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R1665

Age 40, Male

Kentucky, USA

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First update of 2010...

Posted by R1665 - January 1st, 2010


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.

-------------------------

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:

R1665


Comments

Not once while reading that did I doubt that you would be focusing on the graphics over the sprite as a whole. Frankly I expected the opposite because I know better than that. The material that you produce is well worth whatever wait that might ensue by computer failures or otherwise. Best of luck.

Yes, always back up your stuff. I have had flash crash on mne so many times!! Arrrh. Adobe/ Macromedia need to fix this problem... or at least create an auto-save function. Like the one on Microsoft Office 2007.

I snickered, then laughed... then suddenly felt depressed over the fact that I can't afford the nice neat toys that you can. Hell, You're the one that got me the ones I have! ...dammit...

UPDATE!!!!

I have received the literature much faster than expected! Let the learning begin!

R1665

Wow, pretty cool that you've gotten after effects. You can do some pretty sweet stuff with that program.
And if you'll be able to create effects like the explosions in the third MK vs SF, i'll gladly let my jaw drop to the floor for you =p

That was so beautiful ........sniff..... an amasing speech you've got this next movie in the bag for sure good luck and no worries cause all ur movies have been top notch so far so there's no failing now.

There's ALWAYS room for failure!

R1665

OH god, I know how it is to have HDD failures! In the past, with my motherboards failing because of some seriously faulty ram (didn't know it at the time), I kept losing all progress. It's not an issue now. I also back up everything in multiple places.

Glad to hear you're learning to work with After Effects. I want it for myself for more reasons than just Flash. It's just fun to mess around with for home movies.

Actually, I used to do movie editing. Mostly local, no-budget slasher flicks.

The desire to shoot, direct, and edit live action movies has long since left me and I consider myself retired from that hobby. The only publicly viewable samples of the early stuff I did is my video game-related stuff on YouTube.

http://www.youtube.com/user/R1665

R1665

You ran into the disease that every flash animator runs into at least once but you were ready for it and for that you get props for that.

when creating the effects,
are you going to layer over existing effects,
or make them from scratch?
either way i like the initiative.

Not sure. I'll figure that out en route.

R1665

[UPDATE]

I ordered several different books on the subject of After Effects and only recently received the one that was meant for the first-timer. I have completed 1/11 lessons and 1/5 of the length of the book in two (very part-time) days. I have only just started on the basics, and I can already see some potential applications for the VG EXILES.

The core mechanisms and principles of After Effects will seem familiar to anyone who is already experienced in Flash. However, the format is very different and rather counter-intuitive. If it weren't for my "Classroom in a Book", I would be SOOOOOO screwed. This is NOT a program that one can simply jump into.

Without the proper literature, I would be no better off than a chimpanzee staring at a calculus equation. That said, I'd like to reiterate one of my strongest opinions regarding self-education. It might help you, too. -

If you want to teach yourself something complicated like Flash or After Effects, it is best to get a properly structured education. You don't have to go to a class to learn this stuff, but you're going to want something more centralized than random tutorials scattered around the internet. Lots of people take the "internet tutorial" route and I believe that this does more harm than good for the person in question. Free online tutorials will not take you gently from the first step to the last, and the path it does take will be riddled with omissions and incongruous steps.

If you're an aspiring flash artist and are motivated enough to actually learn flash, then take the time to properly learn the craft. Proper education materials are available and much less expensive than you might think. If you're willing to drop a few bucks on Amazon, you can get yourself a decent education for dirt cheap.

Anyway, I'm done ranting. Update over.

R1665

"Free online tutorials will not take you gently from the first step to the last, and the path it does take will be riddled with omissions and incongruous steps."

I AGREE!!

This is why I am still struggling to understand basic action scripting! I should get a structured book on action script 2.0 & 3.0.

Hey R1665, are you a pro with advanced action scripting?! I have yet to see some advanced scripting in your movies. ;-)

"Advanced"? My actionscripting wouldn't even qualify as "mediocre". The most AS-intensive thing I use is my VCAM, and I didn't program it.

I considered training myself on advanced actionscripting at one point, but I abandoned that route because I saw no groundbreaking application for it. Everything I need to do can be accomplished by hand or with a few modifications of existing code. Usually, the kind of AS effect I might need is simple and generalized enough that somebody else has already written it.

I only use AS for my menu designs and story scenes. The only code in my fighting sequences is the stuff in the VCAM. Everything else is 100% manual.

R1665

I just bought an external harddrive, and I am now backing up everything I have. I have been meaning to do this for awhile, but haven't gotten around to it. Anyway, yeah. Enough about that. Episode 3. I don't mind waiting, take your time and make it to perfection (or about as close as a human can get). If you need any thing mugen related from me, I'll be glad to help. I doubt there's much I can do, but whatever... So, yeah...

Hey, how's it going? If it's possible after you're done with your project, I would ask for a couple of favors. Come online if you need to since I always forget you're invis.

Damn.

I've had flash since I was around... 12ish.. (I'm 17 now) I've always just toyed around with it, never got too serious. I taught myself the program very slowly, overtime and such and now using flash is like a cake walk.

But anyways, about 6 months ago I tried learning adobe after effects for the same exact reasons as you are.

!!

But I got no where, and I pretty much did the method you said in a previous post where I just looked around at random video tutorials hoping I'd figure it out.

Anyways... I only know the basics in After Effects and I can do very little with what I know. So, good luck, hope it works out for ya. If you don't mind, you could help me (okay that's asking for too much) or show me your "Classroom in a Book" :P

Go to Amazon and search the books for "Adobe After Effects Classroom in a book". Then simply choose a suitable one for the version of After Effects that you will be using. Make sure to get one that has a CD-ROM of exercises.

R1665

Ah alright, I didn't realize it was literally called "Classroom in a book" Thank you~

sounds good.
I lost all my stuff a while ago. again. I've learned to back up too now though, got a nice external harddrive. I'm glad you're still working though. I can tell the final piece will be awesome.