Building on the Peak

Greetings, one and all! As is to be expected for this time of year, production progress is spotty until the New Year. That said, we still got a smattering of effects shots done, including (I hope,) the ruined city! Below is a work in progress screenshot.

The process was tedious, and the program was getting to the point of crashing every few clicks, or any time I dragged an object to a different place, but it’s finally in a state where we can let it sit for a while, and then revisit it to see if any issues jump out at us. That’s pretty common with any shot that you’ve been working on for an extended period. You start to lose perspective. After that, hopefully it will all render like it’s supposed to…

Well, that’s about all for this week. Until next time!

Entering the Season

Greetings, one and all! As predicted, the ruin models were painted in the time expected. After that they had a good weathering, and we shot them… twice. Racing to do shoots in the gaps in the cloud cover led to some inconsistencies that needed to be resolved. So this led to two separate shoots, along with an alternate angle on the ships from an earlier shoot. Since then, we’ve been working on building the shot of the ruined city, which… will take some time. The program doesn’t seem to be a fan of all the layers that are needed.

On top of that, the fire shots were completed, and now there are only a couple more to go. These could be difficult, because they’re at an odd angle, but we’ll see what we can do.

Lastly, the team met for the annual Christmas party…

As per tradition, they participated in one of our long form narrative games, which ended in a bit of a cliffhanger. Now I’ll be spending the Christmas break figuring out how in the world their characters could even survive this.

Well, that’s about all for this week. Until next time, and Merry Christmas!

Flame On

Greetings, one and all! We opened up this week with building small scale ruins for yet another wide shot. Between when this is written, and when it’s published, I’ll probably be painting them up. After that, we scoured the internet for quality fireball sound effects, as the ones we have are showing their age. After reacquainting myself with the Creative Commons audio aggregation sites, we turned to completing the fire visual effects we have at hand. Currently it’s looking like about three or four hours of work per shot, and these are the fairly simple ones. But I think the tedious hand animation will still beat out the time needed for a decent simulation.

Anyway, that well in hand, the team did its last meet before going on Christmas break. We engaged in a tried and true exercise, with some very specific limitations…

The less experienced stunties are starting to show some good progress in their tactical thinking, which pleases far me more than I expected. I guess there’s just something about someone pulling out an unexpected win… Anyway, a good, if cold, time was had by all.

Well, that’s about all for this week. Until next time!

Sailing to Nightside

Greetings, one and all! So this blog week started out with a bang. No sooner do we finish the Nightside model, than we get a brief bit of clear sky, which lasted just long enough to shoot the model, before the storm clouds struck with sleet and hail. While that fell outside, we assembled those takes with the footage, seeing what worked best with the background plates, and ultimately doing a hybrid of different takes.

On a roll, we added sails to the tiny ship model just in time for the next break in the clouds, where we turned the one ship into a fleet.

Integration with the ocean plate is still in process.

Sunday the team met again, and this time we put some more stunties through the wall exercise. (Okay, there may also have been some friendly sniping involved…)

Proving once again that even the least experienced can take down the most experienced when exhaustion is a factor.

Well, (barring boring marketing talk,) that’s about all for this week. Until next time!

Markets, Ships, and Heists

Greetings, one and all! As expected, this week was a little less productive, thanks to the Thanksgiving weekend, but we still managed to make some notable progress. The first bit is market research, not for the current project, per se, but for every one that comes from here on out. Seeing what audiences naturally gel with the kinds of things we make, where they congregate, who the influencers are, and so on. Still early days, so we'll see where it leads.

Next up is making tiny ships. One particular location in the movie will have to be filmed at two different scales, so we’ll need two versions of the model. One to the scale of the tiny houses shown earlier, and another that’s much, much larger.

Last but not least, the stunt team met on Sunday, and thanks to a very rainy day, we had to go to Plan B: Choreographing a museum heist.

This one went a bit more Jackie Chan in its physical comedy, so it was pretty entertaining.

Well, that’s about all for this week. Until next time!

Small Duels and Smaller Houses

Greetings, one and all! So, we opened up this week with finalizing the models for the night shoot, and reshooting them. They’ve turned out much better, this time. After that, we got into making even tinier houses, for a long range establishing shot…

There’s a lot of work to do to finish this up, but it’s a good start.

Lastly, an unexpectedly smaller stuntie assembly meant that we had to improvise. So we set up a rotating “back to the wall” drill, where one stuntie takes on the others with his particular weapon set, until he loses and the victor takes his place against the wall, at which point the defeated player swaps to a different weapon set, and tries to retake his crown.

This would be a lot easier on the stunties if there’s more than three of them in the rotation, but it prototyped well.
Now that we’re going into the Thanksgiving weekend, things could be a bit slower, but hopefully we’ll come roaring back in the new week.

Well, that’s about all for this week. Until next time!

Miniature Shots in the Dark

 Greetings, one and all! This week has been an interesting mix, to be sure. First off, we started work on yet more models, (including one of the same location at different scales,) which will allow us to shoot the bulk of the night establishing shots for various locations. Secondly, we actually shot them.

Thirdly, I realized that I didn’t like how about half of the shots looked, so I’m revising some of the models and setting up for a new shoot.

Lastly, the team met on a freezing cold Sunday to practice choreographing a knife fight.

A stunt chain may have gotten involved, too…

Well, that’s about all for this week. Until next time!

Smashing and Clashing

Greetings, one and all! Well, this has been a strange fall. Ordinarily the valley doesn’t see snow ‘til January, but this year we got it thick and fast over the weekend. The sudden weather changes have kept most of the work indoors, so it’s good that I have plenty of material to process. Of course, this week has seen much Foley, particularly focusing on weapons and destruction sounds, but also some visual effects, as well. This has been a welcome break from audio work, and proof that I handle the tedium of rotoscoping much better than the tedium of audio cleanup.

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before, but the park where we were shooting the Spire sequence moved the disc golf goal half way through the shoot to directly behind the bulk of the action. Dead center, almost. So I’ve been having… fun hunting down the appearances of the goal and making it disappear. Or at least less noticeable.

Well, that’s about all for this week. Until next time!

Mirrored Challenges

Greetings, one and all! That’s right, this week saw yet more Foley work, including a quick ADR session, but thankfully I don’t have to be as visually boring this time.

Why? Because the stunt team is back! Since I wanted them to focus on blade work, as opposed to their instinct toward grappling, I gave them “lightsabers,” and divided them up into pairs. All the pairs had to incorporate the same three elements into their duels, and show the outcome.

All in all, a mission success, as they definitely dove into the flowing blade work. While we’ve been far too busy to work on any official lightsaber challenges for the last few years, it’s still fun to dip into that pool, every now and then.

Well, that’s about all for this week. Until next time!

Steps and Establishment

 Greetings, one and all! So… this week was somewhat less picture-worthy, as it was almost exclusively syncing up Foley, and building soundscapes. That said, it has had its fun moments, like using the sound of dirt and something squelching in a bowl to get a good stab sound. Or speeding up the sound of dirt and gravel falling to make an icy noise.

However, the thing I’ve spent the most time on was replacing footsteps. This is because the material the sets are made of rarely matches what they’re supposed to be made of. So, creaky wooden stairs must become solid stone, and so on.

On Sunday we did a quick pickup shoot to flesh out an establishing shot. Sadly we got no pictures, as everyone involved was occupied, so we’ll have to settle for a screenshot.

As of this writing, the new footage has been integrated into the shot, and is awaiting final color correction. We add that to a couple other bits of effects work, like an ice blast or some simple rotoscoping, and we’ve just about rounded things out.

Well, that’s about all for this week. Until next time!

Audio and Anarchic Action

 Greetings, one and all! So, let’s see… This week started with yet more Foley work, chiefly weapons strikes and some movement pickups, followed by several days of building the soundscape of various shots. This ranged from footsteps and sea roar, to arrow hits and wind blasts. We’re still at the very beginning of the process, but it’s encouraging to see this blank in the production start to get filled in.

On top of that, the Forgotten City buildings got their weathering and detailing paint passes. Now we need to sort out good environmental lighting, and shoot it.

There was an unexpectedly small stunt team on Sunday, so we turned them to some madcap short weapon choreography…

There was a lot of running, and at least half of them were out of breath at the end of a couple passes. Quite entertaining for the audience, to boot.

Lastly, as a little bit of a teaser, here’s a non-spoiler image of an early pass on one of the few CGI elements in the movie…

Well, that’s about all for this week. Until next time!

Sound and Fury

Greetings, one and all! So… what did this week cover? Mostly, lots of Foley. Foley is the recording of the assorted sounds that would be generated by actions in the scene, footsteps being one of the most common, but including things like clothes rustling, weapons clashing, and even ambient animals. Of course, in our case, I’m putting goblin screams into this category, as I don’t think they exactly count as Additional Dialogue Recording (ADR).

Thus, the week started with making lists of all the sounds needed to complete the project, followed by many hours on steps, stones grinding, rubble falling, and a host of hostile vocalizations.

Along with that, we have finally finished the remaining buildings for the Forgotten City close shots, and got the team to help base coat them…

Given team member availabilities, most things had to be crammed into only a few days, but we’ve made really good progress. However there is still much more Foley to go…

Well, that’s about all for this week. Until next time!