Connect the shots...

I've been busy building some sets that I need for a series of 'connector' shots. Shots that tie the previous scenes in to the next scene and help to establish the flow of the film.


One of the shots I never got around to doing in Rocketmen vs Robots 1 is a shot of civilians being evacuated from the war zone, and this time I wasn't going to omit this, since it's a shot that broadens the scope of the film. Here you have civilians being evacuated from the war zone, and soldiers being transported into the fight. This establishes that there is a wider world of people than you see on the screen, and countless lives that have been disrupted by the events in the film so far.


These shots are based on a couple concept sketches I whipped up at work:


The next scene shows Colette and Alan, two of the main characters, on a cliff overlooking the fighting in the distance. This shot is identical to one earlier in the film (under much more peaceful circumstances) and serves to tie in and contrast the earlier part of the film to the latter.


Now we come to a grimy, dingy room which will be used in an upcoming dream / revelation sequence. I wanted to make this as gritty and dirty as possible (given what goes on in this room)

These shots don't get much screen time but are necessary to maintain the continuity of the film and establish the motivation of the characters.

New Wallpaper

Today I was refining my crash scene model getting ready to animate the next bunch of shots, and making additional models and rigging that I will need. A couple of test renders looked good (and will even become shots themselves in some fashion later in the film...) so I put together these wallpapers:

1280x640 for CRT's

1680x1050 for widescreen LCD monitors

Yup, it's kind of a spoiler / teaser... but you'll never guess what's going on here til you see the actual film. And even then it'll be a surprise ;)

Sketches and 3D modeling

Time to make the next couple of sets and models, based on these previs sketches I 'whipped' up ;D

3 Days of modeling, this is going to be an exterior / interior shot, and has to be a 360 degree environment, based on the shots required.



The interior is done, the exterior still needs a bit of work though.

Neat youtube trick

You can watch any video in higher quality by adding

&fmt=18

to the end of the url string

(doesnt seem to work for embedded videos, though :(

Cool animated short

Animator Adam Toews presents a short student film:

I was immediately reminded of the film The Fountain, and the cg short The Cathedral not to mention several other strikingly similar elements to my own Archon Defender. I normally don't get too excited about shorts, but this one is original and striking enough that it could even be the basis of a much larger work.

The eye hand is a neat element, although in this film it depicts evil, in Archon Defender, opening eyes are symbolic of a character's awakening to a greater level of awareness and understanding than they had before.

The only thing this film really suffers from is the 2D animation, which looks rough, but to their credit, 2D is hard to do, so extra points for effort and originality and not making yet another 3D animated short with 'quirky' and 'snappy' characters.

2008 trailer in HD

Seeing as how I'm making Archon Defender in HD (1280 x 640), it's only fitting that you all get a taste of what the final film will look like in HD, as the youtube clips I've shown so far don't really do it justice to the level of detail that I've put into the film.

Thanks to the kind folks at vimeo, you can watch my latest trailer in HD, and even download the original AVI which is even better quality:

Archon Defender 2008 Trailer from David Krupicz on Vimeo.

Also, best viewed on a big monitor. Like my new acer x233w I got for really cheap at a much otherwise despised retail vendor I won't admit to shopping at on occasion.

Hello to all visitors from sph3re.tv too.. ;D

Next scene

It's time to animate the next shot, an action sequence that transitions from the ground battle scenes back to the main storyline:

This is going to be another continuous shot that tracks multiple actions over 20 or 30 seconds, and will involve some more fancy camera work.


Y'know this is going to be cool ;D

Lies, Damn lies, and Statistics

At my day job (at the call center...), when they aren't busy filling out my paystub every two weeks, they spend the rest of their time obsessing with a multitude of statistics which are supposed to measure how badly I'm slacking off at work. In a similar fashion, I have a number of statistics that I keep on myself just to make sure I'm keeping up progress on the film:

Average daily shot increment: 4 seconds / day

On average I manage to get 4 seconds done per day since the beginning of main filming (oct 8 2006) Yep, the second year anniversary is coming up soon, and I'm glad to say I've finally broken 50:00 minutes.

Average monthly shot increment: 1:58 minutes

Not quite as crucial, because some months can be less or more depending on the type of shot (action or dialog) and if new sets and models have to be built.

Projected 60 min completion date: Feb 23 2009

The glorious day, long prophesied and awaited, when the last shot will be rendered and comped. Then it's a matter of going back and touching up all the reworks, that have accumulated, fine tuning the edits and adding a few last shots to tighten things up, add sound and music, and *done* It'll be a while, this date tends to fluctuate and keep getting pushed back. Depends how complex the final fight scene goes (reflective floor... :o

New Trailer

Check out my new trailer for Archon Defender. This trailer gives a little bit more of the storyline, plus some delicious previews of my most recent action shots ;D