Hal Blog

Normally I would not let one comment or criticism change everything I’m doing, but in this case, I showed the rocket design to a friend who isn’t into comics or science fiction or anything along that line. I could tell she didn’t like it, but she didn’t want to say anything. I asked her what she thought since, by then, I was getting a feel overall that something was wrong and was hoping she could help me narrow it down. Her response? “It looks like a water heater.” That means back to the beginning and on to an even better design.

(more…)

After realizing the first version of the Fancy Flier was too long, I changed it around and shortened it, along with adding a bubble that might be a cockpit on the top front part. It still did not feel right and I tried several variations on it with the fins and rockets in different positions. The biggest changes here are some versions with no top fin and with the fins either spaced evenly about the body, or with the lower fins acting as wings and placed parallel to the ground.  I finally had something I felt was usable.  Of course that was before a friend pointed out some obvious problems with the appearance.  See if you can see what she was talking about before reading my next post.

(more…)

My goal in life is to have my own digital film production company, which is close to happening. The company name is Flights of Fancy Films and I have a website for it. A thumbnail of the logo is on the left (click for bigger picture). This logo is strictly 2 dimensional objects and I want 3 dimensional objects so it can eventually be animated. The catch is that I don’t have experience in modeling or animation. The first step is to create a nice rocket or spaceship. I want a spaceship that looks like something out of the 1930s comic strips, like Flash Gordon. (Yes, I’m a Flash Gordon fan!) The first ships I ever saw like that were the ones from the original Flash Gordon serials when they were rerun on the local PBS station one year. Later I saw the comics and there was also the 1980 film version of Flash Gordon. Since it was only a 2 hour movie, much of the story line had to be left out (but it was amazing how much was kept in!). The movie was quite camp, but it kept faith with the original, including all the spaceships and costumes.  It is the rockets from the original comics, serials, and the 1980 movie version that have inspired my ideas for a rocket for my logo (and eventually for other animations).

(more…)

Note: I actually started doing this about 2 weeks ago, but I was so interested in doing the animation that I didn’t have time to get Wordpress working so I could start writing a blog. I’ll be posting each step from my original write-up on it until I catch up with where I am now.

I’ve always wanted to learn 3D animation. I’m intrigued by the idea that someone like me, without drawing or artistic abilities, could create an object out of lines and curves, decide what shape it should have, then pick the colors and textures for the materials, and end up with an object that looks like it could actually exist in space and with mass. Even as a kid, before the movie Tron, I knew there should be a way, using equations, to plot shapes and have a computer animate them by moving them and figuring out the light and shadow effects.

I found a program called Blender, which is open source and free of charge. This program is completely free (and it’s open source, which, for anyone that knows me, is something I am always excited to see). Since I’m not using Windows, and using Linux instead, I check and see Blender is available via the Advanced Packaging Tool, so I type one line: “apt-get install blender” and voila!, Blender is automatically downloaded and installed on my system. The harder part is finding a good guide. There are plenty of guides and tutorials online, for free, at blender.org, where you can download the program for free, but I find it hard to switch back and forth between program windows, so I make a trip to Borders and buy a good guide.

It took me a while, since I was not used to Blender’s unique interface, but I was finally able to create my first animation. It’s a gingerbread man walking. I didn’t really do anything creative with this. I just followed the instructions (or at least almost all of them), and made a gingerbread man, then made him walk. He only walks one step, but if your media player is set to loop or replay animations, then when he finishes the step, he starts again and it looks like he is walking continuously.

It’s not a great animation, but it’s nice and fun to create something like this and see it work. Here’s a link to my first animation, the GingerbreadMan.mpg.