Tag: SpaceBase: Infinity

The short answer is yes.  The long answer is the rest of this blog post.

Steve and I worked diligently on crafting the mouth animations for scene one until we got about halfway done and came up with not one but TWO brilliant ideas that completely set us off track.  While implementing our original idea (which we’ll call Mouth Animation Idea #1), we realized that the animation looked like a flapping sock puppet.  Sooooo

Mouth Animation Idea #2:
What if we used a black sock puppet to BE the mouths?  Wait, that might be too hard.  What if we used a piece of foam board leftover from set creation and put it on the end of a stick that may or may not be bamboo.  Oh, and hang a green folder over it.

Mouth Animation Idea #3:
Ok, so that sort of worked.  What if we actually did the puppet idea?  It’d probably be way better then, right???

So maybe neither of these systems is better than using static mouth images and animating them.  We are weirdly inspired to make a cell shaded puppet show though.

-Mike

Hey everybody, we’re back!

So Mike and I picked up from a slight dip in SB:I activity and started figuring out just how we are going to animate the characters mouths. Although doing the mouths in the fashion we had decided on takes a lot of the pain out of filming each scene, the post processing has its own challenges. We are definitely up to it; just look at how hard at work we (one of us) are (is)!

I swear I totally did some work too!

At the end of our session we had about 3 or 4 lines of dialog, which is a great start. And since this is something we can do on our own time we should be able to tear through the scenes as they are finished… definitely much speedier than the actual character animations themselves.

We also purchased some sweet LEDs to light some of our future scenes, and decided to combine them with a little demo of the dialog. Be warned… it got a little silly:

Next time we’ll be putting the finishing touches on our set to film the next scene… stay tuned!

-Steve

The pace of production picked up precipitously, and probably permanently!  But at what cost?

It seems as if gluing the characters to the floor and leaving them out for months might not have been the best idea.  Stupid unpredictable clay!  In addition, Cliff was visited by the Melty Man’s ghost and given a terrible curse.  His cuff is fused to his hand, all so that he may hold onto a screwdriver.  Such a dedicated employee of Sumo Inc.

The good news, though, is that we were able to bang out over 300 frames in only about four hours of work time.  This was all despite some long setup times for new camera angles, which we hope to refine in the coming weeks.  Also, we ate a delicious baked chicken.

Lighting was less of an issue this week, as the lights in a bag really came into their own.  We also made the largest movements in the show so far.  One sequence demanded the actors perform and react to special effect sparks that will be added in post.  Their performances were inspired and convincing.

Until next time,

-Mike and Steve

Behold, the solution to last time’s lighting problems.  Lights in a bag!

The cardboard helps the lights in the back from being in the bag.  For the next scene, we might try using something besides Christmas lights.

We’re also working out how to log our shots so that they can be easily lined up with the sound track later.  At the beginning of each line we have written down the frame in which the waveform begins.  The marker on the right shows the different camera angles as well.  Hopefully we’ll know what all this means a year from now when we’re in post!

And finally, some interesting statistics:

• Estimated runtime: 18 mins.
• Approximate total number of frames: 12fps x 18 mins. = 13,000 frames
• Approximate frame progress: 3.1% (397/13000 frames)
• Script progress: 3.3% (115/3,510 words incl. direction)
• Scene progress: Currently filming scene 1 of 9
• Approximate number of filming days remaining: 12600/220 frames per day = 57 days
• Approximate filming completion date: 57 days / 3 days per month = April, 2014??

Until next time,
-Mike and Steve

Hey All! We are one session away from recording the first footage for SpaceBase:Infinity! Exciting, I know! Hence the !

Lighting tests were done today, and the above is the result. Xmas lights sure do Quake the room up, if you can dig.

Audio was also hammered out for best takes and timing. Not as stunning visually, but with this we are set to start the stop motion:

And so we begin our foray into the multi-framed abyss that is stop motion photography, and truly learn the meaning of patience, and postponed payoffs. Stay tuned!

-The Bman cometh

It’s both surprising and satisfying when months of planning and experimentation pay off in the form of a successful 13 second animation.  After learning from countless mistakes, we may finally have a production process that will work for the final episode.  Amazingly, it’s easier to list the things that went right this time around, rather than what we need to learn from.  It’s in widescreen 1080p, the lighting looks good, the animations are relatively interesting and believable, the mouths match the words and head movements, and the picture quality and camera work have a relatively professional feel.  Life is good at the Vienna House.

Vegas has some great tools for animating mouths using keyframes and matching the waveform of the audio track.  We don’t, however, have the computing horsepower to preview our animations at full 1080p, so we’ll need to solve some technical issues there.

Next week, we’ll attempt to make some lounge furnishings (sink, refrigerator, sofa) and some mounting rigs for the (Christmas) lights.  Until then, you can also check out this flythrough of the set for the filming of “Meet Rufus.”

-Mike