Have kind of a complicated prop/set to deal with this time, so I thought I'd better sketch it out as a concept/schematic sort of thing first:

(click for larger)




The idea is that it has a modular cargo/fuel/crew structure, so you can mount and move around different types of units as needed for whatever trip you're taking. Its strong cylindrical form can withstand the stress of powerful acceleration, and the large micrometeoroid shield at the front ensures relative safety even when moving at high speeds through dense zones.

Pretty cool design. Kinda like a cross between a Matrix hovercraft, Skylab, and a Container Transport.... great, now I have a sudden urge to play Tie Fighter again... where did I put that joystick...?

Some storyboard cartoons from the first half of episode 3 (I won't be able to show as many from the second half 'cause they'll be too spoilerish, probably):















*Obviously,* the plot is that Vero has lost his favorite pen in zero-grav, and they have to find it.

>_>

Is it a Space Pen?

First thing I thought of when I saw the ship thingy.

The saga continues!

Last of the teaser storyboard art for this espisode:

It was an FX-heavy day today.


Onion-skinning a scaled bitmap in preparation for animating it getting whipped to the left. It will enlarge and blur slightly as it moves for a subtle depth-of-field effect. This person is not having a good moment.


Another bit of onion-skinning going on here--and the black background is shown at only 50% opacity, which is why odd black edges around it are showing--as I set that darn supermassive space pen winging at Vero's face, and he dodges. Still working on this--gotta put some detail on the pen, tidy things up here and there.


Severe shaky-cam effect.


Messing around with an animating depth-of-field effect: alternating focus on face/pen. Normally I don't use dithering when I reduce the bitmaps to 8 colors, but I'll probably have to for this shot (as I did in this test version) since strong Gaussian blurs otherwise show lots of banding at low color ranges.

WOW!!!

Wonderful effects!!

I love the focus off effect, and about the others make's me remeber about starblazer's anime when the yahmato make the space jump!

Ooh I haven't seen Star Blazers, except mmmmaybe for bits of a few episodes I caught at a friend's house like 20 years ago.

Flee from the space pen!