk or run some time in the film so it saves me a lot of time to do that all ahead of time instead of creating them as I need them. Bog walking with his lil sword So I create their cycles then convert them into motion clips so I can re-use them easily throughout the film- there's some guidelines/caveats/positives to using motion clips that I've found Always create motion clips at 0,0,0 world space Only include objects in the motion clips that HAVE to be there (don't include geometry if its not animated, only the IK controllers and joints) Always set a key on the first and last frame of a motion clip for all animated objects (if you create a walk wherein you didn't

Cinema 4d Viewport (No textures, layer color mode) Untouched render out of Cinema 4d (lens distortion post fx causing increased field of view compared to viewport image) Composited render out of After Effects So that's what a shot looks like as it moves through my pipeline- here's some screen caps from Cinema 4d and After Effects... If you have any questions about any of this post them here or over on the podcast page and I'll answer them on a future episode of the podcast. Since I don't have the final voice acting takes yet I'm working on shots like the above that don't have any dialogue and creating walk/run/idle cycles for all the characters. Instead of waiting until I get to a shot for a particular character when they need to walk and creating it at that time- I'm creating cycles for all the characters ahead of time. I don't know how many walk/run cycles I've done but I still refer to these sheets by Richard Willi

I probably should have been posting here with each new podcast episode but I haven't soooo I'm going to start doing that now ^_^ You can subscribe to the podcast with the Itunes link here If you have any feedback, questions, comments etc about the podcast please add them  on the podcast's FB page here Episode 28 features me M dot Strange, Jimmy Screamerclauz, and James Id. We talk live action shoots with DSLR's, limitations for modern filmmakers, source filmmaker, projecting films on erect penises and we answer listener questions.

Every film, no matter how large or small starts with that first shot- I make my films in order so I start with Shot 0001- this first shot has always been the most difficult for me- GETTING STARTED is the most difficult thing for me- once I get started then it gets challenging and fun ^_^ So here is the first frame from the first shot of my new film "I AM NIGHTMARE" It's nothing spectacular but its a start and you have to start somewhere- that shot is a test composite as it was the first one with this set- every time I render a new set I make sure the lighting works with the compositing/matte painting look I'm going to be using... This is what the renders really look like- So when a shot is animated- I use the hardware(OpenGL) render to render out a 1920x802 24fps Quicktime movie using the Pjpeg codec at %50 quality- these are proxy clips for the offline edit- So I won't be doing any final renders until the entire film has been animated and the off