Day 7 of New Work

Here is a background shot of the cliff in the waterfall scene.

I started painting a set of curtains for an office shot. It's too muddy and needs more contrast, but it's a start.

Day 6, The Day That Skipped 5

I did not do any work yesterday. Sad, I know. I did however finish the waterfall background tonight.

Christmas is upon us so no work will be done for 2 days. Hoping to crank out more backgrounds and finalize more designs come next week.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Day 4 Continued Work

Not much to show but I spent the entire evening on working and reworking these rocks, at one point deleting about 45 mins worth of work because I didn't like the result.

Day 3 More WIP Backgrounds

I took the weekend off to chill but got right back into production this evening.

This is the start of a closeup of the grass and water.

This is a shot of what will be an animated waterfall.

Hope to work on them both more tomorrow.

Day 2 of Work

I worked on the grassy field background a bit more, adding in more details and got it to a place where it looks pretty good. I'm happy with the result.

Another shot of the grassy field, but will be used for a closeup.

Ideally one background a day would be good, but I'm not setting any goals other than to consistently put work into the project, alleviating the workload come next year. No doubt there will be some exploratory color designs in the coming days which will slow down production, but it must be done to achieve the look I am striving for.

25 Days of Robiety

Not quite, but sort of. Over Christmas vacation, I plan on getting some major things done for Robiety. In an effort to maintain motivation and keep production going, I will be posting what I have worked on during the day and show any progress that I've made.

I have tried painting a few different backgrounds in different styles, trying to decide upon which fits the movie best. This is what I came up with for today:

It's not complete but it's a step in the right direction. I'm happy with how it's looking right now and if I don't hate it tomorrow, then it's probably a keeper.

The Big Post of Layouts

These are some of the background layouts I've been working with, used to determine position and spacing for characters. Some are good, some are bad. Most of these are preliminary and will have detail painted in when I get around to that phase of production. As for now, they work for what I need them for and I hope to show more animation tests in the coming weeks.

Robiety Stuff

I've been long past due for a progress update. This past week I've been designing and modeling the city of where the story takes place. It's not totally complete, but for most of the shots it will suffice.

Welcome to Sector51.

Still playing with render settings, so nothing is set in stone yet, but it will be toon shaded to fit with the movie.

This is the first shot in which we meet our protagonist, SIMB. We learn of his role in the factory workplace, see how he is treated amongst other robots, and much more in this single shot.

Laying the Foundation

The past few weeks has been background layouts and animation keys. The movie is taking form and shaping up nicely. I've been working on a nushift.net redesign which will lend itself to robiety.com. While that's going on, I plan to do some color tests this weekend to see what style is best suited for the film.

Robiety Animation: Keys

I was bored in class yesterday and decided to start doing keys of some simple animations. I can only do so many layouts during a period of time until it gets stale. Starting a new production element is always a daunting task for me. As afraid I was to start animating, I jumped right in not worrying about failing because I can always fix it. I'll post when I'm satisfied with the assets.

Robiety.com Coming Soon

Last week I set up robiety.com as the official site for the film. I hope to have it complete sometime early next year. I don't plan on devoting a whole lot of time to it right now as I am still developing content for the movie. The animatic is done for now; I'll go back another time and tweak some shots most likely, but my main focus at the moment is cranking out background layouts and designs. The final movie will be in 1080p HD, but for now these images are scaled down.

More to come within the next few weeks.

Robiety Pre-Production: Meet SIMB

Finished the storyboard last week and slapped an animatic together. Currently I'm reworking the animatic's timing and adding and redoing a few shots to make the pacing flow better. For the most part it's looking pretty good.

Here we have the protagonist, SIMB (Standard Issue Maintenance Bot). He's a small bot in comparison to the others at the corporate factory and is a mindless worker drone until he takes matters into his own hands to change the way society works and thinks.

The film relies heavily on real life pre-existing symbols and themes to create a comprehensive story about the inner workings of society.

School Work

Since the weight of Cosmic Chase has been lifted, I've been focusing on character design and storyboarding my new film. It's something I've never done before as I try to push and challenge myself with each new project. It's been in the works since May and since then a draft of the script has been written. I'm excited about it. It's titled "Robiety".

Robiety is a story driven tale about a robotic society and the struggle of one robot to rebel against the corporation and discover happiness. This is a more mature film geared towards the older crowd, containing various intertwining themes and symbolism which is left up to the viewer to interpret. It's an open-ended story and you can take what you want from it.

I've been studying and looking up different types of robots over the last month to solidify characters. So far I've got the main character and villain along with a few extras. It'll be a heavily stylized film and contain minimal action as it will focus on acting and emotion.

Robiety will be completed in April 2011. I'll be posting more on production as I do it throughout the year.

And now for something different. Here's some stuff I worked on last semester.

Monster O's from Jeff Yandura on Vimeo.

2010 Work Reel from Jeff Yandura on Vimeo.

Hope you guys like!

The Wait is Over

Sonic X: Cosmic Chase is out now! Never thought this day would come, huh?

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/544726

Go watch it and enjoy!

This is it

Tomorrow Sonic X: Cosmic Chase will release during the afternoon around 3pm EST.

One more day. I think you guys can handle the wait. I've trained you good.

Cosmic Chase Testing is Complete

After hours upon hours of beta testing the movie in different browsers, computers, versions, I've come to the conclusion that the latest flash player version, v10.1.53.64, sucks. It has been the constant factor that has given me problems while viewing the movie. When viewing the movie using this version, it will randomly drop or skip frames making the animation appear choppy or slow. Sure, if you have a slow computer to begin with you may not be concerned with this issue, but for those of us with powerful PCs, this abnormality seems out of place.

For the untrained eye it might not be a big deal, but I know every frame of this movie and when I don't see one, I find out why. There are a few fixes for this if you experience issues and you want to watch Cosmic Chase without a problem.

NOTE: These fixes only apply to flash player v10.1.53.64. All other players I've tested turned out just fine. To find out your flash version, click here.

1. There is a built in navigational system in the movie. Once it begins, hover your cursor over the bottom of the movie to bring it up. Usually clicking on the emerald will readjust the movie and the frame skipping will go away temporarily.


2. Downgrade your flash player. From what I can see, the next one down, v10.0.45.2, is your best bet. It's the one I'm currently running and the movie works as intended. To do this, simply visit Archived Flash Player Versions and scroll down and download the flash player 10 archive zip. Inside that you'll find all the releases and simply install the /10r45_2/flashplayer10r45_2_win.exe.

Rigorous Beta Testing

So if you follow those directions if you have any problems, you should be fine. I managed to squeeze the file size down to 9.84 MB so we're still on schedule for the release.

If You Listen Close, You Can Hear the Chapter Close

I'm sitting here typing this with a 100% completed version of Sonic X: Cosmic Chase on my desktop. The final stats clock in at 1600 hours of working on the project, 10.3MB file size with a running time of 8 minutes 20 seconds. Don't worry, it's a fast 8 minutes.

For the rest of the time being, I'm working on optimizing the movie to make it run properly. I've encountered some slowdown issues that were not prevalent before and must be fixed. One of my goals this summer has been met and I'm very proud of that fact. The other 2 are still pending and will take the rest of August to complete, but they will be done in the next 30 days.

Nine days to go. Who's excited?

The Sun is Still Alive Even Though it's Hard to Tell

In just 2 short weeks, Cosmic Chase will be making its long awaited and well-overdue premiere. I am very excited to be able to release this movie as it serves as a visual journal documenting the past 7 years of my life regarding the journey of learning, practicing, and improving my skills.

The project was originally started to give me something to practice with in my spare time. The more I drew and animated, the better I became. I started in Flash MX2004 (v7) and will be ending with Flash CS4 (v10). My skills have greatly improved because of this project which has shown up in my schoolwork and the stuff I learned in school has been applied to CC.

I won't deny it: there is a quality difference stemming from the beginning of the movie and lasts until the very end. This is not a bad thing. It was already light years ahead of Chaotic Battle when I started the first shot. Each shot improves upon the last, adding new elements and techniques to make it even better. It'd be kinda hard not to improve upon the formula over a span of 7 years.

I've got 2 weeks left before showtime, where's CC at right now? I've been putting in 8-12 hour days tying up loose ends, making tweaks, compositing, editing, and even putting on my old developer's hat and doing some coding for movie functionality. I'm retiming Act 1 right now to speed up the pacing, Act 2 and 3 are pretty much complete, but I make changes as I see fit. I just need to finish timing and a single outstanding shot that I might actually redo from scratch *gasp*, do the credits and call it a wrap. No final file size or running time as of yet. It's a little over 10MB right now so I'll have to send my buddy Tom Fulp a little email over at Newgrounds.

That's basically all the ranting I've got for now. Post production will likely wrap up by the end of this week and I'll have a finished product by this time next week.

Life Shouldn't Hurt, Doesn't Hurt, So Badly

CC production on Act 3 is starting to wrap up. Just 4 more shots that need to be completed at this point. Most of the assets for those shots have been put in and colored and all that's left are some animated effects I have to draw in.

In other words, Cosmic Chase production will be finished this week. In the remaining time between now and the release, I'll be doing tweaks to Act 1 to fix the pacing and overall flow to match it with the rest of the movie.

Sonic X: Cosmic Chase will premiere August 9, 2010. Mark your calendars. The 7 year long epic journey will finally come to an end. I've learned a lot during this period and I'm glad it's almost over. Not having CC hanging over my head will be a wonderful feeling. There were times where I loved working on it and other times where I loathed it. It's been a long ride and I thank all of my fans for sticking by me.

It feels real.

8.9.10

Every Day Starts and Ends in Sunlight

I spent the last 6 hours working on Act 3, completing 5 shots bringing the total to 29/43. I'm gonna keep working on it a little bit more tonight, but the goal is to finish Act 3 by this time next week so I can announce a release date and start hardcore work on my newest project. And yes, there is a very good and obvious reason I've been referring to them as "acts".

Hopefully many of you have had a chance to check out the Act 2 teaser. There is still plenty of action that wasn't showcased, so don't think you've seen it all!

Release date announcement next week maybe?

Cosmic Chase Sneak Peek Released

The Sonic X Cosmic Chase sneak peak is now live. Watch it here.

You guys enjoy that while I get back to work on Act 3. Comment here or on the video itself, I read it all. We'll see how it fares in the Sonic's 19th Birthday contest. I'll be updating more on that as it unfolds.

Hope you guys enjoy it.

Cosmic Chase Sneak Peek Tomorrow

Cosmic Chase will be making its debut on YouTube July 8th in glorious HD. You might be able to see it before you go to sleep for the night.

It feels good to finally showcase some of my work which has been under wraps for so long. I'm looking forward to getting the whole thing pushed out so I can concentrate on finishing up school.

Let's do it.

Fireworks and Pyrotechnics

Happy 4th of July everyone! I had my fun for the weekend and now it's back to work. Some of you may have been upset at the fact that the contest has put things on a temporary hold, but that is not the case. I put in all of the special effects (glows, blurs, etc.) in all of Act 2 which took some time, but it had to be done. SFX was last week's agenda and this week is cutting it up and prepping for its YouTube sneak peek release. I don't want to specify a date at this point, but it will be coming out this week.

Despite it being an edit, the shots in the preview will more than likely stay that way in the final version.

I hope you guys are as excited as I am. It's gonna be sick.

No News is Good News

Today marks the 7 year anniversary of Sonic X Chaotic Battle. Completed in only 3 ½ months, Chaotic Battle was my first real endeavor into traditional animation. Studying other cartoons was the way I taught myself some basics of animation and CB gave me the opportunity to practice drawing preexisting characters and bring them to life.

So, Sega has a little Sonic contest going on (Thanks, Luke). I will definitely be entering this in the next couple weeks. Reading the fine print boils down to a 1-5 minute video, no 3rd party graphics or copyrighted music, and it must be original work. There's a bit of reworking and tweaking I have to do to submit to this and that's what the next couple of weeks will be spent on. We'll see how that goes.

Until my submission is finalized, I won't be spending much time on finishing Act 3. I just have to sit down and do it, but instead I decided to take a break and play Uncharted 2 the entire weekend.

Wish me luck.

I'll See You in My Dreams

Last night, Ido and I went for a night on the town to see the local video game rap duo, The Adventures of Duane and Brando. They put on an awesome show as they played all of the songs we wanted to hear. Days before the show, I requested a song by posting on their YouTube and sure enough, they tossed it in their setlist and said aloud it was their first time performing that song. I talked to Duane after the show and thanked him for doing that song and he mentioned he did it for the single comment made on his YouTube. Needless to say, I was pretty stoked. Here are some vids I took at the show.

Audio is definitely NSFW.







So that was a lot of fun. Hope to see them again soon. As for Cosmic Chase, I put in about 25 hours of work into Act 3 this past week alone. It's been the most productive I've been since last summer and am pretty happy. "Okay, so, what does 25 hours equal in terms of progress?" you're asking. Well let me tell you this: 22 out of 43 shots are complete. Done. Finished. Finalized. Yeah sure there might be some timing I want to tweak when it's all said and done, but the backgrounds, special effects, animation, and coloring are totally done on half of Act 3. I'm estimating if I bust my ass for the next week or two, I can have Act 3 done in that timespan.

Cosmic Chase is extremely close to being complete. I'm still going to go back and fix up the rest of the movie's pacing, cut unnecessary shots, and maybe (though I hope not) redo a shot or two. I'm trying to get this movie out asap, so I've been cutting corners wherever I can, corners that even the human eye can't see the difference. It doesn't affect the movie in any way and you guys won't even notice a difference. Act 3 is chock full of detail as it is and it's got some nifty effects. Some effects I wanted to do Flash didn't like and crashed on me 5 different attempts, so obviously that effect isn't going to make the cut.

Thanks everyone who recently subscribed and if you haven't yet, make sure to do that. Tell everyone you know to subscribe. I'd appreciate it.

Being this close to completion, when will the movie be ready for viewing? That's what everyone wants to know, right? Still reading?

The release date for Sonic X: Cosmic Chase will be announced next month. It's closer than you think.

Time to get pumped.

Be Good to Yourself

A little bit of a blog redesign. I was bored with the old design and there were some new templates to mess with.

Worked a little bit on CC this week and on my new film. Other accomplishments this week include getting the platinum trophy in Demon's Souls and now I'm going back to hang with my boy Nathan Drake in Uncharted 2.

So as promised, here's the first glimpse of Act 3.



If you're not already following, please subscribe to the blog. I'd like to gauge the loyal fanbase and get a bigger response from you guys. In the future I'll be releasing sneak preview content in one format or another and it would be in your best interest to be on the VIP list.

Maybe it's Not My Weekend, But it's Going to be My Year

Had a bit of a rough week so-to-speak, so I worked through it. Buried my head inside the depths of Flash and kept crankin' away. Also, I met with Ido about a concept for my college senior film so that needs to get squared away and pre-production will begin on that project. I've got an interview with an IT recruiter tomorrow about possible Flash positions in my area, so we'll see how that goes.

As for CC, I worked on it a lot this past week. Getting tired of straight up coloring, so I might switch it up and do backgrounds because those need to get done too. First ever glimpse of Act 3 coming next week.

So, What's New?

Nothing and everything. I've been working on CC when I can. Hit a few road bumps in the past couple weeks with life, but I'm continuing where I left off. I won a short story writing contest at school, so that's kinda cool. Cash prize and getting published in the contest's magazine in the fall. So yeah, keeping busy and trying to do what I can to put the kabash on this project.

Top Priority: Cosmic Chase

Well, that and finishing Demon's Souls. I've been working on getting my computer configured and tweaked and I'm now ready to dive into the remaining workload. I surveyed the remnants of what needs to be done and while there are still a few outstanding shots, 99% of it is colors and backgrounds. I'd like to post at least every week detailing my progress and maybe provide a screenshot of some sort.



So yeah, wish me luck.

Summa Summa Summa Time

Yes, classes are finally finished. Dreams is probably 70% done and looking good. I bought a 300gb VelociRaptor HDD and 4 more gb of RAM for a total of 8gb and a copy of Win 7 and did all that stuff yesterday, gearing up for the summer. Going to be animating my ass off this summer, so I needed the equipment to do it faster. Cosmic Chase will be going into full production within the next couple of weeks once things settle down. There really isn't a whole lot left to do on CC, so I definitely want to finish that this summer, no excuses. I have the capabilities to do so and hopefully nothing gets in my way.

After CC, which is my highest priority, I want to finish Dreams and release that. After that's done, I want to start on my senior film and get that going for next semester. Now that I'll have ample amounts of time, I'd like to release more screenshots and maybe animation tests of Sonic while the wait continues. Hang on just a little bit more!

Dreams Update

I've been cleaning up and coloring shots and will be posting some new stuff really soon. The audio mixing has been cleaned up and is complete. Special thanks to my friend Brad Giorio for doing the song for me; I'm extremely pleased with the results.

A couple backgrounds needed some additional elements and I finally got them in and they're looking nice. Thanks for those, Monica! I'll be posting those momentarily as well. Overall, the movie is looking good and will probably be finished over the summer. As for CC, that is a top priority as well and hope to roll that out also over summer.

Compositing

Nothing new to post just yet, I've been compositing what I have as far as roughs go and have been concentrating on tightening down the timing. Over Spring Break, I plan on finishing the remaining shots so to the point where all that is needed is tie-downs and cleanup. Once all the animated shots are roughed, I'll finish compositing and send it to my composer for him to take a look at and make any adjustments to the musical track as needed.

Posted Roughs

Here are some rough animations for Dreams. Hope you guys like them!

Nothin New

I've been in a slump over the weekend and haven't produced any new material. I will be posting some roughs this weekend.

Roughs

Production for Dreams is going good. Here are a couple roughs for the character, Billy.

EDIT: Blogger video likes to not work so I'll be using a different method for animation videos in the future.

I Deserve a Gold Star

Not much going on but I've been working practically everyday on Only in Dreams and am starting to devote spare time to Sonic to get that project over and done with. It's not easy juggling projects but the one with a due date takes precedence. I will post some rough animation of Dreams within the next week so you get the feel for how it'll look.

Sonic is still in the coloring phase. Taking time before school or before bed to color a few frames here and there will add up in the long run, so that's the current plan.