When the Front demands it, he shall receive.

Pretty cool thing happened. A while back I was doing some animation work, practicing lip syncing by animating my MC Frontalot model rapping to his song Scare Goat.

I stopped working on it for whatever reason, but a couple weeks ago MC Frontalot himself commented on the video saying he’d like to see more. Being my only brush with celebrity to date (if you don’t count getting my glove signed by the Omaha Royals), I am pretty dang excited, I honestly didn’t expect for it to ever make it to him.

Anyhow, it motivated me to get back to work on animation so I started a new project, this time using the skit from Final Boss, A Skit About Vocations. It’s really funny and features Wil Wheaton rapping.

Here’s my progress so far, sorry about the video quality. I’m really trying to use what I learned from Grasshorse, stuff like the shot composition and general order of operations.

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I’ve also started work on a new Dune model! It’s a collab, too. A fellow Duner created the low-poly model and I’m going to texture it.

~”D-W-I-G-H-T.”

Big Time.

I recently teamed up with Grasshorse Technologies of Winfield, Iowa to work on a 30 second commerical for Iowa Lottery. They contacted me in early July, and basically the next day I was in Winfield, shacking up in a spare room in the studio.

They hired me to do the character animation, but I ended getting a lot of experience working in other areas like scene setup, rendering and compositing. I also worked with Maya more than I ever had before, and STILL I think Blender is better. I understand why Maya is the industry standard, but as an animator I prefer Blender for its stuff like Action Editor and Dope Sheet.

I also got a lot of experience working with a rig that was provided to me. I’ve done animations with provided rigs before, mostly for Blender Animation Challenges at blenderartists.org. The rig was challenging, and not just because it was in Maya, but because the controllers and drivers were not as apparent or labeled as I would like. When I set up rigs, I prefer to lock down or hide EVERYTHING I won’t be animating. That includes stuff like the mesh itself and bones that aren’t animatable.

After two weeks, we finished it up, set it over to Integer and Hasbro to be approved. Now something I was a part of is on TV (until August 21). And it’s definitely the best looking thing I’ve ever done, I’m really proud of how the animation turned out.

I’ve been doing a TON of Flash work, working on two games simultaneously. Soon I’ll be able to post .swf files like I want to so I can share my work easier.

~”We’re lucky people laugh when I say stuff.”

Upgrade Commencing

Working more on Wolverine, blocking in basic colors along with an Ambient Occlusion map. I plan on modeling a belt and shoulder pads separately. Also a basic spec map, to make the flesh more matte and the uniform more shiny.

I’m also adding new textures on the Danger Room robot, seen in an animation I completed last year.

Also, I compiled a Renderframe for the Skystriker. Hopefully I can begin a new model soon.

Finally, I’ve added a new page! Attaboy’s is a place where I’ll post recommendations and reviews of my work. I got the first from Sean Parnell, I did that little card-back for him last week. We’re beginning a new game once we find a coder.

~”Fear is the mind-killer.”

Harkonnen Skystriker and Wolverine

I’m working on possibly revamping the site to integrate some flash player utilities, because I’d really like to share my flash animations better. I think it’ll take a bit of research and time on my part, but while I’m doing that, I’ll keep you posted on the other stuff.

First, I’m just about done with another Rockstorm Dune model, the Harkonnen Skystriker! Sort of an AAA vehicle.

I’d really like to get back into focusing on character design, so taking what I’ve learned from the Rockstorm Dune models I’m going to go back and redo my Wolverine model.

Finally, I whipped up a graphic for a flash card game coming out soon. The new client only needed something for the back of the cards, and it just had to say “The 7 Elders” and have a snake and a sword. Easy.

~”It’s that thing when 2 jacked midgets paint themselves orange and you have to parallel park between them.”

Gunships and Janitors

I’ve got some exciting things to show today. First I want to show off the completed Harkonnen Gunship. It’s been well received by the folks at Rockstorm Games, and will likely be featured in their monthly news post . It’s been a good project, my texturing got a lot better, I took a different approach than how I did the Windtrap and I feel like I got a better result. I still struggle with some portions of normal mapping, but all in all it’s been an improvement.

While the coder, Adham, is working out the kinks for the MDA engine, Matt and I are working on a new game. It’s strictly 2D Flash, and we want to get it done fast. I don’t want to give away too much about the game until it’s further along, but I can say it’s about a robot janitor.

Lastly, I think I’ve come up with a decent compromise between the two Iceman materials. It reminds me of the Iceman action figure I used to have where if you put him in the freezer overnight he’d turn all frosty.

~”Yes, I’m married. But my wife understands that a good politician has to be appealing to the ladies. The fact that I haven’t even gotten close to cheating on her is a disappointment to both of us.”

Iceman

Iceman is definitely my favorite character in the Marvel Universe. They haven’t been doing much with him lately, reducing him to a single appearance in a, *shudder*, Spring Break one-shot. Maybe the powers-at-be will see the model I put together and decide to put him back into a regular line up.

This model began as a project to model a male form more anatomically accurate than I usually do. When I got the basic model down I put it in Mudbox and began sculpting in muscles and the proverbial superhero undies. I have so much better luck with normal maps on organic objects than I do more rigid structures like the Gunship.

I’m struggling a bit deciding on how the ice should look. I can get an icy look to it, but it covers up a lot of the work I did with the normal map, but otherwise he looks too much like the Silver Surfer. I want to eventually give him some hair, my favorite Iceman’s always have hair

~”Hippies.They’re everywhere. They wanna save the earth, but all they do is smoke pot and smell bad.”

Shellfishcore Hip Hop

In 2008 Will Wheaton was featured in a skit on MC Frontalot’s album Final Boss. During the skit he jumps into an awesome rap solely and completely about shellfish and wanting to consume them. I needed a new project with some lip sync and action, so I’m diving into animating the skit. My finacee tells me Will is into fan art, maybe he’ll dig what I’ve done so far.

He’s wearing a Binwin Bronzebottom t-shirt created by Scott Kurtz of PVP. There is much rivalry, rage, and love shared between Scott and Will’s D&D characters, and not even dying in an acidic pit could come between them.

Part of animating a sequence where the character speaks is creating all what are called Shape Keys. Shape Keys are stored deformations of the mesh, and they are useful for storing facial expressions.

I’ve also done more work on the Harkonnen Gunship model I’m creating for Rockstorm Games’ Dune:War of the Spice. After finishing the Windtrap, they featured it in their monthly news post, which was pretty cool. Now I’m working on the Gunship. I’m done with the low poly model, now I’m normal mapping it up.

Lastly, in between projects I’m making a game with Matt (he’s working with me on MDA). I whipped up some level designs, which was unfamiliar territory, but I’m getting the hang of it.

~”Oh, I forgot. Only guys can get hurt there.”