Well looks like we've hit this little snag again:
So last time we left off, I was doing the concept art for Hex Moother's lab and I was about to talk about the process I'm using to put it together:
So here, I'm actually using the line tool to do the concept art instead of drawing everything freehand because I feel that doing this will allow the art itself to come out much clearer (and it's in case I want to use said concept art as a basis for a 2D background if I ever get around to doing anything with 2D animation again)
With that being said however, there are still elements I like to draw using the freehand method (I.E: The contents of this victory tally)
for this room, I want to have it use a washed out version of Hex Moother's colour scheme (that being purple and blue due to the outfit I've got him wearing)
Yeah, this one might seem a little bit blander than the stuff I did for Captain Cartridge, but this is more so that I could pick a good colour scheme than anything else.
Now for this next one, I won't be taking any screen caps unless I find something note worthy that I didn't do during the art I made for Hex's lab:
much like Hex Moother, I wanted the colour pallet to be a washed out version of the character this place is associated with (In this case, it's Spag), although in doing so, I may have accidentally done a spaghetti coloured wall (which come to think of it would actually enhance the entire joke around this place and it's leader)
So How Was Doing The Concept Art?
I'll be honest, this is the fastest I've ever done concept art before, so I'd say things went really well here. Now I just have to sit back and wait until tomorrow when I'll be able to actually produce these places for real.
Asset Production And Gathering Day 3 (And Knuckles): Two Locations, A Box, A Pair Of Hex-o Suits And A Little Bit Of Doubt
So today, I ended up finishing my work on Antler-Man by changing the colour of his eyelids (since he was a remix of Spag, his eyelids were left with Spag's skin tone when I painted his face and hair), doing this was easy since I'd already done much of the work yesterday (not to mention the fact that Antler-Man was a remix of Spag made things even easier since I didn't have to do a new model from scratch)
Afterwards, I got to work making the cardboard box, this was a relatively simple model to make seeing how it was just a cube with some words written on the sides and flaps on the top and bottom of the box which I rigged so that they could open and close, it was actually quite easy to do this because of the simplicity of how these boxes open in real life. Unfortunately, I couldn't use the kaleidoscope feature due to the way the mirroring didn't align right where I wanted it to (and I found that out after I'd already rigged the box's flaps to move too), so I simply wrote "Hex-o Suits" on each side manually instead (it wasn't that hard thanks to the surface snap tool, but it did come at the cost of consistency on each side), the idea with this asset is that when Spag gets his box, I'll etch out the "H" in order to make it less obvious that the suits Spag received and the ones Hex Moother creates are one in the same even though I'm sure the audience will end up seeing right through this charade once they find out Hex Moother's evil plot for the episode.
Speaking of Hex Moother, his evil lab ended up being next in line, although now I wished I'd hadn't rushed the concept art process, because while it did help be pick out the colour scheme and decide how the entrance should look, trying to actually figure out what to put in the rest of the lab ended up proving quite difficult since I didn't have much of a guide, although later on in the process it did end up coming together after I added an extra wall to divide the room in two and added a platform with stairs leading to it, as well as a little area shadowy area for Steve to hide in until he's needed (although this does remind me a lot of The Generive from Captain Cartridge with it's "Rec Room" also sharing a similar design with the raised platform with a ramp leading up to it, albeit on a much smaller scale) With that being said however, one benefit of the room being so big is that there's tons of room for the characters to fight each other, but the main drawback (especially with the way I constructed this place) is that the place does feel kind of empty.
For Hex's floors, most of his wall and his ceiling, I decided to use the "Live Clone" tool again (meaning any edits I make on one clone will be made on all of them) because it worked really well on Super Sheep's Dingy Apartment and it allowed me to save quite a bit of time with making all but one of the wall chunks reach the ceiling at once, the reason I left out one was so that I could add in the entrance without accidentally adding in a million extra door holes in the process. (because how can Super Sheep kick open Hex Moother's door if there is no door to begin with) I also painted in a few extra details I.E: The victory chart where I ended up representing The Justice Trio as coloured blotches which also allowed me to sneak in yet another sly reference to Lorange as well. (even though I haven't properly introduced the character yet, but I do plan on introducing her eventually)
After I did Hex's Lair, I moved on to the interior of The Bollen Super Hero Agency. It's here where I'm actually starting to doubt whether or not I'll even be able to do this cartoon in the first place, as I've only done a few assets thus far, and the first week is halfway finished. (you can tell becuase I ended up having to take a a different creation of mine and strip it down so that only the grade and effects would remain [it was supposed to be an animation edition of my Super Sheep model, although the model itself was outdated anyway since it was done before I decided to upgrade Super Sheep's model}, that way all the locations could have consistent colour grading)
For The Bollen Super Hero Agency, I used a lot of the same tricks I used when making Hex Moother's Lair and Super Sheep's Dingy Apartment (I.E: using the live clone tool in order to create the floor, walls and ceilings while leaving the odd piece out so that I could have things like a door hole inserted in) except this time, I decided to have it so that the scene took place at dawn, which will likely make the lighting process a little bit harder since now I've got to place the lighting so that you can see the character while at the same time not diminishing the sunlight or blinding the audience with lighting that's too bright. (although I did add in an extra light in order to intensify the sun's orange glow on the scenery)
Like I was saying earlier, I'm actually starting to doubt whether I can even do this project on time (since again, I've spent half of the week designing what's ultimately amounted to very few assets), but then again, miracles have happened before with a lot of my college projects, so I'll have to give myself a little bit of motivation. If I can't produce all the remaining assets by the time next week passes, I'll have to cut my losses and cancel the project entirely and just do a few test animations instead. (that oughta get the motivation going, if I do end up with a worse case scenario, I can always come back next year to finish the job)
Anyway, the last Asset I made today was the Hex-o Suit (both the Human and Animal Sized varieties), I ended up using this puppet armature I made that was inspired by this piece of concept art that Media Molecule made for Dreams:
I ended up painting them both gold and decoupled the models from the "Puppet" gadget, that way I could attach the individual pieces to The Night Pig and Antler-Man without having to worry about both characters having two puppet bases going on at once since that might have been part of what broke the horse during my FMP. (of course, this is assuming I get all the assets done on time)
Asset Production And Gathering Day 4 (Episodes 1, 2 and 3): A Few Small Props, Some Key Locations And Even A Little Bit Of Composing (Plus A Bonus Asset)
*Syntex Error: video game with the title "Sonic The Hedgehog 4: Episode 3" NOT FOUND*
Ok, in all seriousness, today did trun out to be quite eventful, as I managed to get quite a few assets done today, although to be fair, most of them were pretty simple in nature. (things such as a clipboard and a screwdriver)
The first thing I made today was the clipboard that Hex Moother would use to take notes on the production of his "Hex-o Suits", I decided to bring in Spag as a scale of reference because then I'd know how big/small I'd need to make the actual clipboard itself in relation to the characters that way, when I come to actually start the animation process, I don't have to worry about accidentally making said props too big or too small. (although thanks to the power of Dreams, I could theoretically just modify the asset there and then if I wanted to) Here, I also decided to take the head of Voltrix and modify it slightly in order to make it into the actual clipping part of the CLIP-board. I also decided I wanted to attach a piece of paper to this particular board but it did take a little bit of fiddling around in order to get it right, but in the end, I think it was all worth it. (because now I can theoretically decouple the paper from the clipboard if I want to have a separate paper asset)
The next thing I made was Hex Moother's remote. For this one, I decided to have the button be a separate piece from the frame itself so that when Hex Moother presses the button, I'll be able to have the button recced into the remote. (like how most buttons recced on being pressed in real life) Originally, I wanted to have the antenna move around whenever Hex would jiggle it around with a force applier, but I couldn't quite get it to look right so I decided to ditch that idea in favour of a static antenna that would flash instead. As I was about to leave the button in favour of the next asset, I realised that I'd forgotten to make it so that the back could be opened up, so I sculpted a new back panel and rigged it so that it could be opened up I even added in a microchip into it so that there would be something inside when you opened it up. (well, I say it's a microchip, really it's just a basic green cuboid I stuck in there)
After the button, I created the screwdriver. It was quite simple really, just two sculpts that represented the base and the metal bit that actually does the screwdriving (which I quite like how that part in particular came out), I made the part that Hex Moother holds purple so that I could have a little bit of colour coordination between the villain and his tool of choice, but I also quite like how easily I can swap its colour by changing its hue slider. On it's own, this asset wouldn't be very note worthy, but after I'd finished making it, I realised that I made the base look kind of like a microphone, so during the stream, I actually remixed the screwdriver asset in order to create a microphone asset as well (just had to change a few colours and I was done) meaning I was able to get two assets out of one. (ah yes, the power of gaming strikes again)
Next, I got to work on doing the Bollen training area (which I made as a re-mix of the field in order to save time making yet another big plains area out of default platforms), for this one, I didn't really know what I wanted the obstacle course to look like so I just sort of made it up as I went along and I've got to say that I do like how it came out (even if it is a little bit bare bones at the moment since I've got other assets to make in the mean time), I decided to make the ground itself muddy so that I could differentiate this area from the regular field from the finale. (plus it looks cool)
After that, I touched up the Bollen Super Hero Agency by adding doors and then I made the area surrounding the Moocifer Corporation (which was yet another remix of the same field that was the base for the, as for the building itself, I'd actually already sculpted it out beforehand in my spare time (yeah, I know it's a little bit disappointing but sometimes I can't help but do these things), so I was able to plop it down and place the other buildings (which for those of you that don't know, are actually the shipping container assets I made for the tension builder at the beginning of the year) around it. I also decided to spice it up by dotting some of the trees from my FMP (but in colour this time) around the place.
Under any other circumstances, I would have finished there for the day... However, while I was waiting to use the bathroom, a random melody suddenly came crashing into my head, so after I was finished in there, I rushed downstairs in order to compose it immediately before I could forget it (possibly forever), I actually quite like how this whole thing came out because usually, I'd work on doing the bass line first and then do the melody from there. This time around however, it was a the total opposite, as the melody actually came first. I do quite like how the theme itself comes out to be quite a quaint little piece (sort of like the Kipper the Dog theme in a sense), although I'm not sure how I feel about how it fits the overall tone I'm going for (which is that of an action packed comedy), but then again, I do feel like it could fit nicely with the characters themselves plus I could simply use it as their leitmotif whenever they're on screen. (much like how Captain Cartridge and Ruff Bup have their leitmotifs in their respective cartoons)
Asset Production And Gathering Day 5: A Helicopter And A Riot Shield... That Is All
Today, I made two assets, the Hugh-Riot Shield and The Hugh-Helicopter. (which is now called the Hugh-Copter on account of the new name rolling off the tongue better)
The Hugh-Riot Shield was the simplest of the two assets, since all it really is when you break it down is a cuboid with a hole cut into it and a slot to stick your arm into. I decided to give it Hugo's eyes in order to allow it to at least emote a little bit even if it ends up just taking the form of angry, sad and bored eyelids (which I technically painted as individual frames of a single animation because it was easier than creating multiple copies of the same sculpt and switching them in and out via keyframes)
As for the Hugh-Copter, I originally said I wanted to simply modify an existing asset from the Dreamiverse (the Dreamiverse is where you can find all sorts of wonderful assets from other people by the way), but then I decided to make my own helicopter asset instead. The reason for this is because I feel doing so will allow the helicopter to actually fit in with cartoonier art style I'm going for here (even if it does look terrible due to how I don't really model vehicles frequently), plus it means I can potentially learn how to get better once this is all over. (meaning the next helicopter asset will theoretically be better than this one)
Asset Production And Gathering Days 6 And 7: Mainly A Bunch Of Music But There's Leaflets and Things As Well
Ok, so I ended up being quite busy yesterday so I couldn't quite get any reflection done, but luckily I can simply do two days worth of reflection instead.
Yesterday, I worked on the remaining props needed for the cartoon (for those of you at home that either need a refresher and/or haven't keeping track), I'd say the hardest one to create was actually the leaflet because I haven't done anything like that since the "Lights!" poster for Captain Cartridge remake, which was about a year ago as of me writing this, so it took a little time for me to readjust to how the painting is supposed to be layered so it took me several tries to get it right and even then, it still looks a bit weird up close (thank goodness I had the surface snap tool and the ability to delete the default platform to help me or else I would have saved this prop until the very end after the music was finished, if I got around to it at all)
Afterwards, I did the pen, which was significantly easier for me to make because of its more simplistic nature, as all I really had to do was make the base and then copy said base, edit it so that the hole was gone and shrink it down in order to make the other half (so it was essentially like what happened with the microphone but it happened within the same asset), for the little clip part you find on most pens, I used the "curve" shape in order to add in a curve without having to copy the same shape over and over again and at that point I was done (I just needed Hex Moother as a scale of reference to make sure the pen wasn't too big or too small)
Last but not least, I got to work on Hex Moother's gun. Beforehand I couldn't decide whether or not to make it look like a ray gun or something you'd find in reality, I ended up choosing the latter because I think I think seeing these cartoony characters wield actual guns might elicit laughter from the audience unless yet another shooting happens, then I'll have royally screwed up big time... Come to think of it, I think it might have been a better idea to make it more of a ray gun after all, luckily I do actually have a model already done from when I was trying to make that Super Sheep game (I mean, this new gun model looks like hot garbage anyway, and I can use it as a vehicle to further connect Super Sheep and Captain Cartridge so it might just be worth the trade), so all in all, modelling this gun was probably a wasted effort all around (although I could probably still use it as a background decoration somewhere)
As for what I did today, I mainly composed most of the other character's themes (Hex Moother, The Bollen Super Hero Agency and Steve Washington), I think my favourite out of the bunch has to be Hex Moother's. The reason for this is partly because I think it has a really good bass line (because I seem to at least be competent when it comes to bass lines for the most part), but I also quite like Steve's drum beat although the reason it took so long for me to even make Steve's theme was because my mother was doing the hoovering (talk about bad timing on my part), like wise, my least favourite has got to be the Bollen theme because I couldn't seem to figure out what I thought the right sound for the melody was (I tried everything from rock to orchestra), although I do still enjoy the bassline and drums like I do for all the others. While I don't think I've got a complete grasp on composing yet, I do seem to be producing more and more results that I actually like, so I must be getting something right at this point, but perhaps if I learnt to write sheet music before hand instead of composing everything on the spot, I'd be in a better position than I am now (although in fairness, saying this has become a bit of a running theme with me, much like how I'm constantly wishing I did animatics for every project that comes along even though I never follow through on that wish)
We Interrupt This Program To Bring You Another Project Management Update
Ok, so in my self wallowing last week, I ended up forgetting that I'd given myself an extra week to get the assets together because I didn't believe I could do them all in one week, and now it's the start of the final week of asset production and already, I've produced nearly everything on the list thanks to the power of video games (the only exception a single music piece, but even then it should be relatively easy since I've already done Hex Moother's theme)
We Now Return You To Your Regularly Scheduled Program: Asset Production And Gathering Day 8: More Composing And A Few Minor Modifications
Today, I composed most of the remaining music, I did "Exo-Stential Crisis", "Hex Moother Gets Arrested At The End" and the cartoon intro theme. All of these were significantly easier for me to compose since I could simply re-use pieces of the other songs I made in order to at least try and imply some form of motif going on, for example, I used the melody from Steve's theme during the making "Exo-Stential Crisis" because it'll be part of the scene where Steve is introduced (the only thing I did was change the drum beat so that it would suit a fight scene much better), and I reused the bass from the Bollen theme in "Hex Moother Gets Arrested At The End" because Antler-Man is trying to arrest Hex Moother until Super Sheep sends Hex to jail himself. (much to Antler-Man's frustration) I think the reason composing music gets easier for me as I go on during both this and the Captain Cartridge remake is because as I compose more of the various melodies, I can then use said melodies as part of some of the other music in order to add in leitmotifs, plus, I'm making everything up as I go, which is usually frowned upon in conventional circumstances. (although technically, I'm not working under conventional circumstances)
In between a few of the music pieces, I decided to take some time to touch up some of the assets I already made in order to make them better for when I'm actually making the project, this took the form of moving a few posters around and adding a blue pen into Super Sheep's Dingy Apartment, touching up the field so that it has a river, some extra bushes and even a few trees (which are all newly made for this cartoon instead of just stealing from Ruff Bup's and adding a splash of colour so that no-one will notice), I quite like the improvements I made to the field because now it doesn't look as bland as it did previously (all this thanks to the extra week I've given myself)
I think once I've done the "Hex Chase" music I could go back and touch up some of the other locations in a similar manner to that of the field (I mean I've got time now, I might as well go ahead and do this)
Asset Production And Gathering: Day 9: The Final Piece Of Music
Today, I finally managed to do every single asset that was on my list, as I composed the final piece of music that I needed for the project! Well... I say "composed", but really all I did was mash the Justice Trio's Theme into Hex Moother's Theme and called it a day, the only major change I made was making the melody for the Justice Trio's theme fit in better with Hex Moother's and sped up the tempo in order to make the music seem more intense (as you would for a piece of music that's intended to be used for a chase scene), other than those minor changes, there really isn't much else I can reflect on.
With that being said, I could spend the rest of this week improving all the assets, since certain assets such as The Bollen Super Hero Agency desperately need that extra time in this metaphorical oven.
Asset Production And Gathering Day 10: Doing Up The Agency
Today, I decided to give the Bollen Super Hero Agency a little bit more of a glow up (much like I did with that field in day 8), and I think I may have gone a little bit overboard in some places. First, I added in a big desk and sculpted a computer as well as the monitor that goes with it (the only reason I didn't sculpt a keyboard was because I decided to use the one I made for Captain Cartridge instead, since doing so would be faster) and then I copied and pasted it across the room, but before I started copying and pasting, I made sure that the monitor had some text written on it via a text displayer (which also doubled as the black screen so that I could hide the fact there's actually a gargantuan hole that cut through the cuboid) and made it so that the actual PC unit would have RGB lights like those you'd find on a gaming PC, partly because I want to imply that these guys have really powerful computers and didn't know how else to do it in a way that would be quick and easy.
After this, I decided to get to work adding a few wall decorations, which ended up being the most time consuming part because of the fact I actually went ahead and painted the faces of Super Sheep, The Night Pig, Lorange and Hugo. The main reason this was so time consuming for me was because I didn't actually have access to a way to actually fill in the areas inside the various outlines (likely due to how the painting tools are designed to also be used in 3D space rather than just 2D), so I had to colour everything in manually instead. Originally I wanted to have Hugo's panel outright cover Lorange's face in order to drive home the point that Lorange is dead, but after realising how difficult it would be to see what little of Lorange isn't covered by Hugo due to the camera being too far away, I decided to simply nudge Hugo next to her instead. (while still keeping his panel so that he's still the odd one out in this scenario)
After I finished this, I then went a little bit overboard with adding in extra lore via background elements, this mainly applied with the two boards I have decorating the walls where one one, I'd put in the current status of all four characters. (who Bollen are trying to get to join them) It was here that I decided to experiment with the idea of The Night Pig being an urban myth where some of the characters don't believe he even exists, implying that he's so good at stealth that not a lot of characters believe he exists (although saying this, the fact that Commander Sur-vey even had footage of The Night Pig does kind of destroy this bit of world building), I also used the "Notice Board" on the other side to imply the existence of both Octo-Guy, who I decided is currently doing top secret missions in Japan [as to what those missions are, I can't say here. ;p] and Detective Griswold, as well as the disappearance of a kid named "Carl Ridge" (which may or may not be related to a certain SEGA Genesis/Mega Drive themed space janitor and his motley crew, but I'll leave that one for another day), needless to say, I had quite a bit of fun coming up with things to put on those boards (which were made using text displayers)
After that I simply placed a few orange pens on the table in the middle of the main (and currently only) room, and then once I was done there I made Super Sheep's Dingy Apartment a little bit smaller because I felt as if I'd given the dude too much living space when he's supposed to be in poverty. I think I might be ready to get to work animating the whole thing at last, but first I think I want to do all the voice acting I need for it (since that'll help me do the animation and lib syncing more easily)
I'm Afraid I have Some Bad News Boys (And Girls)
Ok, so your probably wondering "where's the voice acting stream you big hack?", well if I can be honest with you, I've been hinging this entire project on either my dad or my brother going back to working from work so that I can do some actual acting without catching any of dad's music in the background. Unfortunately, despite the lockdown restrictions being lifted, nothing has changed in this regard, and since my Mum and Dad haven't been walking as much (I partially relied on those walks in order to get the acting done for Captain Cartridge last year), I basically found myself in a sticky situation, which from what I've heard, isn't likely to change until September, meaning by the time either of them go back to work, I'll be too busy in college to even think about completing this project. As a result, I've decided to make the difficult decision to postpone this particular project until next year. (which will hopefully be when lockdowns and self isolation stop being a looming possibility) As to what I'll be putting in it's place, I'm thinking I could start doing mini experiments again like I did during the production for Super Sheep in Convention F-3 in order to test the versatility of the newly modified models, test elements that would have been used in the big exo-suit project if I didn't decide to cancel it, I.E: characters fighting each other without a fighting cloud and some stuff to do with The Night Pig in particular and various editing tricks that could also be used outside of the animations I do. (I.E: I could properly test out match cuts and the like) For these tests, I will have to pull audio from different sources (I.E: Who Framed Roger Rabbit, The Super Mario Bros Movie and other media sources) because it means I don't have to wait until my Dad and/or Brother go back to work since I'll be using that cable I mentioned back in the brief foray into the world of Foley sound effects earlier this year. I'll admit, I was a little bit hesitant on importing audio after Media Molecule updated the audio tools, but I think now's as good a time as any to try again (although thinking about it, I actually could go ahead and import some of those Foley sounds I made for that audio task earlier this year)
Ok Doc, So What Do You Want Test Do You Want To Do First?
well, I was thinking I could do a test where I compare the potential of doing a LEGO Batman impression vs an Eddie Valant impression for The Night Pig's voice (since earlier I said I wanted to toy around with that) by animating The Night Pig saying a few lines from their respective movies, a similar trick was done in order to convince Tom Hanks to play Woody from Toy Story:
As for which clips I'm going to pick, preferably I'd want clips where the characters are saying various bits of dialogue without other sound effects or music getting in the way (although this can't always be helped), so for LEGO Batman (Will Arnett), I've decided to steal the audio from the scene where he and Robin are stealing the Phantom Zone Projector from Super-Man because there happen to be certain points (particularly in the beginning and ending) where it's just Batman talking with no other sounds in the way:
As for Bob Hoskins, I might have to use multiple sources so that I can get a similar amount of audio clips that are as clean as possible.
Source 1: The scene where Eddie's at the bar and tells a guy "I. Don't. Work. For toons!":
The reason I chose this scene was because Bob delivers the line with a rather angry tone in his voice (because a guy was just poking fun at him and he lacked a sense of humour at this point)
Source 2: The scene where Eddie is hiding Roger in his sink and he puts a bar of soap in a weasel's mouth:
The reason I picked this scene is because Bob actually delivers this particular line differently to how he delivered the previous line (unlike Will, who delivers Batman's lines with a similarly gritty tone)
Source 3: The ending from Who Framed Roger Rabbit
I chose this scene because of the part where Eddie grabs Roger by the neck and kisses him to show he hasn't lost his sense of humour when Roger did the buzzer on the hand trick, since there are no other sounds besides Eddie asking "Does this answer your question?" (in yet another different tone nonetheless)
So now that that's been established, I can get to work animating the test footage tomorrow.
Random Experimentation Day 1: The Voice Of A Cartoon Pig
Ok, so today didn't exactly go off to a great start, as at first, I though they'd finally figured out how to detect copywritten audio in Dreams, only to realise my Duelsense controller's microphone had been switched off. (which is how I usually like it anyway) After I switched it on, I was then able to record Eddie's voice lines normally. after that, I'd forgotten to turn the microphone off again, as once I turned the volume up on my phone (which is where I make sure the stream is actually working as intended), I realised that the audio the microphone picked up had now ended up in the stream, I ended up deleting that first stream entirely because some of that stuff is private affairs, but since I'm currently so obscure that no-one but me watches my streams consistently for the most part, I can safely say it's likely I won't be hearing from that stream again. I guess this must be karma for how lucky I was to get a PS5 in the first place, and on the plus side, this means you'll get to hear the audio I import while I'm importing it rather than getting to do so after the fact like on PS4, although that little incident near the beginning has deterred me from wanting to import audio on stream again for a little while, so don't be surprised if I don't do any new animations that feature dialogue from other films or games (unless said audio already exists in Dreams)
After I'd recorded all of Eddie's lines, I got to work animating them into a scenario where The Night Pig defeats Antler-Man by shoving a pen into his mouth, which is something I made up on the spot, much like I do a lot of the scenarios where I'm testing things. Since these are little more than test animations, the quality of the animation itself has taken a bit of a hit since the dialogue is supposed to be the main focus here. (this is the same reason there's no real environment to speak of, just the default platform and a white room in the case of the "Justice League Party" test. Speaking of the "Justice League Party" test, for Will Arnett, I decided to animate three seperate scenes (which is part of the reason why there's three Will Arnett tests and only one Bob Hoskins test with three voice lines) because unlike with Bob's lines where I could string them together in a way that made sense outside of their original contexts I couldn't quite do the same thing with Will's lines, which were a pain to record because for some reason my aux cable would end up making it record random garbled nonsense instead (so apologies if I accidentally destroyed anyone's ears with glitched out nonsense), so I ended up with four raw clips instead of only two when all was said and done.
Editing everything together was quite simple, as all I needed to do was trim the clips I recorded slightly and add in a black screen with text in-between each clip while the file select music from Sonic 3 played in the background and I was good to go.
I'm thinking tomorrow I could get started on making that second version of the PS5 version of that PS2 demo (because this time I want a bigger variety of games to be shown off rather than it being mostly a Ratchet and Clank Rift Apart Showcase with other games sprinkled in there), although I could also try animating a fight scene that isn't just a fighting cloud the whole time.
Random Experimentation Day 2: A Second Version
Oh boy, so today ended up being really busy for me, as I ended up doing a lot of streaming and gameplay recording today, but before we begin, I think I should get the "New Challenger" bit out of the way first:
Ok, so the only one out of this lot that isn't actually new is Minecraft, but I made the graphic because I ended up using a piece from the Sonic DLC pack they made.
All that aside, today was a lot more varied than usual due to all the different games I had to get footage from (from Ratchet and Clank to Minecraft and Alex Kidd), although getting this footage was really easy because all I had to do was hit record at certain points and just play the games as I would normally (and now the world gets to know how bad at video games I really am), although in the case of Minecraft, I could use creative mode to give myself a decent amount of gear so that when I actually did hit record, it would look like I actually had that many resources in the video. (it's not cheating because I'm not doing a let's play of Minecraft)
For the most part I can say this about every single game I played (including Dreams PS4/5), but there were some note worthy things that ended up happening with certain games. When I was streaming Sackboy: A Big Adventure, the visuals ended up getting cut off near the end of the stream due to a low quality internet connection, but the sound was just fine (I did have to check in order to make sure it wasn't secretly recording my mic's audio so that I didn't end up with a similar incident to what happened yesterday), so it ended up being a big grey box that emitted the game's sounds, as for Rift Apart, I ended up realising that not all the enemy encounters reset after you've beaten the game, so I had to improvise a little bit with the photo mode and then start up a second stream after my dad showed me a bit of Album Art software he found (other than that, it was smooth sailing) With Dreams PS4/5, I mainly planned on capturing footage from the "Art's Dream" campaign, but I also tried to capture some create mode footage too (the latter of which never got used because I took too long to make something), but then I ended up getting the idea to also pull footage from my own shorts to add in a little bit of self promotion into the video. (because nothing screams PlayStation Demo video than a guy hijacking it to promote his Luke-warm cartoons) Other than those few things, I got nothing much to really talk about today besides the editing, although I suppose that if my dream to make cartoons ends up falling through, I could become a streamer instead (but I could also use streaming to financially supplement the production of said cartoons while paying off the inevitable student debt)
Editing the video together was relatively easy, as I could experiment a little bit with the flow and pacing of the video using a mix of the new footage I captured today and the footage I captured for version one, which ended up allowing me to keep certain elements from the original that I really liked (I.E: that match cut where Ratchet seems to teleport between the parade float and a pirate ship while doing the same animation) and it allowed me to do things like add in a little gag bit involving the Supermarket Shriek characters in the special stages from Sonic The Hedgehog 2 just before the main video begins although with that being said, some of the footage I captured did end up going to waste because it never got used, but at least I had more choices available to be than I did the first time around (and as everyone knows, more options is always a good thing)
Tomorrow, I could try animating a proper fight scene like the ones you find in shows such as Dragon Ball Z (or Super Mario Bros Z if you're like me and only watched that particular series), I think it'll be a fun thing to try out and it'll prepare me for when I decide to do something similar in the future for a much bigger project (maybe when I come back to the Super Sheep cartoon I was working on next year)
Wait, What Happened Here?!
Ok, so while I did have the feeling that animating this part might take a while, it was only near the end of the stream (which by that point I'd only animated Steve giving the first blow) that I thought to myself "you know, maybe this is going to require a little bit of actual preparation and planning" because as it turns out, fight scenes that don't resort to a fighting cloud are a harder to do on a whim than I initially thought so maybe after I do a little more prep work for it I can come back and tackle this, maybe it could be next year's project in preparation for when I do it in "Hexo's Exos" (speaking of Hexo's Exos, I'll be working on it in the background so that when next year comes I can jump straight into production)
One thing that I did do was actually experimented with changing Super Sheep's model a little bit so that his body had more sculptural detail, I also ended up having to make the spheres that make up his body slightly flatter so that his arms weren't clipping into them as much. I actually quite like these changes because it means Super Sheep's body looks a little bit more woolly rather than furry which is a good thing because the dude's a sheep. (I just have to remember to touch up the base model and I'm good to go)
Tomorrow, I think I'll try and recreate the scene in Sonic Adventure 2 where Sonic and Shadow meet while on Prison Island:
The reasons I want to recreate this scene is because I think it can help me work with varied camera angles, I've already imported Sonic and Shadow's voice lines earlier, Super Sheep and Steve are partially inspired by Sonic and Shadow anyway so I think it'll be a nice tribute and I just really want to.
Random Experimentation: Day 3 (or is it day 4): I Found You, Faker!
I'm just going to come right out and say it, I actually had quite a lot of fun doing this one, since I'd already done much of the legwork of importing the sound effects and voice lines beforehand speaking of the voice lines, when I was doing sonic's, I specifically made sure that I had that entire exchange on stand by because as a Sonic fan, I'd be foolish not to. (and yes, that did mean doing shadow's lines too)
Anyway, for this animation, I decided to have the scene take place on that field I made for Super Sheep in Hexo's Exos because I didn't want that particular asset to go to waste since I put in at least three quarters of an effort into it. (perhaps I should do more of these experiments in the new locations so that they don't go to waste either) Since I didn't really have much of a plan for this particular experiment apart from recreating the vague positioning of both characters (meaning that Super Sheep has to look up) as well as the scenario itself, I let loose with the more cartoony animation by having the characters do exaggerated movements (by adding things such as Super Sheep forgetting one of the lines for a moment) and replace the music with Steve's Theme, which meant this recreation would end up taking a more comedic tone.
With the voice lines being imported however, that did mean I had to work around the fact that Steve would have to call Super Sheep a "Fake hedgehog" despite the fact that both he and Steve are actually Sheep, so I decided to have it so that Super Sheep would whip out a sign calling Steve an idiot for getting the species wrong, that way I wouldn't have to actually change the line)
I also added in a few extra sound effects (those being Sonic Adventure 2's jump sound effect, a modified version of the Metal Gear alert sound and even a sped up version of the inception horn) in order to add in a little bit of humorous flair to this particular rendition.
With all of this combined with the new camera movements I added when Steve said "You're not good enough to be my fake", I think the improvisational approach I took here may have worked in favour of the humour here. Of course, that's not to say that planning this out couldn't have made it any better, since doing so would give me the advantage of actually knowing what I'm even doing.
Tomorrow, I think I might do another green screen experiment so that the research I did near the beginning of the project doesn't end up going to waste.
Random Experimentation Day 4 (We've decided the fight scene doesn't count because it's didn't get finished): Super Sheep Goes Back Into Minecraft
For this experiment, I decided to put Super Sheep back into Minecraft using the power of green screens (or should I say pink screen since I felt that would be better near the end), I chose to do this because I didn't want the research I did near the beginning of what would have been Super Sheep in Hexo's Exos wouldn't end up going to waste in the end.
The first thing I did was capture the Minecraft footage, this was in fact the easiest part of the whole process because all I had to do was fly to the right on a super flat world after remembering to turn off things such as the HUD and player hand. (nothing special there, anybody could do that) The only other thing I could say about this was that Sonic made a minor cameo appearance, which is really stretching it. The reason I captured the background footage first was so that when I animate the foreground elements, I can have a lighting reference so that I'll know how best to match the lighting conditions so that when I di put the two together, it'll look more convincing than if I did it the other way around. (which would be the equivalent to going in with a blindfold on)
Afterwards came the part where I animate Super Sheep in Dreams. (after quickly modifying his model once again) This was also quite easy since I only had to animate a single run cycle for him since the background is always on the move (although I did run into a slight snag with his left ear glitching out when I animated it flapping, so I scrapped the ear flapping idea entirely), originally the background was going to be green, but then I swapped it out for a pink background instead because I felt like there would be less complications when actually compositing the footage in Share Factory Studio. (I mean, as long as it was a solid coloured background and the colour didn't match any of the colours on the actual characters, I should be good to go) The hardest part was making sure that the lighting was as neutral as possible and that Super Sheep didn't have any dark areas, since Minecraft doesn't have dynamic light and shadows (not that doing that was actually hard, it just took me a little while to do)
Next came the part where I put everything together into Share Factory Studio, much like gathering the Minecraft footage, doing this wasn't too hard (although this time it's because I have a bit more experience), although I did end up having to speed up the Minecraft footage so that it was double the speed because the original didn't match with how fast Super Sheep was running. I also decided to add in a little bit of music (specifically the unused "Club Scene" music from Sonic The Hedgehog 2) in order to make the footage a little bit more interesting.
I'm not really sure what I want to do tomorrow, but I'm sure I'll think of something I can do. (but if I end up doing nothing, you'll know why)
Random Experimentation Day 5: Getting To Do A Little Bit Of Voice Acting After All (Part 1)
Ok to be honest, today I wasn't really planning on doing anything because I wanted to take a little break from doing these little experiments, but a golden opportunity came knocking on my door to do a little voice acting while my dad was out back doing a bit of painting if this had happened last week, I wouldn't have ended up cancelling the cartoon I originally wanted to make in the first place. Speaking of, I decided exactly what I want the characters to say right then and there (since there wasn't any time to get a script ready), so after several takes with each character (including a cheeky cameo from Captain Cartridge to poke fun at our heroes), I decided to get started with the animation process (which I decided should take place in Super Sheep's Dingy Apartment so that the work I put into it doesn't go to waste), which I also have to make up on the spot due to the lack of preparation. Because I started late however, I was only able to get the first few seconds finished before deciding to call it quits for the day. Unlike the fight scene however, I feel I can get away with the lack of preparation time here like I did with the Sonic Adventure 2 recreation because this particular scene isn't as complex as your average fight scene (since all it really consists of is the characters standing around and talking for the most part), so I should have it done by tomorrow at the absolute earliest.
I will admit, it does feel quite strange knowing that what the PS5 controller's microphone records ends up in the actual stream this time rather than me having to test the audio after the fact like I did previously and still do, because the audio quality from my PS5's microphone is somehow capable of doing two different audio qualities at the same time (because Dreams somehow balances the audio from the mic to create audio of a slightly better quality than what I would hear from other game controller's mics if I actually played with people online), but I think there might be a little bit of potential, as now you get to hear me doing the voice acting while I'm doing it. (albeit you'll be hearing it at a worse quality than what'll end up in the cartoon)
Random Experimentation Day 6: Getting To Do A Little Bit Of Voice Acting After All (Part 2)
Ok, so before we begin today's reflection, I just wanted to mention something I forgot to talk about yesterday. I decided to make a reference to Sans from Undertale because of the fact I gave all the characters a Sans like smile as one of their alternate mouths, during this, I decided to also have the first two notes of Megalovania (which is the song that plays when you get to Sans' fight near the end of Undertale) playing so that I could get a cheap laugh from catching the audience off guard and embrace the memes I'm sure my generation will be known for.
Now that that's been cleared up, we can move on to what I did today.
So today, I mainly continued working on animating the rest of the voice lines, naively thinking I'd be able to get everything done today. Needless to say, I did not accomplish this, as I only got a couple of the other voice lines animated due to how I would end up getting the idea to set the whole thing in the void instead (since I figured it would be a more appropriate local for our heroes to find out the big news), so I ended up having to spend time deleting a bunch of the area I was working in (luckily, this is a remix and won't affect the original asset) and adding an echo via the sound channel gadgets (yup, there are gadgets for editing the various sound channels in this game), and when the stream wasn't cutting itself off due to poor internet quality (which is why this part was split into two streams), there was also the potential threat of a pair of football matches coming into ruin everything (which is why I ended up having to pause everything during the second stream of the day), but luckily the football match were exclusive to something called "LFC TV GO" (some football streaming service that exists to show Liverpool games exclusively, because I guess football fans that support specific clubs are so territorial that they need their own specific streaming services now), so I was mostly safe. (of course, there was still the treat of my stream ruining the 03:00PM match for my dad, but other than two close calls I was fine) My new estimate for when I'll get this done is about a week from now after having put all the voice lines together (although I hope that this ends up being an overestimation), oh hey, speaking of, I actually did a little bit of editing for certain voice lines because I felt that there might have been to much of an awkward pause between sentences as well as unnecessary dialogue (a staple of making things up as I go along), I did this so that when I do release the final version, I can at least pretend the whole thing was planned out.
Random Experimentation Day 7: Getting To Do A Little Voice Acting After All (Part 3)
Ok, I think this project really did end up being more than I could chew, and I didn't want this to end up lasting a week, so I decided to cut a whole bunch of lines out and simply end it after the announcer tells our heroes that the cartoon's been cancelled, afterwards I could focus on filling this void with props and a couple of other characters from a lot of my previous projects, the reason for this is because now I want it so that this particular void is where all the characters from Slamination Studios hang out and wait until I decide to make another project with said characters in it (this bit of lore has been made up as I went along), as for actually animating the characters, it wasn't too much of a hassle, although I did end up rushing so that I could get this done at the cost of the quality of the animation itself.
With this in mind, I think I'll take a break from doing these experiments and then blogging about them, I say this because to be honest, this experiment ended up taking a lot out of me, perhaps I could spend this time doing other things, blogging about other subjects I'm interested in or even just relaxing for a little while.
Random Experimentation Day 8: We're Fading Back, Baby!
After a quick break blogging about Super Sheep and his friends and where they all come from, it's finally time for me to get off my keister and do a little bit more experimentation, since at this point, doing the cartoon now would only result in an unfinished mess.
In today's experiment, I decided to mix things up a bit and focus more on the editing side of things rather than the animation side, as I figured there were some potentially nifty things I could do on that front. As a result, I decided that today I could try and do a seamless fade from one scene to the next.
Of course, the kind of seamless fading I was looking for is actually one of the few things that Dreams can't quite do (at least not yet anyways, you never know if they'll add it as a feature in a future update), as such, for this experiment I decided to simply record the two scenes separately. (both of which are remixes of previous animations I did in order to save time rebuilding the locations) Animating the whole thing was actually really easy due to the more minimalistic approach I took with it, as Hugo simply does a standing cycle and Super Sheep doesn't move an inch due to how this experiment is more focused on the editing for a change.
Speaking of the editing, that was also a real breeze too since I was only focusing on getting the actual fade right, so I was able to put it together lickity-split. (just slap in some music from the Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games for the soundtrack and I was good to go) With that being said however, the speed at which I was able to do this means there's not really a whole lot I can say really, with this in mind however, perhaps I could have experimented a little bit more with messing with the length of the actual fade transition, that way I could potentially make it a bit better and I'd actually have a little bit more to say in here.
Tomorrow, I think I'll do a little bit more messing around with the editing side of things because I feel like doing so might actually improve my ability to edit in the future. (plus it means I can potentially get a head start in case I end up becoming fortunate enough to acquire more professional editing software in the future)
Random Experimentation Day 9: Wiper, No Wiping
Today, I decided to experiment with doing a matching wipe to and from black where at one end we see Super Sheep running in a field during the day, but once we transition to the other end it's now The Night Pig running in the very same field at night. (because his name is The NIGHT Pig) The reason I decided to try experimenting with this particular transition is because of an idea I have for when The Night Pig gets a movie that'll act as the end point for the Super Sheep franchise (after which point I'm thinking of making the whole thing public domain), that's right, I haven't even written the first film and already I have plans for the end of the franchise.
Regarding this experiment, I decided to make part one a remix of the second part of yesterday's experiment (which means now I'm working with a remix of a remix) because it saves me having to place down the model for Super Sheep again. In terms of animation, it was a little bit more involved, since now instead of the character just standing there motionless, he now has to do a little bit of running, although it is still a single cycle so it was really easy to animate for me. Speaking of Super Sheep's run cycle, I decided to make it a lot more like Sonic's run cycle in Sonic Heroes, complete with the part where his hands open when they swing behind him for some reason. (although due to the camera placement you don't ever see his hands open, so that may have been a wasted effort) After I finished animating the actual run, I simply installed a mover into the character's microchip (where I also put the timeline for the run cycle) and set the whole thing so that it wasn't affected by physics (as well as tweaking the mover itself and even adding a keyframe to turn it on), I was able to get Super Sheep off and running.
As for the camera, I decided to stick it inside the character's microchip so that when he moved, it would move too (thus saving me from having to actually animate the camera in the process), I also decided to mess around with the aperture (which has nothing to do with any portals or testing facilities), the camera's depth of field and even it's field of view so that Super Sheep (and later The Night Pig) would look nice and big when on screen. (although looking back at the footage it just looks like the characters were green screened in even though they weren't, especially Super Sheep)
After I established the doorway in the first part, I decided to remix it in order to create the second part but I'd replace Super Sheep with The Night Pig instead, and at this point I decided to re-use The Night Pig's sprinting cycle I made when I was working on that overly ambitious Super Sheep game. The reason I remixed the first part in order to create the second was so that I could re-use the same camera, timeline and even doorway, except I cloned it to make a second one to act as an entrance and altered the exit one to reflect The Night Pig's slower running speed. Oh, and I made the second scene take place at night so that there's at least some difference between the two shots besides the characters. (because both scenes ended up taking place in the same area because of all the remixing shenanigans)
Once that was finished, I then strung the two scenes together into a Dream that way my doorway from the first scene would lead into the second one seamlessly and I wouldn't have to record two separate clips (because both scenes would play one after another as if they were one), which I would've had to then stitch together in Share Factory Studio.
Speaking of Share Factory Studio, editing everything together was a breeze since I only had to drop in the singular clip and add in a little bit of music so that there would be some sort of soundtrack for the visuals. The most challenging part (at least relative to what else I was doing) was getting the music to fade out and fade in at the same time as the footage but even then, it was just a matter of remembering how long I set the wipe in and wipe out to be during the Dreams part and mimic it with the music in Share Factory. After that I was pretty much done.
Tomorrow, I'm not really sure what I want to do, since I've already done a lot of what I want to do for these experiments (except the fight scene, but that would probably take too long to do now), so I think I might finish up here (unless I end up getting another idea out of the blue)
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