Hi there. These two pictures are not from the new Scene 6. You might notice if you're a keen reader of JF, that this is kinda like scene 1, except everything is different. You see, I have this idea that scenes 1-5 are not the final version of JF Comic. They are a rough draft of the JF Comic. Since I'm such a terrible artist, I used the first five scenes to learn the ropes. Now I have criticized myself and created better models so now I can redo the entire thing. If you told a normal comic artist that their work was substandard and that they would have to redo it all, he/she would say, "You are completely insane!" You see, normal comics take many hours. Three to six hours per page is not unusual. For JF, it's similar, but different. I am not a normal comic artist. I am a programmer. Instead of using my immense talent of which I lack, I made programs that do it for me. I made these programs so that I would not have to draw really anything. I do have to do a whole lot of dragging and dropping and a small bit of number-crunching. But really, To produce 5 scenes with 17 pages, I put 200 hours into programming, 100 hours into modelling, 20 hours into skinning, 5 hours into direction, and 50 hours into useless Making of JFs. Doing the numbers, you see that I could have finished all 24 scenes (128 pages) of JF by now if I were to have to spent only 20 hours per week on JF. You see, a lot of the slowness you see is not the hard work that I'm doing everynight, but rather the fact that I'm playing games, learning electromagnetism, and doing other fun things. But that's okay because I am so much more talented in programming than modelling. That's why the models look bad. So after all that time, I have models that look good. Now I have to do everything over. I also have a program that works 100%. Had I done all 24 scenes, it would have been a huge accomplishment, but would achieve nothing since I'd have to do it over again. So now, my 6-month plan is to put 5 hours into programming, 20 hours into modelling, 5 hours into skinning, 20 hours into directing, and 5 hours into Making Of JF rants. That allows a lot of time for studying. It also allows for me to set a goal to produce JF Final Draft scenes 1-15 by March 1st. That is a rapid pace, but I think I can do it if I push myself to do more directing. This Making Of JF page is the first step. For each scene, I have to get all the characters lined up in semi-correct positions. So then I can just drag them around. None of the four characters (Jav, EG1, warehouse, Seattle) will be exactly how they are now in JF. I plan to use the Dojo Ambush model for EG1. I plan to use the Jav 40 model for Javantea. I plan to give some backsides to those Warehouse walls. I plan to use the new Los Angeles terrain model (with dome at night) instead of the Seattle terrain model. Of course, I have a few extra characters, but adding them is just a copy and paste maneuver. So, that is how JF Final Scene 1 will come together. I'm going to work on Scene 6 still because people want to see something new, but I'm going to do Scene 1 simultaneously since the very nature of 3d modelling permits it and encourages it.
Link to me if you would like. http://javantea.com/ is the main address. Verdana font is fine. Or use this nifty little standard size button.
Hi, below is something interesting for you deep thinkers. It's a problem of logic with applications. I also have a good lesson down there if you can mine it. This picture is a mess, isn't it? How did I make it? Linear motion blur and radial motion blur together using Gimp. Gimp is sweet. First I tried to make a movie of it and then use VirtualDub's motion blur. It looks really ugly. It goes up and down and makes me ill. So I tried taking two frames and blending them together. That didn't work at all. It didn't look as good as the blending I did for... Scene 1 Page 3 look at the second row and it looks like ghosting. If I made those bigger (which I will do for JF Final), they'd look pretty cool. While writing this, I came up with a better idea. I could take the two images and then motion blur them! <goes into GIMP> Okay, I think the first one looks better, but the second one is more correct. Which should I go for? The first one I tried only used one picture. That means that any motion is completely faked. The other one uses two motion blurred images combined and the later one without motion blur combined afterwards. It gives a sense of blurriness and ghosting. I'll have to work on it, I guess. It definately isn't going to find its way into the Anime. I might not even put any motion blur into JF Anime. There's a bit done in real anime, but no actual blurring. Maybe I can make a 3d motion accentuation thingamajig. I don't like what I see with vertex shaders and they're still too advanced for me. But what about JF Final? Motion blur might be an effect that is both possible and very cool. But I should probably stick to my idea of adding motion lines. You see, I've gotten this idea that I can make 3d Motion lines using my knowledge of 3d and stuff. I'll just Have a 1x64 with dots on it. I'll then put the texture onto a curved 3d surface. Then I'll add it to models that need it and it'll be sweet. I might even add that as a function of AS3DMD3, but it's pretty complex. Hmm, who knows, eh? The art lesson is: get to know your paint program's functions. Filters are sweet when used correctly. There are few images on the professional side of the net that don't go through at least four filters. I remember back at my job, my boss wanted the website to look like the NYSE. "Exactly?" I asked. "In style, yes. In function, different," he replied. Uh huh. Okay, it's made of stripes. So I made a striped texture and stretched it across a picture. "No, it isn't stripes, it's something completely different, see. It has these funny variations that correspond to the original picture." He paid twenty dollars and plenty of my co-worker's time to figure it out that it could be duped using semi-transparent stripes. Oh, of course. A few weeks ago I was going through my filters and found the filter, it's called video noise. You know how video is made of RGB, so if you look really close, it has stripes, right? Uh huh. So the NYSE's nice looking web site was just some artist complaining about how grainy their monitors are. ^-^ Okay, I'm babbling, I need sleep or some such. G'nite.
Monday morning rolls along and I still have no job. I'm going to look for a job right after this short rant. This pic I drew that is so-so. It shows how amateur I am at drawing. I will list the ways that I lack in drawing:
- Characters do not look like real people. Read more »
