Completed rocket-plume effect, from three different angles, with the sound effect. [NOTE (2022): Getting a decent non-photorealistic, but compelling, rocket plume special animation effect to match our 3D-anime-ish style was a challenge I spent ...
Revised rocket plume effect, test animation (no audio). After a lot of experimentation, I settled on this very simple effect as the most appropriate. It's mostly just a moving texture with a four-color ramp. [NOTE (2022): this is NOT the final ...
Main title sequence intended for the 3-episode pilot arc, revised in November 2020 to fix some remaining title animation issues that had been bugging me. Sergei now has a portrait image. And some title animations have been tweaked to look a little...
Testing parameter ranges and texture development for animated cloud effect used in the timelapse sequences in the "Lunatics!" pilot episode.
This is topical summary of my worklog screencasts for the entire process of creating the Sky Rig for the "timelapse" sequences in the "Lunatics!" pilot. This includes a lot of missteps, but doesn't include research or tutorial training time, altho...
Insert cartoon for Southwest Reprise Theatre's production of "The Very Merry Xmas Carol Holiday Adventure Show", showing the horrors of the dreaded "Xmas", which is the evident villain of the story -- or so it seems, at least. It's a silly cart...
This is a visual effects video we created for a community theater production of "Alice in Wonderland". During the play, the actress ducks behind a curtain, this video plays for her fall into Wonderland, and then she emerges for the rest of the pla...
This is a mock-up of the shot, with an animated video standing in for the matted live-action shot (from the greenscreen shoot). The video is presented on a plane in the 3D animation, rigged to always face the camera. The "flotsam" is incomplete...
This was a video I prepared, originally as part of the 2-Minute Tutorial series. But I never posted it, because: 1) it was not technically a tutorial, 2) it uses a lot of copyrighted source art I wasn't sure about publishing (even tho...
The director animates! It's no secret that I'm not the top character animator around here, but I am learning! I decided to do this one, because I was interested in the rigging to follow the signature effect (which is using the "dynamic paint re...
The dynamic paint texture used to key the dynamic paint reveal effect.
After much more experimentation, I've manage a very slight improvement in the writing animation, and also of course added a simple rigged pen to follow the motion (though this is probably not the pen I'll use in the production shot). I didn't want...
Test using Blender's dynamic paint to reveal an already prepared signature graphic (no sound). The timing is fairly close to what I want, though it might need some tweaking. The biggest problem is that the brush is revealing some parts before the...
Revisiting this part of the project, now that I understand Blender texture nodes and other data structures better. This is a simple animation meant to represent the lander's retro rocket firing and stirring up dust on the Lunar surface. This is me...
This is a test of a flickering-monitor effect on the Mission Control Room set. Created for the "Lunatics!" animated pilot ( http://lunatics.tv ). It's really just a 2-second test, repeated 20 times, so you have some time to look at it. I'm not ...
Keneisha Perry has redesigned the facial rigs for Lunatics, replacing the original shape-key-based rigs with a simpler skeletal rig. This is faster to apply and may be simpler to animate. They still work with Papagayo, as this demo shows. She's al...
Draft of ambient audio loop for the photosynthetic algal reactor in the colony (it's a tank full of algae with air bubbled through it to pick up oxygen from photosynthesis). Made from multiple original recordings mixed, equalized, and looped in A...
Three-camera animation test. Footage was rendered in Blender from three camera views of the same animated motion. The footage was spaced-out to allow for process editing effects (dissolves). The final edit was completed in Kdenlive, by overlapping...
This is a test of some concepts for animating Rob Lerner for our title sequence. I'm not 100% happy with any of these, but there's some interesting effects. The "wiggle" effect is created by using two separate animated Freestyle settings and sw...
Skip cycle animation with moving camera for Georgiana Lerner model. (NO AUDIO) This is the first time we've tested any major body motion for any of our characters. There are a few imperfections in the model which we can sort out later, but it's...
I'm working my way through the animation learning curve! For ["Lunatics!" Open Movie Project](http://lunatics.tv). This is the new model of Georgiana for the Baikonur scenes in "No Children in Space", with the updated body/face rig which we ar...
This is to go with our latest [Patreon Update](https://www.patreon.com/posts/october-1069928) update on our Patreon account ( http://www.patreon.com/lunatics ). The acceleration jump in the previous video has been fixed, and I've corrected the ...
This is a test render of this shot in its present state. It's very definitely "work-in-progress", but I need to see fully rendered animation now and then to get a better feel for how things are working. The initial bump from the slack being pulled...
For "Lunatics!" - http://lunatics.tv This is a track-through screen-test of the "Railway" set which will be used in the opening sequence for our pilot episode, "No Children in Space". We've been working very slowly on getting the pilot compl...