Over the last month, progress on VG Exiles Episode 3 has been slower than expected, but still visible. At this moment, I would estimate that the fight portion of this video is now less than a minute away from being finished. I'll probably add another 20-30 seconds or so to my original fight length.

Honestly, most of the progress made over the month of February has been done over the past week. I've kinda gone on an animating binge and I plan to roll it over into March. I'm actually hoping to have the fight done by the end of the month because it seems to be taking too long to finish compared to the previous installments. Self-imposed time constraints. I don't want to get to the point where it takes me a year to make one of these videos. Still, even if I do finish this fight by the end of March, I will still have to do all of the story stuff, menus, credits, and whatnot. I'll probably have to wait a little while on the voices and art, too. It's unavoidable.

Regardless, you can rest assured that SOME progress is being made.

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After my last news post, I mentioned the possibility of adding a screen shot to my March update. Submitted below for your viewing pleasure is the aforementioned image. As you can see, Scorpion will be making a cameo appearance In VG EXILES EP.3! In this screen, he is wondering exactly what this strange shadow is that seems to have engulfed him...

On a completely, absolutely, 100% unrelated note, I now believe that this fight will go down as the bloodiest, deadliest, and most violent sprite fight in the history of flash animation. If you thought Episode 2 was hardcore, just wait until you see this beast.

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I am officially declaring an end to my Adobe After Effects training and will be returning to my flash work ASAP. I actually cut my training short by the last two chapters because they deal with video aspects that I will never use in my flash applications. It was also making me deal with preset conditions and pretty much boiled down to "go here and type this" with little comprehension on my part. Of course, my thorough comprehension was not the goal of the training. The goal of the training was to make me familiar with the interface, shortcuts, and capabilities of After Effects. True mastery will come only from my usage from this point on.

Let me tell you this - when used properly, After Effects is a BEAST. Just like Flash 8 before it, After Effects will take me a while to fully utilize. However, once I master it, it's gonna be game over. The only limitation I will have will be that of my imagination. I will only use it lightly for EP3 until I get used to it, but you'll probably see a greater influence during later episodes.

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Anyway, boring tech stuff over. Honestly, I should have had this training done two weeks ago. Pretty much the entire month of January has boiled down to a break time for VG Exiles 3. My sluggishness with this training was not the only factor in that lateness.

I, in a truly boneheaded move, got Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.

I literally cussed myself the whole way out of the store. All this work that I have to do with Flash and After Effects and I go and buy one of the most addicting multiplayer FPS games ever created. Fuck me.

My only saving grace is that I'm not very good at it. It's much easier to put the controller down and return to AE training when the bulk of my multiplayer experience consists of being shot by hyperactive, foul-mouthed twelve-year-olds. I guess that could describe my XBOX LIVE experience in general. It hardly seems fair that these kids nowadays can go online and trash-talk adults with no fear of reprisal. They're untouchable. I mean, last time I walked into a middle school and started punching 7th graders at random, I got arrested. Seems to be a double standard going on here.

But I digress.

Like GTAIV before it, CoD:MW2 will prove to be little more than a light distraction from my flash work. My work on the VG EXILES will continue to be my top priority. It's been a month and I'm ready to rock and roll once more.

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I was hoping to have three minutes worth of fight done on Episode 3 by the end of 2009, but I must report that I am about fifteen seconds short of that goal. However, progress is being made. It's just being made a little slower than expected. It's probably not going to improve much over the next few weeks, either. The reason for this is that a very recent series of events have made matters a bit complicated.

A few days ago, my external HDD backup died. Pretty much my entire sound effects and mugen character archive went down with the ship. After being initially pissed, I realized that I had not lost anything that wasn't fairly easy to replace. (I was looking for a reason to clean out and streamline my computer...) Anyway, it had seemed that my normal technique of taking visual effects out of mugen characters had been dealt a serious blow. I had just reached a point in the fight that could have used some advanced smoke effects and now my ability to get them had been compromised.

Facing this, I found myself pondering the following: "Why should I rely on the limited effects placed within mugen characters? Why not make my own?"

To that end, I have procured Adobe After Effects and the literature I need to teach it to myself are now on their way to me via the wonder of eBay. For those who aren't aware of this resource, it was primarily responsible for the visual upgrade between Proxicide's second and third MK vs. SF. Now I have it. Uh-oh.......

The simple fact of the matter is that I have hit a plateau. The graphic quality of Episode 2 is about as advanced as I can get at this time. Looking at my Episode 3 tests, I realize that while I can make my current graphics more complex, I cannot improve them as a whole. Given the advantage it has provided to other animators, I have every reason to believe that After Effects can provide me with the same boost.

I can already feel some of you wringing your hands with a mixture of anticipation and dread. Some of you may be thinking, "OH NOES! R1 is going to get wrapped up in the graphics aspect and lose his cutting edge! He just might abandon spriting altogether and disappear into the wastelands of the internet like at least one other famous former sprite animator we could name!"

Let me reassure you. It is my belief that updated graphics should be for the benefit of the action, not the other way around. I also have no desire to make my fights "pretty". Anyone who follows sprite fighting knows exactly what I am talking about here. I don't do "pretty". I don't do "uplifting". I do "bloody", "brutal", "dark", and "gritty". Any graphic enhancements I add to the series will be to that end. You may also rest assured that the day I quit sprites will be the day I quit flash altogether.

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Anyway, being the raging autodidact that I am, I have decided to suspend production of VG EXILES EPISODE 3 for a few weeks until I can properly use After Effects and evaluate it's potential usefulness for the series. This short break will also allow me to get some writing done for the story segments. It will also give 3XStudios more time to work on the necessary artwork. I've been very negligent in providing him with my artwork needs, so he will be under even more pressure to get it done than he did for the previous episode. That said, any delays in artwork are definitely going to be my fault here.

I should also mention that I later realized that most of my lost data had been backed up on various thumb drives, so the data loss from my hard drive crash was much less serious than I had previously thought. Had I not taken the time to back up my more useful resources, I would have spent quite a bit of time replacing my lost archives. Had it been my main hard drive that failed, I could have lost six months of utterly irreplaceable flash work. That kind of setback would probably end my career as an animator.

Luckily, it is my policy to make LOTS of backups just for this reason. Take my example as a very important lesson:
ALWAYS BACK UP YOUR STUFF!!!!!

A catastrophic hard drive crash can occur at any time and with little to no warning. A night spent backing up your files is a small price to pay to avoid the soul-crushing hellish nightmare that is irreplaceable data loss. I dodged a bullet because I follow this method and take no chances with my flash work. Make sure you do, too.

This public service announcement has been brought to you by:

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Well, November and NaNoWriMo have officially come to a close. I must admit that I am a bit disappointed with the amount of animating I got done. Although during that time I completed the most complicated choreographic sequence I have ever done, my progress timeline-wise was not that great. I've probably added more seconds of animation over the last week than I did the whole three weeks prior. At this moment, the fight is just under the two minute mark, which means that it is about 50% complete. The timeline progress should increase since I am only working with the two fighters now (they've killed everybody else in the room).

I'm also spending far too much time replaying my movie tests and laughing maniacally. There comes a point in the movie-making process where I get hypnotized by what I've already done and spend more time watching it than animating new stuff. I don't know if I'm the only one who suffers from this fault, but it had always proven to be a minor hindrance to all of my previous movies and continues to be so now. I'll get through it.

Anyway, here's hoping for a significantly more productive December. To answer Mini-Dude's question from my previous news post, I do not have a PS3. I only have the XBOX 360, which I play occasionally and always late at night. My gamertag? -

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As I said in my last post, September was a very productive month for my latest flash. October? Not so much.

I've only added about ten seconds to my overall length. In my defense, those few seconds included the building of the most intricate arena I have ever made. I am also working on some of the most complicated choreographic sequences I have ever done. So there.

Even though October wasn't my best animating month in a while due in part to some gaming distractions (DAMN YOU, GAY TONY AND XBOX LIVE!!!!), November will definitely be a better month for animating. Why? Because it's NaNoWriMo time again!

Those of you who have been following my news posts for a while may remember this event being mentioned before. "NaNoWriMo" is shorthand for "National Novel Writing Month". It is a an event in November in which participants are encouraged to write a 50,000-word novel in one month. I learned about it a few years ago from a writer friend of mine who takes part in the annual exercise. I've never actually taken part in order to write a novel, but I have used it in recent years as kind of an artificial motivator for getting other kinds of work done (namely movie scripts and flashing).

I'm very interested in getting this video done, but some good artificial motivation on top of that doesn't hurt.

If any of you are interested in checking out what it's all about or taking part, you can visit the main site at the official NaNoWriMo site!

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Now, on to new details of the flash.

One of the things that I have greatly increased in this flash is BODY COUNT. If you thought I left a lot of corpses lying around in Episode 2, then rest assured that you haven't seen anything yet. Of course, when you're dealing with two of the most ridiculously dangerous characters in the MK and SF lineups, the bodies will pile up.

That's not to say that these characters are homicidal maniacs like Gambit was. Quite the opposite, actually. They are driven by neither rage nor insanity. They are a couple of highly-experienced, professional killers. Definitely NOT the kind of people you want to screw with, as SEVERAL assailants are now realizing. Suffice it to say, they won't be remembered for their intelligence.

Now I gotta figure out how much of the arena I can realistically cover with blood...

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(Awwwww... why the hell not? ARENA SHOT!)

Well, this has been a very productive month, indeed. At this moment, Episode 3 is just over a minute long. Half of that is the sprite part of the story intro without stops for text. The other half is, of course, pure fighting. I am amazed with how quickly this project is progressing. I am in full "animate" mode, meaning that a portion of every waking thought is dedicated to this project.

In this fight, I am incorporating new choreographic techniques due to the style of characters that I have selected. It will be unlike any other sprite fight ever created. It has an entirely different style, even from my previous works. The "style" is really the only thing I can change at this point. That fact was known to me long ago and my fight cards are planned in such a way as to challenge me to work with characters with varying abilities. By using different characters with different abilities, I avoid the trap of tedium and monotony that many animators fall into by using the same "type" of character over and over again. (I'm looking at you, shoto animators...)

That said, I am now working with some very interesting fighters. As you are probably already aware, this fight will be waged between MK and SF. I am not willing to divulge the identities of the fighters at this time, but I can give a few nonspecific bits of information to people to chew on.

My chosen Street Fighter is one that has been seen in flash before but, in my opinion, has never been used to their full potential. Looking at this character's sprites, I am shocked that they aren't used more often in fights like this. The choreographic options for this character are almost limitless. I look forward to unlocking this character's true awesomeness. I say "looking forward to" because I have yet to do it. Let's just say that the Mortal Kombat fighter is damn good and has pretty much owned the first thirty seconds. Heh... heh... heh...

Oh, and on a more shameless note, It's my birthday! Twenty-six isn't really a milestone, but I'll take any opportunity I can to celebrate. I started celebrating early by taking the entire week off from work. Paid vacation and all that. Considering that October 7th is one of the very few "holidays" that I actually bother to observe, I might as well make a week out of it!

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My side projects are now complete! That means that I can now focus on flash without having other overdue responsibilities pecking at the back of my brain.

That said, production on VG EXILES EP. 3 begins TOMORROW! After three long years of waiting, I am finally going to do my dream fight! I can't stress enough how important this upcoming fight is to me.

( WARNING! Extremely long, personally reflective story ahead! )

When I first saw MK vs SF 2 by Proxicide, I imagined what kind of fight I would make if I had those kinds of skills. The match-up was no question. From the moment I learned that these kinds of videos were possible, I knew who I wanted to see fight. Part of my drive to learn was the thought that if I didn't make this match-up, nobody would.

Way WAY back before I even knew the first thing about flash, I had planned to make this match an unofficial sequel to Proxicide's series. It would have taken place weeks after Ryu returned to his home dimension and been fought between two characters not previously seen in the series. To that end, I got myself a copy of flash and prepared to animate this fight.

I got about twelve frames into it before I realized that I didn't have a clue what I was doing. I put the project on the back-burner to pursue a live-action movie project. I figured that I would someday return to flash and learn how to use it properly. In the meantime, I worked on this live-action movie project while constantly gathering all kinds of resources: sprites, sound effects, etc.

Fast-forward two years.

My first live-action movie had failed. It was a joint development between myself and my best friend. Very long story short, I realized that he was a jackass and ejected him from the production. I haven't spoken to him since and wouldn't care to. I wrote a second script and prepared to shoot it on my own, but the project never really got to the shooting stage. Scheduling complications, the onset of winter, and other such things.

After I made the announcement that this second movie would go on the backburner, I found myself with little to do. I soon decided that it would be a good time to revisit that old flash idea I had. THIS TIME, however, I would do it right.

I got a guide book to Flash 8 from my local bookstore and spent the next two weeks going through it cover-to-cover. As soon as I had finished it, I was ready to rock my first flash. By then, I had thought up my own story that was not connected to Proxicide's story. It was going to be called MK vs. SF: INVASION. It was going to be a six-part series and my original match-up idea was going to be fight #3. That way, I would likely have gained the experience needed to do the job right from the first two fights. I had read in an interview that Proxicide had regretted using his favorite character in his first video. That was a mistake that I would not make.

The problem was that INVASION was going to feature some of the less popular characters, including one of my own design (essentially a palette-swapped cyber ninja). I would have to make high-quality fights to give these characters extra appeal. At that time, I wasn't even sure that I could animate a good fight. To that end, I decided to make a test flash just to see if I had what it takes.

I spent the next eight weeks animating VG EXILES Episode 0.

The reason why I started with zero was because I had not planned on making any more afterward. I finished Episode Zero and submitted it to Newgrounds. Despite what one may think looking at the stats now, Episode Zero actually came out to a lukewarm reception (It initially passed judgment with a 3.22).

I needed practice. I needed to hone my skills further before tackling the juggernaut that was the INVASION project. That was when I decided to do another flash to show people what I had learned and what I could really do.

That flash was VG EXILES Episode 1.

Even though I knew what would happen in the story, I figured that I would return to it in a few years after completing INVASION. However, the more I thought about it, the less desire I had to animate INVASION (for reasons I outlined in my last post). Eventually, I scrapped the INVASION project and devoted myself to the series that was originally meant only to be practice - the VG EXILES.

Gambit and Talbain got their fight.

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This upcoming match-up started as an unofficial Proxicide sequel. It then became the planned bout for the third INVASION episode. Now, it will be adapted for the VG EXILES. Three years of planning are about to become reality.

I'm finally ready for it. Let's rock.

R1665

Well, my most recent flash is now off the front page and things are starting to calm down on my account. I guess now would be a good time for me to reflect on this last flash as well as my upcoming plans. I won't be front-page posting this because I have no screenshots. I also see no reason why I should bore complete strangers with my ramblings. Those of you who frequent my page should be used to it by now!

VG EXILES Episode 2...

I must say that I am THRILLED with the way this movie was received! I also wasn't expecting to get a weekly 5th out of it. I guess that's why two other top-notch animations showed up and knocked me down to third - competition for those weeklies. I might have to consider submitting on Tuesdays from now on! Yeah, the competition is fierce, but the rewards are great.

What surprised me most is how well the movie did considering all of the things that it had going against it. First of all, is was the first movie that didn't rely on the Proxicide influence in some way. (You know it. I know it. Let's not bullshit ourselves here.) It was the first movie in which the choreography and setup was all mine. It was the first movie that showed the real nature of my Exiles' series, meaning that B-listers and the underused got the glory while lots of "popular" characters bit the dust. (Although Ibuki and Makoto didn't appear because they were "popular". They appeared because they lost out on getting their own fights when I cancelled MK vs. SF: INVASION.)

For the record, I usually put more weight on how often a character appears in flash than their fandom when I determine "popularity". Since the cat is out of the bag on this flash, I will finally state for the record that I am sick to the teeth of seeing headswapped shotoclones being headlined all the time. Believe me when I say that I took GREAT pleasure in dispatching the two that showed up in Episode 2. I will only accept Ken as my "token headswap shotoclone". At least he has some personality I can work with. I find the rest to be completely without appeal for the VG Exiles. Sorry, Akuma fans.

In fact, that's one of the reasons why I canceled MK vs. SF: INVASION. The story I developed required two Ryu fights and an Akuma fight. By the time I reached the end of animating VG Exiles Ep. 1, I realized that I'd rather chew glass than spend a year and a half animating shoto fights. The thought of animating that actually started producing real symptoms of nausea. That's why INVASION went in the scrap heap and will stay there. What can I say? I guess I just developed a strong distaste for the status quo of sprite fighting somewhere between Episodes zero and one. With the entire roster of fighting game history open to me, it's kind of hard to generate any excitement for a half dozen jackasses with nearly identical moves and appearance. I'm not just picking on Street Fighter here. I hold MK ninjas to this standard as well. The only reason why I don't cringe when I see them like I do shotoclones is because I don't see them as often.

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Okay, I've covered reflections and ramblings. That leaves the future.

I have a few projects to tackle before I can get started on Episode 3. They shouldn't take long. I have to do them now because they are grossly overdue and I won't get them done if I start on the next flash. I am notorious for my inability to focus on more than one thing at a time.

As for the next flash, It will be another bout between Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter. This next fight is one that I have been planning, literally, for YEARS. The first sprite flash I ever laid eyes on was MK vs. SF 2. At that time, I thought of this upcoming match-up and wished that I had the knowledge and skill to pull it off. It was that dream fight in my head that fueled my desire to get into sprite animation. I put it off for so long because I didn't want to attempt it before I could be sure I was ready for it.

Well, now it's time. After three years of waiting, I'm finally going to do the fight I've wanted to do since the very beginning. The best part is that I can do this with no pressure. I have nothing left to prove to anyone.

I'll be going underground with this next episode. The identities of the fighters will remain secret. I may release a few tidbits here and there, but this next production will pretty much run silent. I probably won't do monthly updates with screenshots, but I will keep you guys informed.

For all of you folks who have stuck with me through this whole wild ride, I want to say, "Thank You". Those of you who actually read this whole long-winded rambling tirade of mine are extra special!

THE VG EXILES WILL RETURN.

R1665

After roughly seven months of work, I am proud to announce that VG Exiles Episode 2 is finally complete! This 16.5 MB behemoth is over seventeen minutes long from "Play" to "Replay" and is the most ambitious project I have ever undertaken.

It could be described as a "season finale". It will signal the end of the current story arc. The question is, how will it end? When the dust settles, will Jon Talbain have avenged Sonya, or will Gambit have killed another Exile and escaped forever into the wilds of the Multiverse? Hopefully, you won't have to wait long to find out.

I have sent a PM to Tom Fulp regarding the file size. When, and if, I receive the "all-clear" from him, I will upload this monster around noon the following day (Eastern Standard Time).

It's time to unleash this beast!

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In accordance with my "Front Page Post Policy" I offer you yet another screenshot. Since you got to see Gambit getting a hit in on the last one, it's only fair to show the other side.

So, enjoy this image of Jon Talbain getting his shred on!

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It seems that I'm probably not going to hit my July 11th deadline after all.

However, the problem is due to quality, not a technical mistake. It seems to be taking a bit longer than anticipated for the original artwork to be completed. I can live with that setback, though. I'd rather have the work be a bit late and looking its best than on time and looking rushed.

I'm also having to re-record some of the voice work I did earlier. My previous recordings are not on par with the excellent lines that my voice actors submitted, quality-wise. Over the last weekend, I actually built a padded, fully-functional sound booth in my apartment and I hope to get some lines recorded very soon that sound on par with those of my outside contributors. Voice acting and the process of setting it up is relatively new to me, but I'm a VERY quick study.

Except for the art scene, the movie is pretty much done. Once I get that art in, it should only take me a couple of days to wrap this thing up. I'm afraid that I have to leave that deadine in the air, but you can rest assured that I will get VG Exiles Episode 2 out very soon.

In the meantime, enjoy the following screenshot...

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