Painfully Slow Progress

I'm nearing the corner on roughing out the fish character. You can see the sketch that i'm going off of right here. Joe did that beauty back in February. Anyway, this will mark how a model evolves over time as I continue to add more detail, like a potter at the wheel... Think "Ghost". I'm Demi Moore and Joe would take the part of Patrick Swayze, gently guiding my hand over the wet, smooth clay... whooo, is it getting hot in here?!!

Alright, enough kidding around. Get back to work, y'all.

Look Out! I'm Movin' Here!

Alright, kids. I've been a little preoccupied with selling my house, and finding a new one. We all know how tedious that can be, so I won't go into details. Needless to say, the production of the movie has taken a hit because of it, but do not fret: I am about to recommence.

I'll make no promises when I'll actually show something, only because I don't know when this house stuff is going to rear it's ugly head. So you'll just have to keep checking back like you do every day with bated breath. But I wouldn't be surprised if I had something up by tomorrow or Thursday.

ta ta, Teutell...

Mmmmmmm, Worms

Since I don't have any new stuff to show off yet, here's one that goes back to August of twenty-aught-4. Joe and I first came up with the concept back in July of last year, and this was a test to see if we had the chops to bring some of our ideas to life. It's pretty lame actually, but it was cool to see (at least for me... Joe's eyes just sort of crossed, then he went back to watching Fear Factor or something). Anyway, take a gander, it's just Wormy sort of doing a little jig, but it's a very worm-like jig.

I REALLY want to start showing off some of the Fishy stuff, but I haven't even started yet. Maybe this weekend will smileth upon me, and maketh my hand turn steadfastly toward the computer. That way, I'd have some good stuff to show by Monday. Thanks for hanging in there with me, sometimes this stuff doesn't move as fast as I would like. And that goes double for Joe.

More of The Same.

Just another facial animation test... but this time I've simplified his movements somewhat, less erratic eyeblinks, and he's not blowing this time around. What we need the character to do in this movie is act a little bewildered in his old age, so he's not too coherent to begin with. What you see him doing here is a lot like how he might be acting most of the time in his scene. But time will tell. On to more modeling now, the fishbowl awaits...

Bummer!

Man, I was going to have a new render for you today. It would have been more of the same (Morty looking around and doing his thing), but unfortunately, we had a black-out on the computer. So the render quit and I lost all those precious frames. Ahhh well, I've re-started the render. So, we'll all get to see it tomorrow.

Also, I've had to focus a little more energy than normal onto other endeavors this week. Joe and I are also in the process of combining our "design and motion" capabilities under one web site. And as we all know, making something cool takes an extrodinary amount of time and effort. So. for the time being, I have to split my efforts between that and the movie... but it's all good. In no way will this mean Joe & I will stop posting here every week, we will continue to show our progress, but it means just that, we'll ONLY post our progress, which means progress advances only as fast as we do. Man?! What does that even mean? I'm not even making any sense... now I think I'M going senile.




ok. I just pee'd myself. Move over Morty...

Morty Blows

I now have him partially rigged. Enough to do a mediocre test animation anyway. In this little test, he blinks a lot, moves his mouth randomly a lot, and lets out a blow in order to blow out a candle that isn't there yet. To be honest, I wouldn't have posted this had it not been over a week since my last content entry. But, I figured, it's fun to point and laugh at the animator as he painfully works out how he's going to make this guy move.

Over the next few weeks, I might try and do a couple more animation tests... try and narrow down his style... but in reality, I think we all need a break from Morty, and I might move on to other scenes within the film. There is a mountain of work to be done, and we've only just begun to chip away at it. I started with one of the more difficult scenes first, so I might move on to one of the more simpler parts: The Goldfish Scene.

We also want to get going on actual pre-visualization. With the Morty scene nearing completion (maybe 70-80% of the way there) we need to start working out the blocking and pacing of the film. This process is very important to the final result and should make for an efficient work-flow when it comes time to really start the animation process and locking down shots for final rendering.

We are trying to be as organized as possible in our approach, but sometimes it helps to break up the monotony and pull out the shotgun then start firing away to see if you hit anything. Not to mention, the shotgun can be fun. Once everyone's adrenalin is pumped back up, we'll move back to the sniper rifle, and start laying in the detail. But for now... lock and load.

Bone to Pick

There are things I like about this 3D stuff, some things I love. But setting up a character rig has got to be the down side. It can be rather challenging to get it to look and behave right. But alas, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel (apropos for the sort of story we're telling). All of his major bodily movements have been successfully rigged (boned), so now I have to set up morph targets for his face. Setting up the face targets is much more fun and intuitive (for me anyway) than actually rigging a character to move. I WISH I had some stuff to post, but it's just not in a state that's presentable yet. What I might do is a character test and fully render it over the weekend, so you'll have a bright, shiny new movie to watch by Monday. Thanks for hanging in there folks... patience is a virtue.

Post-Weekend Update

Every Monday we'll post stuff here to let you know what we've been doing and what we might have in store. I've been doing small, imperceptible improvements to the Morty model that just isn't worth posting here. We're at that part of the production where it slows down a bit, and there isn't much new stuff worth showing. We don't want to risk becoming repetitive, or boring... So we want to wait until we have something new or worthwhile to show. At the very least, we'll try and post something once a week.

Joe is working on designing a new parent site for the movie. It's main purpose will be a more traditional website. It'll have a Gallery (a more organized repository of images and animation clips), More in-depth content about the movie itself, and... of course... a merchandise store where one might want to get a bon-a-fide official The End t-shirt, or an official The End mouse pad, or an official The End speedo. All procedes will go directly into our pockets, where they will immediately combust upon the iron hull of our movie debt.

SO, we'll let you know when that site is up and running. I'd say expect something in mid-May, but you know how glacial these things can move sometimes.

In the meantime, sit tight and keep an eye on this site.

Details, Details, Details

So what we have here is Morty with some new skin, new glasses, and a little hair. It was Joe's suggestion to make some new glasses, and I think we'll all agree that it's for the better. Joe has the unfortunate ability to always be right... it's unfortunate, because it usually means more work for me.

Anyway, take a nice close look... Morty's really come a LONG way, as you can tell from this early post. It won't be long now until we can finally deem him finished. Then we'll rig him, and it'll be time for some animation tests and some real movement.

And that's HD resolution you'll be looking at, so again, file size will be rather big for you people with smaller monitors.

Counting Bodies Like Cows To The Rhythm Of The War Drums.

Man...this sucked...it might not look like much, but the interior structure was time-consuming. I think this will give Kev a decent jumping off point for his modeling exploits. Speaking of exploits, Kev's been jamming on wrapping up the texture for Morty's skin and let me tell you...it looks sweet. We are super pleased with the results. Maybe he'll have something to show later today.

To our six fans out there, don't comment all at once. You might break the internet.

This Week...

Most people like to have fun, unwind...enjoy life a little. I mostly just get irritated by it. I continually want to push myself to do more, make more progress and get things done. A state of relaxation just doesn't seem to be possible for me. My mind races at light-speed all the time. So, with that being said, let's talk a little about what we want to get done over at 'THE END.' central this week. We want to get Morty's scene fully modeled and get him rigged so that we can start the animation process. That would be a huge step for us and get us feeling better about the process. From the art side of things, I am going to finish up the cow / barn scene artwork this evening and have a post for you later on that. One of my next goals is to start finalizing our storyboards so that Kev and I can start pre-visualizing this thing with rough shapes to get timing and the overall blueprint for the film set in stone.

So, you guys go enjoy your week and check back with us frequently. We'll have stuff to show. I'm the one in the corner getting irritated.

No Rest For The Truly Wicked.

I know how you all like it rough out there in the ether, so, I thought I'd give you an early look at the cow / farm scene. It's super preliminary, so don't get on my ass about perspective this, cow anatomy that...It's a rough kids. Take a deep breath and enjoy life. It's 1:03 am in the east as I write this. I am in the basement, the heavy metal is cranked, I'm in a cloud of toxic marker vapor, the creativity is flowin' and I'm just getting warmed up. No rest for the wicked.

Happy Birthday Morty!

Okay. This is really starting to get hard. But I knew that going in, I was just fishing for some pity. I've been blowing through iteration after iteration of different lighting, textures, props. This is where I currently am.

Things I know I'll be changing: Carpet; Table Cloth/Doily; Making the cake shorter; one way or another I'll be giving him hair and eyebrows; Texture on his cardigan.

Things I'll probably be tweaking: Lighting; Lighting; Table & wood textures; Lighting; Placement of various props, like the TV; Lighting; Skin texture on Morty; and last but not least... Lighting.

Things I'll be adding: Light switches; Electrical outlets; cords; a Grandmother Clock; Other Miscellaneous items.

Things I'll be doing to myself: Pulling what little hair I have left out; Mumbling to myself; Random bursts of hysterical laughter; Swatting at imaginary flies.

Don't worry about me though, I'll eventually get the hang of this... right Joe? JOE? JOE!!!?? Don't you die on me buddy!!!

Off My Game.

  
I tried to come up with something witty for this post. None of it was dark enough or cynical enough for my liking, so...just check out the production art for the 'bathroom' scene and let us know what you think... [Click for larger images]

Feel the Loss...

Mitch Hedberg, awesome comedian, died yesterday. We couldn't be more bummed about it. He was truly talented and on the rise. Died at the age of 37. Check out his comedy, you'll not be disappointed.

Anyway, we still have the pots boiling over here. I'm finishing up the cake model for Morty, and after that I'll start finalizing the textures on Morty's skin, clothes, and add his hair.

So stay tuned this weekend. Maybe Joe will post some cool stuff for you to peruse?

So long, Mitch:

"I think Bigfoot is blurry, that's the problem. It's not the photographer's fault. Bigfoot is blurry. And that's extra scary to me, because there's a large, out-of-focus monster roaming the countryside. Run. He's fuzzy. Get outta here."

"I saw a human pyramid once. It was totally unnecessary."

"I haven't slept for ten days, because that would be too long."

"I bought a doughnut and they gave me a receipt for the doughnut... I don't need a receipt for the doughnut. I give you money and you give me the doughnut, end of transaction. Do we need to bring ink and paper into this? I can't imagine a scenario that I would have to prove that I bought a doughnut.  To some skeptical friend, Don't even act like I didn't buy a doughnut, I've got the documentation right here... It's in my file at home. ...Under "D"."

"I used to do drugs. I still do drugs. But I used to, too."

Where's Joe?!??! He's Knee-Deep In Bacteria.

Believe it or not, I'm still lurking about. But check it. I have been researching and starting to get the pencil fired up on bacteria. Yeh, that's right, bacteria. Do you have any idea how small those things are and how many of them I have to draw before you guys can see anything? Man, cut me some slack. There's about a TRILLION little bacterium on everything you touch and now I've been tasked with drawing 'em. Maybe this is Kev's passive-aggressive way of getting back at me for the production art for Morty's room and the crack about it taking him 467 hours to model a cake that took me an hour to draw? Either way, here I go...back to the microscope, i mean, drawing board...rendering bacteria.....one, two, three....four billion, two hundred million....four billion, two hundred million and one......

Soo-Prize! Soo-Prize!

Well, I figured I'd add a little sumpin' sumpin' today. Here is a render of Morty in his natural setting. The usual disclaimer applies: Not fully textured; Not fully lit; Not fully finished. (but it IS getting there)

This is a render at HD resolution (1280x720), so if you're on a small, antiquated monitor, go out and get yerself a biggun' already... yeeesh. And while you're at it, pick up a dang TiVo... they're giving these things away in Happy Meals already... what's the hold up?

Getting Close

Joe and I have been tweaking the lighting and textures on the living room set in trying to get it ready for prime production. We've definitely made some progress, and once we add various sundries to his home, it'll be almost there. We will have to spend some time gathering real-world textures for things such as the wainscoting and carpet and other décor. Once we are both happy with the mood that is set by the lighting, I'll post some more images... things are really coming along, and looking good. We're both excited to finally see it come together, and can't wait to show you our progress, especially since what we've shown so far isn't even close to what we want for the end result.

Look for an image or two in a day or two.

Living Room Fly-Thru

It's not finished or lit, but I figured I'd render a fly-thru because I'm just too impatient to wait until I'm done. Yes, it's true, I have Tourette-like work habits, but the advantages are you get to see incomplete stuff in the mean time.

Fun Fact: I forgot to resize the ceiling in this animation, so you can say Morty has a convertible living room.

Enjoy. [3.5 MB]

What's In Store

Ok, I know the posting of actual movie content has been kind of sparse this past week, but rest assured, we're going as strong as ever. Joe's about to begin his next great piece of production art, and I've been plugging away at building Morty's living room set. I have a lot of the main props built (those that you see in this production sketch), but we might need to add a few more items to make it look more lived in. Right now, my computer is chugging away at a fly through of the unfinished room. That should be done in the next day or so. I will post that as soon as it's done.

cya then, then.