Decisions, decisions...

I have been slowly working on things in the background, but not a whole lot to show for it. The last couple of weeks, I’ve been working out what applications I want to use to create EXTRACTION and the follow up animated movie. I ended up deciding on Blender and LightWave3D as the two apps I’ll use. Next was trying to figure out a workflow that would allow me to use these programs together.

I had been thinking that I would export OBJ files from Blender and bring them into LW. However, one problem I stumbled on was that for some reason the OBJ files keep showing up really dark in LW. Even after going through and trying to fix normals and adjust textures and making sure that everything was linking in correctly, they still showed up almost black. Only when I turned the lights _WAAAY_ up did they show the textures. Not sure what the issue there is, but I don’t need to worry about it anymore…

Today I came across an LWO (LightWave Object) exporter for Blender. I took the test object that I had downloaded from BlendSwap and exported it as an LWO file and then brought that into LW. Only thing I had to fix was selecting the correct UVMap, as LW had decided that None was the correct map to begin with.

 This is how the object looks in Blender.

 This is the object in LightWave Layout.

Yeah, they’re a little different. In the Blender one, there is no lighting, everything is in the texture maps. The LW one is using the default light in Layout. At this point I was just trying to get objects into LW and have them show up with their textures correctly. Success!!!

Lighting will be something that I’ll work on when I get around to that part. There’s still much to do before lighting comes into the mix.

Now back in October 2014, when I first said I was going to buckle down and get EXTRACTION done, I started modeling the space station exterior. Here’s a look at the very low poly version of it :

That was done in MODO. I’ll be moving it over to either Blender or LW to finish it off.

I know I’m going to get asked why I decided to not use MODO. The main reason is that MODO’s animation tools just aren’t quite there yet. They are very powerful and a joy to work with, but LW’s animation tools are pretty solid. And with some 3rd party plugins, you can do pretty much everything. For the few things that LW can’t handle, Blender has that covered. So, it’s not a diss to MODO users, I still love MODO, it’s just that I’m trying to get things done on a really tight, self induced schedule.

And I’m about 3 months behind!

What's New?

Wow... 2015. New year, new blog, everything's coming up new!

This is the year that I will attempt to do something I've never done before. I'm going to attempt to complete, not one, not two, but three, yes three (3) animated short films!

The first short is going to be the one I've been working on for a couple of years now, off and on. I wrote the script a couple of years ago and have been working on modeling all the pieces that I need for it, but I've never quite gotten around to animating or finishing it. So, I need to buckle down and get $#!¥ done!

I'm taking a newer approach to how I'm going to do all this work. Anyone that really knows me, knows that I am a slight perfectionist. If things don't look right or feel right to me, then I don't release them or let anyone see. I'm going to attempt to fix that problem by just letting things go. (Thanks FROZEN!)

I think that a lot of the reason(s) that I've never gotten as far as I've wanted was a combination of fear of failure and fear of just starting! I've been watching a lot of "indie" animation lately. From shorts to features and everything in between. They're not perfect. In fact some stuff is downright scary in how it's animated. It's definitely not Disney/Pixar or Dreamworks quality. And I'm okay with that. They've done the one thing I haven't yet, finished!

I'm not getting any older. My original plan was to have at least 2 features, whether animated or live action, completed and out there by the time I was 30. I'll be 42 this year and I have yet to release anything more than a few minutes in length that is a personal project. Thus the reason I'm trying to get off my keister and get things done.