Well, you didn't expect another shot of Jav, did ya? Well, my train of thought was able to stay on one thing for more than one day straight this time. This is another fight scene that I can't explain until I finish Scene 5. Jav is kicking someone and screaming while he's doing it. Wow... So, what's the lesson? Animation is harder than I usually say it is. I said that it was easy just because it's easy to start. What can be easier than drag and drop? Well, first off, it's hard to get the mesh to work with the skeleton. If you get your skeleton working with your mesh, then you actually have to do something with it. That's even harder. You need to drag and drop until the person looks like they're doing something. The only tool you have is your mouse and the XZ, XY, and YZ views. You can drag those bone around all day and get little more than a funky squishy mess that you say is your "animation". But really what animation means is moving pictures. We aren't doing moving pictures as much as moving body parts. It's a 3d thing instead of a 2d thing and it plain sucks. I don't like it one bit. I have no idea how video games do it. I used to think: why don't they hire better animators, these body movements look jerky and unnatural. Well, now seeing the shyte that I produce, it's all becoming clear to me. Skeleton animation is tough. A professional can hardly do it right, so what am I going to do? I'm going to make pictures that hide the ugly looking parts. I should look at the Half Life models, etc... I just can't do it.
Tonight's lesson is that of sunshine. Indeed sunshine is better than a tall cup of tea, even though tall cups of tea are more likely to manifest themselves here in Seattle. Not only can sunshine cause cancer, sunburn, and blond hair, but also gleefulness. Today was so sunny I had to go out. When I got home from class, I made a pair of peanut butter and honey sandwiches, grabbed a banana and my jug of water and headed to the newly reopened park. It's been closed for months. It was completely insane to close an essential park that long. Not that I used it, but kids did. What's improved? There's better sand, softer and I was less fearful of refuse. There's also one or two new jungle gyms. I dunno if the normal one is new, but I'm certain that the second is. It's a huge modern art sculpture of a metal ape pushing down the frame of a house. The ape hasn't knocked it down, so it's a pretty awkward jungle gym. I drew in my notepad and came up with the two things you see here. Note that I agree with you if you think it sucks. A few things make this terrible. First of all, wtf are these two guys doing? You dunno unless I tell you. They are Jav and they are in the middle of a big kick, kinda like Chun Li's helicopter kick. I won't tell you what it's for, but I'll tell you that you'll see something like these two picture in scene 5. Secondly, what's with the head size, body size, etc? Well, I suck at drawing the same person twice. Even in the same position, it's completely impossible for me currently. Thankfully, 3d forgoes that unpleasantness. However, if I want to become a real manga-ka, I'll have to learn to draw non-3d and get two images to look correct even if the person is doing completely different things. Perhaps I'll never become a real manga-ka, but perhaps I'll be and artist and the inventor of 3d manga/anime. But I suggest if there's ever a sunny day, grab your pad and pencil and get out there. It'll also be good for you to get away from this forsaken machine and your lame work. It might be good to draw inside when it's not sunny. Never let your skills dull. My drawing skill biorhythm is all gone to fuxx0rs.
Happy Valentine's Day to yas. You can the love, can't ya? Tonight's lesson is an interesting one. I added the screenshot function to my work, so now it's cool. It won't serve my needs for AS3D Anime Producer, but that's fine. I know how to do that since I did it in Visual Basic. But the SaveSurface function avoids a lot of trouble. Yup. It's below if you are interested. What about this pic? Well, it's pretty lame. It's just the same old AS3D Manga Director Interface at a particular spot where pixels get weird. When I say pixels getting weird, I don't mean pixellation, I mean smoothing due to pixellation. Look at this! It looks as if it's smooth as a sandy beach while it's really at the sub pixel level. What is going on? Perhaps it's because the surface isn't quite right? Perhaps it's because it's at an angle or something? I dunno, but rarely do I see order descending into chaos and returning. Certainly this is a phenomenon of DirectX. Perhaps someone can use it? A programmer trying to make a surfing game with only one 32x32 texture? Hehehe. I'm always looking for new stuff that defies laws that are counterintuitive and/or unsupported.
The only two things that are more lame than tonight's picture is the fact that it isn't the worst Making Of JF and that I almost didn't do it at all. But I'll save the story until the end of the lesson. Today's lesson is: real life models. Note that I do not practice what I preach in this instance exactly, but I learned. The first thing is that most things will need real life models. If you're a good anime drawer, it's because you know the human body well and you know how to conform it to the anime world. If you don't use real life models, your drawing will starve for information. Uninformed artists do that. If you know nothing about something, you leave out the details. If you know a lot about something, you'll add the details and get it right. The real world model for this gun is from my memory of my father's Glock 9mm and various guns that I've seen in good movies. My father's Glock has a shorter barrel than this one. It's also black plastic and definitely has no laser sight (laser sights are useful for attacking well-armed foes, btw). So Why did I change this distinctly from my memory? Well, DA3 is not my father ^_^. He uses his gun against well-armed foes (hence the laser sight) and he wants accuracy at long distances (hence the longer barrel). A little physics note on the barrel: Longer barrels confine the bullet to a certain trajectory long after the explosion whereas shorter barrels do not. Thinking of a very short barrel might send the bullet straight into the ground in front of the gun. And then there's the spiral down the barrel that trades some forward velocity for angular velocity. That stabilizes the bullet very well. Anyway, back to the gun. I decided to not use a real life model for this gun because I didn't want the gun to be life-like. Anime distorts reality and this guy's gun is not going to come directly out of Counterstrike. They may want kids to bust out their D. Eagle and bust a cap just like IRL, but I want a type of fantasy going on here. These guys customize their weapons and practice at the range twice a week. What range? Oh yeah, I forgot, no range. The UN illegalized guns and the Anarchist community cannot have any loud noises. Perhaps these people practice in underground ranges. I know of people who have illegal underground ranges in their house these days. The cops will never hear. Anyway, I'm trimming down the accessories because I think it would be smart for JF to focus on the beauty of the futile killing machine rather than the reality of your dirty guts spilled out on the floor as the robber looks at you in hatred and he bends down to pick up your wallet and rummage for a few dollar bills. Certainly my imagery is nothing short of gruesome. Many artists strive to better this imagery to indescribable horrors, but I find it quite in the opposite of my goals. My goal is to enlighten my viewers rather than attempt to fill their morbid hatred of human judgement.
