Following On From Yesterday's Post, Another Interesting Presentation Came From Victor Paredes Of Moho.

Popped down to Edinburgh for the MOVE Summit, a series of talks on the UK Animation industry. The Thursday portion began with a talk from Christopher McDonald from Framestore, showcasing the technological pre-production (or "Previs") done for movies, with Wicked Part 1 as the example.

They start by using overhead "Blocking Maps" to figure out the space of a scene, where each character is going to stand, position of objects, camera locations, field of view, etc. Then they make CG mockups of characters and locations, using concept art as a base, then animate based on the director's vision. It's sort of like the next step up from storyboards.

This helps them gauge the spacing and stage setup required to pull off practical effects ("Techvis"). For example, the scene where Glinda is sailing to the university, the camera is underwater, showing her hand beneath the water's surface. This means that for the camera to be below her, the actual prop boat needed to be several feet off the ground, something they might not have caught if they just started shooting.

"Postvis" is of course the post-production of adding all the effects together for the final shot. This was also the first time I'd heard the term "Plate", for the base shot that all the effects are later layered onto. Like a sandwich, I guess. Big thanks to Chris for that talk.

MeaBea 🧡💙

Hey all! I haven't been making much progress with Bounder Games lately, mostly due to GAINFUL EMPLOYMENT (fill-in college lecturer). But that's no excuse! Here's where we stand:

I've been reading Hideo Kojima's "The Creative Gene", a collection of reflections on the books and media that inspired him to make games like Metal Gear. In "The Moon Over the Mountain", the main character feels he has failed to capitalise on his talent and describes his unwillingness to publish imperfect material as "timid pride" and "disdainful shyness". His following quote hit me pretty hard:

"No, whether the poems are good or bad, I would not rest easy in my grave without passing these poems on to later generations, since the represent my deepest passion in life, even to the point of losing my fortune and my sanity."

It's been almost 10 years since we founded Bounder Games and began work on Armoured Engines, and that decade of shame floods through me like toxic oil. I felt like I'd let everyone down, not working hard enough or focusing on the wrong things. I have so many ideas; to build, to design, to write, to act, to create, that I'm overwhelmed by the cavernous silence of my portfolio. The more I thought upon my neglect, the more I mired myself in doubt.

That quote struck me, and I could feel what Li Zheng could feel. That need to pass on what I make. Shame is the great assassin of creativity. If I could be a fraction as confident as Kojima-san, I might be able to look at myself with pride.

For me, no more excuses. Time to Make!

Used to see a lot of 3D art back on Twitter, glad to see others like @molegato keeping it going on other platforms. If you haven't played their game Frogun yet, go grab it on steam! Great, classy platformer. I love those low-res pixel textures; they tend to come out quite crummy when I try making them, so I appreciate the talent.

I saw one of their tags as "WireframeWednesday", so let's give it a bash. MR's spawning in to blast some crazy alien noggins!

bitch this is all you’re gonna get. this life, this face, this body. you better not ‘maybe in another universe’ your way out of everything. sit your ass down and face this. go make tea and have a picnic and read a goddamn book. kiss your loved ones, send that damn text, and hug your siblings. this is all you’re gonna get.

I've been called into college to fill in for an animation class. Looks like they're using Illustrator to make art and After Effects to animate. It's pretty early on in the term, so I'll start from the basics to see what they know already. I use Inkscape for Armoured Engines (main art) and Stardust Survivors (icons).

I'm not that familiar with Illustrator; Inkscape is my vector art program of choice. I'm going to be helping out the students with their work, so I've got to familiarise myself with it. There's a few oddities; you have to use a different tool to add nodes instead of just double clicking. But it's functional so far, once I looked up a few shortcuts.

A little snowman should be easy for them to make, simple shapes for a simple character.

Rediscovered this treasure. My bible circa 2009; discovered I still use most of the tricks I learned from this book today. Animating waves using masks, proper gradients, animation principles, etc. Its advice is still relevant even after Flash's demise.

I had a lot of game ideas I wanted to make in Flash, most of which never escaped their notepad concept. Had a few successes, a Tetris-blackjack combo called DiceJack, and Rawrysaurus, a kaiju game where you escaped from a tidal wave. My first forays into game dev.

Thanks Chris Georgenes.

Here's a weird optical illusion I found while modelling: the two black lines in the center are completely straight, yet there's this bulge in the middle. :'V

hi guys guess what, this game i worked on has a demo coming out soon and you can finally wishlist it on steam !! so if you were waiting please go ahead and do that, and i'll let you know when you can play the demo :---3c

store.steampowered.com

Book of Abominations on Steam

Book of Abominations is a Lovecraftian inspired creature collecting RPG. Capture and battle monsters in snappy turn based combat, explore a

Hey friendly reminder that I made not one but two games in which you've got a grappling gun that's a frog! They're lowpoly platformers and you go up against Beelzebub himself <3