A Glimpse into the Universe of Cosmic Rage

The day that we have all been waiting for has finally arrived. A glimpse into what the universe of Cosmic Rage.

Episode 1 is currently in production, stay tuned for more production updates and don’t forget to share with your friends!

Minor Update

I have been pretty busy the last few days, but wanted to give a quick update on things. I have been working on my SGMS presentation in Keynote and getting it prepped for the SGMS conference this weekend. I am really excited for the panel and to present on Studio Madhouse 🙂 So next week I will be recapping the SGMS conference and sharing my experiences with you all.

Most importantly, the prologue will be launched in a few days. 🙂 Be sure to come and check it out on the 30th!

Production Update 62

One more week until the launch of the Cosmic Rage prologue 🙂 Back to this week’s update. I wrapped up my SGMS presentation this week and will be finalizing it this week for time. For episode 1 I rendered out another motion test to get the camera move finalized,. I am happy with the animation and am going to lock in the camera move.

Currently I am working on setting up render passes and object buffers for areas that I need cut out for compositing. For the non-technical readers, when rendering things out in 3D, everything gets rendered as a flat image. So I need to create “passes” to cut out areas so I can start to layer the animations. Similar to the render pass post I had a while back with the black and white renders. By doing this, I can set up fast renders and make sure I have all of the passes I need before I set up a textured final render.

I am working remotely this week from MN for SGMS at the end of the week, so I won’t be able to finish mapping out some of the city references for the other environment. I did get invited onto a friends podcast to talk about Cosmic Rage. Once I get a link to it, I will post it up for everyone to check out. Don’t forget to check back next week for the Premiere of the Cosmic Rage prologue!

Random Post- Fall Anime Previews

With the summer anime run coming to a near close, I thought I would run through a few of the titles I have read previews for and let you know what shows I am excited about this fall. Currently this season, I am only paying attention to one show, Attack on Titan. You cna read about some of the titles due out this fall at RocketNews.

1) Kill La Kill

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85X_tmunBNY&w=560&h=315]

I have heard some say this is the most anticipated title out this fall. I haven’t seen the work the trailer references to so I am going into this show pretty blind when it starts. Crunchyroll has announced that this title will be streaming.

2) Coppelion

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fm_IflUKc7U&w=560&h=315]

I haven’t heard if this title will be streaming or not, but the fall line-up should be fleshed out in the next week or so. Coppelion has the story setting of Tokyo after a nuclear meltdown. I need to check this one out b/c it could have some nice social commentary to it or even a political bit. This one might have me the most curious of the season.

Those are the 2 titles I am the most excited about, granted I don’t really know much about them heading into them. There are a few others that look interesting but aren’t really my thing, but I figured I may check them out anyways and see if the first few episodes are enough to keep me interested. Check them out below.

Short leash titles (titles I might check out and if they are unable to hook me quickly I’m done)

Non Non Biyori

I am interested in this one from a sheer art standpoint. The show is set in the Japanese countryside and I am interested to see the backgrounds and environment artwork. The story doesn’t seem like anything I typically watch but I might need to check out a few eps for art sake.

White Album 2

Not sure if this is a sequel or not. I like music anime’s even though I never really have seen one all the way through. I generally check these out for music alone and see if they are used mostly as a marketing tool for an actual album or not. Who knows if the story will be enough for me to stick around.

Voice Actor Force Voicetorm 7

This series is suppose to be animated like a motion comic. I will be really interested to see how it plays out and how it is received by fans.

Looks like it should be an interesting line up for the fall with a little something for everyone.

Production Update 61

In case you missed the news last week, the prologue is done! We have a release date set for Sept 30th. The new music composition fits in nicely with what I was looking for and I am really happy with the what the final product looks like, I am really excited to hear what everyone has to say about it once it goes live.

One of the biggest things I hear about at cons is that you have to get your work out there for people to see. I have never really been bashful about putting my work out there, I have always had a demo reel of my commercial work and always look forward to hearing what others have to say about it. I like getting feedback and I know that people that just say things suck have no basis for their argument. Anyways, I would be lying if I didn’t say I was a little nervous about this piece. I have tried some new things, expanded my horizons and it is just the tip of the iceberg for the story I want to share with all of you that find it compelling.

With the prologue locked in, I was able to work on episode 1 again this week and weekend. I got some more modeling done on the main environment. I added in another element right now, but before I continued to expand on it, I wanted to add in the camera move for the scene, so I knew how much detail to put into certain areas of the setting. While it may not look like I got much done from the screenshot below, I was able to get a couple animation tests done and have my camera move planned for the establishing shot.

Screen Shot 2013-09-15 at 11.46.03 PMI do have some slight changes to make to the setting, but nothing on the main level here that you see. I just need to make sure the setting coincides with the exterior build of the building. I can’t have a 3 story interior and only a one story exterior. Which builds into the next thing I got done this week.

I spent one night just walking around downtown and taking reference pics of the setting I want in episode 1. These reference shots will allow me to make better street layouts and also create the feeling that people actually live in this area. I have 3 more settings overall to create but the cool news is that once I get this one done, I can set up 3D renders and work on modeling the other settings. So it’s just a matter of continually pushing forward.

So what is on tap for this week? Well I actually think this week I am going to be polishing up my keynote for the SGMS conference in a couple weeks. I want to get my Keynote done and have a chance to go through it in case I need to cut it down. I also do have probably another night of being downtown and taking more reference photos before I feel like I have what I need. I also need to get the photos taken before the weather turns to snow.

Random Post- What I have been up to #2

With all of the moving and such going on, I haven’t had time to really sit down and write out a review or for that matter, really seen anything to write a review on. So I figured I would freestyle blog and just write down what I have been up to again on some of my major projects I have going on.

I wrapped up the prologue last night. So run and tell your friends that it’s coming Sept 30th. I had some loose ends to wrap up since Monday, but that’s all taken care of now.

I am still working on the environments for episode 1, but I don’t have plans for the weekend so I should be able to get a really good weekend full of work in. I am looking forward to getting back to the environment designs.

As I said earlier, I haven’t been able to watch anything. I need to watch the series, Tsuritama yet, since it has been sitting around for a while. I also need to catch up on Attack on Titan and RWBY. All of these will have reviews when I get them knocked out.

I have made some solid progress on getting my presentation prepped for SGMS this year. I am so excited to go back and present again this year. It is always a great time to go back and visit people and hear about what everyone has been researching.

I am also hoping to get back to my Japanese studies this weekend as well. I am afraid that I am going to be very rusty and forget some of the stuff I have learned.

Other than that, I am still wrapping up a few freelance projects for clients. Many of them I can’t wait to start on, so much potential 🙂 Be sure to come back on Monday for a hopefully big production update!

Production Update 60

The big 6-0, production update 60 and we are going to make it a big. So let’s start by letting the cat out of the bag as to what I have been up to the last few weeks. First off, I am going back into the studio so I am wrapping up some of my loose freelance projects and working in studio, so things have a tendency to get a little hectic. Which is also the reason I have been moving and traveling quite a bit lately. There wasn’t anything wrong with freelancing, I had a great time doing it, made lots of great contacts and worked on many great projects, however, this was an interesting opportunity and I felt I had to see how it goes.

That’s not all the news I have today though. I have received the final audio track from the new composer for the prologue. I have to tweak a couple sound effects, but we officially have a release date announced for when it is going live, September 30th. That’s right, 20 more days until your first glimpse into the Cosmic Rage universe.

With all of the big news out of the way, I can tell you about some of the things I have done this week. I took some reference photos for another one of the environments that I need to create. I also spent some time on the prologue, tweaking one scene that had an error and working on the credits slate for the end. Outside of that it was mostly moving and packing up items. I did get a good amount of work in for my SGMS presentation as well. I am happy to say that I am posting in my new place and that I am settled in and ready for a solid week of work. Stay Tuned for more!

Con Recap: Sogen Con 2013

I was able to make my second con of the year this past weekend in my home state of South Dakota for the farewell tour of Sogen Con. About a month before the con, it was announced on social media outlets that Sogen Con was in it’s final year. I was bummed out by the news, because I am hoping that I can take Cosmic Rage on the con road next year and I was hoping that Sogen was going to be on the list of cons to submit for. While the con could come back in future years, this was going to be it’s finale, at least for now.

I didn’t make it for the opening ceremony on Friday night, but I was able to make it to a couple panels. The first panel I attended was the web comic panel, I always like to hear about other artist’s journeys into the medium and to hear them talk about their artwork.

This year the featured artist was James Hatton, who runs a webcomic called “In His Likeness” A comic based on a dot characters of God, the Devil, Poseidon and other characters of religious mythology. The comic makes fun of pop culture so you should get a lot of laughs out of it.

After the comic panel, I  went to a mystery screening session where we poked fun at a few random series. Nothing better than laughing at a series with bad voice acting, bad artwork or terrible storylines.  I caught a few screened episodes of Dragonball, because come on, stuff is always funner to watch on big screens.

I headed back to the con on Saturday morning and had a chance to hang out and talk with James a bit more before going to another panel of his where we talked about how the medium of web comics is changing and evolving. I love hearing about what other artists are working on and their perspective on the current state of the field.

After the panel I killed some time checking out artist alley and the dealers room. I talked with a few of the other artists and saw a lot of stuff I wanted to buy, but that’s normal right?

I went to another screening, this time it was some OVA’s on Dominion Tank Police. Some good stuff to laugh at a bit, it was like an animated 80’s hair band music video. Funny stuff.

I grabbed some food, and then went to another panel about kaiju monsters and we worked on creating one as a group that will be online later. The following panel was the Season 2 premiere of a short series called Bar Flies (you can check the first episode here).

I didn’t see season 1 before so after a quick recap we dove into season 2. It was very entertaining and the director and producer were there to answer questions afterwards and tell us about some of the ups and downs of the filming journey.

Before the rave got underway, there was a pretty epic hailstorm that dumped ping pong sized hail in the area. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to attend the con on Sunday, missing a few panels that I wanted to see, as well as the closing ceremony. I met some great people and I hope that Sogen Con can be back in the near future.

Production Update 59

Happy labor day holiday! I hope everyone is relaxing and enjoying their hopeful time off. It’s a beautiful day here is South Dakota so I am writing my update out on the patio. First off, I continued to work on the 3D environment that is the majority of the setting for the first episode. As you can see in the picture below…

Screen Shot 2013-09-02 at 6.22.25 PM

I have the main areas blocked out, I just need to get some of the finer details put in there. I am aiming to gather some reference photos later tonight. Speaking of reference photos, I took some reference photos for some exterior shots today as well. I made a list of environments that I need to model yet, and surprisingly there are only 3 others after this. I have 2 building exteriors to design. One of the exteriors will be just the facade of the building. The other building I will need to do the full version because I am also designing the surrounding area of it as well, which constitutes the other environment. So things are going well and I am very excited to get into more of the modeling aspect. I will need reference images for all of these but I took some today.

On the music front, I am working with a new composer who has gotten me some test tracks to check out. I am hoping that September will be the month that we can get the prologue out for everyone to see. Stay Tuned for more updates!