Got the episode 4 script written today and started on its storyboards. If I can do the script justice, this one oughta be a real humdinger, as Mick might say--not that it's War and Peace or anything, but it does have a damn big explosion, which is always nice (take that, Tolstoy!)

It picks up pretty much where 3 left off: in the control module of Sig and Vero's ship, the freighter AX71120 (quite the romantic name, eh?). The situation's changed, though, and in fact only the beginning of the episode will take place in the control module. I've only got the beginning of the storyboards done so far, though, so that's still all you get to see this in this news update. :P

Finished up the storyboards for episode 4 today--there are more storyboards each episode, somehow!

Can't show you the main action of course, but here's some other ones that turned out relatively legibly in my increasingly cryptic layout doodle scrawl:

My lasso-loosening exercise last night might've worked, because I didn't feel too rusty as I started final art for episode 4 today; that's been something that's bothered me when I started drawing art for the previous episodes: they start off rough and angular and scrunchy in the first half a scene or so, then the gradually loosen up and get a bit nicer as each episode goes along. So I'm glad that I've been able to get back into a fluid feeling with the drawing right away for this one, it makes the work seem to go a lot better.

But is there a danger of being *too* loose and inky? Here's how Sig came out in one frame today:



Nice lashes, Siggy! Heh, I actually like this drawing though, not gonna change if for nothin'! =P

Also spent some time working on an opening FX. It's going to start with Vero coming to after that nasty meteoroid hit their ship took at the end of the last episode. The view will be first-person for the first shot, with digital effects on it to highlight the fact that that big shiny helmet Vero wears doesn't actually let light shine directly back to his eyes, but first runs it through digital optics and re-renders just the safe, visible part--because in space, especially deep space (ie away from the protective magnetic fields and other things of planets etc), and especially in the Galactic Core, anyone floating around with an optical visor can expect to get eye cancer or worse from cosmic rays and all sorts of nasty radiation. Be smart! Wear an indirect-optics helmet!

This is very rough so far, just a simple rotation and test interference pattern. I'll have to do the eventual panning and shaking by hand.



Now, it may happen that we'll see someone floating around in Galactic Center space in a transparent helmet in the not too distant future, but just remember that anyone doing that is crazy...or something else.


Ooh, and episode 3 got daily top 7th for 5/21/2009 on Newgrounds, so thanks to everyone who voted! It means it'll be on the front page of that site all day tomorrow, so more people will see it and have a chance to watch it. :)

A bit more FX work today. I ended up animating liquid droplets floating through zero-grav twice, each in a different way. The first time, I used Photoshop to copy and scale the droplet sprites as they "recede" from the viewer in simulated perspective:



This gives a nice clean look, and preserved the tiny outline of the small droplets. The second shot was zoomed in closer, and I wanted to see if I could get more of a fluid look to them by drawing them individually in each frame, gradually drawing them smaller and smaller to give the illusion of receding into the background again:



Which worked pretty well! Big wobbly droplets are fun, and they were actually somewhat quicker to do, I think.

Hope no ardent Memorialians mind if I did a bit of drawing today. I put one particularly scary frame up on deviantART. And here's a simple little on-screen entrance effect I made for Mick:

More on/off screen light alternately illuminating Vero's funny faces today. He puts his helmet on after this and keeps it on for the rest of the episode, so I've gotta make the most of it! (Shiny helmet's after that, though--woo! <3)





This second one's big because I'm going to pan it into and then out of the screen in a few shots. But wait! Is that

a) An angry and determined Vero
b) The Super Skrull

???


~~~

Ohh right, speaking of making the most of it, I posted some more high-res artwork on deviantART.

We're in the shiny helmet phase of episode 4 now, and not only that: it's also the iris door phase! I'm probably going to regret designing a ship divided up by those fancy doors all down its length, because now I've gotta animate them. The first one turned out okay, though, so maybe this scheme will work out after all:

Seems like I have an MST3K reference for every episode. This time its the lack of human sized doors in Phantom Planet.

Heh that is awesome. And I didn't know you could link to a particular time in a YouTube video. Neat!

All the irises they'll ever need:




Some shots from a few stages in constructing those iris doors:

Just finished drawing the blade shapes in Photoshop:


Added their highlighted edges:


Scaling the retracting blades back in simulated perspective: