CGI | Sci-fi Art

So, this is a behind-the-scenes video of the vocal session which happened on Saturday afternoon.  The equipment and engineering expertise came from my friend Danny from EarShock.com.  Many thanks for your help, Danny.

The video is not professionally done, but at least it gives an idea what the sessions are like for recording the dialogue for these things, and how we do it.  Sometimes it does get silly, and it almost always feels weird doing these characters and acting like this, especially when playing a scene where the characters are supposed to be in horribly perilous situations and you're standing in your bedroom.

Hope everyone is doing awesome.

Dan

This is the kind of storyboard I use.  Perhaps I may have a future as a doctor... or some kind of cryptologist somewhere forging secrets... if the only person you need to unlock said secrets is myself, I suppose.

The little sticky note on my monitor should be an indication why this is so rushed.  With four concurrent projects, all getting behind, it is unlikely I'll have a lot of time to work on this animation project.  But I'd really like to try my hand at effects and explosions and stuff instead of just static spaceship designs, so I decided to start with the first 3 shots of the animation and storyboard them out (roughly, obviously).  Perhaps something will get done.

Hope everyone is doing awesome.

Dan

With work for one client almost finished, I might have some time to work on something I've had in mind for a few weeks, now.  An attempt at doing a massive effects piece, 1 minute long.



Requirements: Better computer.  I'm hoping I'll be able to do a modest upgrade to my personal workstation shortly.  Also, I will need to build the following items: the bridge of the Retreat.  The drone mentioned.  The interior room of the unnamed crew member, and the observatory.

The drone and the interior room will be easy for the most part.  The observatory and the bridge will be difficult.  The most challenging aspects will be the character animation and the simulations, which will involve a lot of bullet physics for the debris and smoke simulation for the explosions.

It'd be grand if I could do it, though.  We'll see.

Dan

Hey all,

So, just a sending out a message to all the friends who follow me on this site.

I haven't updated this page in a while because I have been inundated with work for customers who have requested privacy.  As such, I have not had time to produce any of my own work and so have had no content to put on my website.  I'll try to get some stuff up soon, including another tutorial on CGCookie.com, this time a 3 part series on how to create science fiction interiors quickly in Blender.

Hopefully everyone is doing okay.

Thanks,
Dan

CGCookie asked me to do another tutorial for them.  Here it is.  This one ended up much better, so I'm pleased.

Hopefully it helps everyone out.


http://cgcookie.com/blender/2014/08/12/create-laser-beam-blender/

Please note: You'll need a paid membership to CG Cookie to download the files.  I didn't know this when I made the tutorial, and so the tutorial reflects that ignorance on my part.  But at least it gives an idea on how to do the effect, and hopefully everyone can get something out of it.

I'll see about releasing the laser cannon mesh on BlendSwap, though.

I guess I must have done something right, though, because they've asked me to do another tutorial for them.  Let's see how this one goes, now that I've learned from the mistakes on this one!

Best regards,
Dan

A few years back, I wrote a movie called Armranath.  It's still the best thing I've ever written, and it's not bad, as movie scripts go.  It'll probably never be made, but I might just put it on Deviant Art one day, just so anyone who cares enough to trudge through a 2 hour script can read it.

Anyway, almost all of the action takes place aboard an aging space freighter captained by a middle aged Thrassi man named Seranno Nero.  Since he owned the ship at the time, he named it the Nero's Fire.

I've had a few iterations of the ship over the years, but nothing I was really satisfied with.  I've been working on this on my free weekend time (which isn't much), and finally, now that I've got my computer up and running again, I've gotten my chance to show how she looks so far.

Nero's Fire WIP





Obviously, still a long ways to go, but I really like her.  She's beautiful in my eyes. :)

Dan

So, it finally happened.  My patched and sputtering old Ubuntu installation finally croaked.

And with it, unfortunately, went probably 5 gigabytes of data into the netherworld, including an entire project for a client...


On the plus side, the tutorial for CGCookie is about to work out, I suppose.  We'll see what they say.  I had so many technical issues with that thing, that's what preceded the need to upgrade.  In the upgrade, however, I failed to save every file...oh well.

So, it was clearly about time to upgrade my Ubuntu. Now, I'm getting used to 14.04, trying to figure out what I will do to repair the damage, and languishing in horror at the lost data, realizing I'm about to do hours of work for free.

Dan

Finished the public version of the ship.  Now, onto the private version for the client.

It is available here.  If you know anyone who'd like a space fighter, give a shout out and direct them to my storefront on Turbo Squid.  I'd greatly appreciate any help anyone can give.

Product ID: 835427










Hope everyone is doing great.

Thanks,
Dan