It was pointed out to me elsewhere that it's kind of like a bullet time effect. Matrix got me again!

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Just a reminder that if you'd like to get your name--and optionally your web site--in the credits of episode 4 for being an A* supporter, you'll need to hit up the gold button on the support A* page by the end of the day--Seattle time--today (Tuesday).

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Some drawings from today--getting close to done, maybe one or two days of drawing left for episode 4.

Happy trails, Mick!



Here's a new character we'll meet in episode 4: another shipper, named "Sal":



And Sal's ship:



The rejected "Star Trek" version :p:



And I put up a few high-res pieces on deviantART!

Have you ever tried Adobe's After Effects? Once you make your base image in Photoshop or whatever, you can place an image on the canvas as an object, and adjust change-over-time factors. You would, say, place a "node" at time = 0 where the ship has size x and position y, and then another node at the end-length time of your animation, with your final desired size and placement. You can then leave those nodes to transition linearly, or drag the timeline line between the two nodes to alter how fast the changes occur at a given point. Adobe takes care of all the in-between steps and gives you the complete animation. I guess doing it by hand sort of gives it it's own quirky style, though.

Ahh, so that's where they do that stuff. Makes sense, I suppose. Never seen After Effects in action, actually.

But yeah, I do tend to like doing things my own way, even if it is completely bass-ackwards; I guess because then it at least comes out a little different from what everyone else is doing.

Just half of one more shot to draw for episode 4, so I'll be finishing that tomorrow and then getting on to the animating. Some drawings from today:



Maybe looks a little familiar? We'll be seeing a lot more of that area in episode 5.



Vero contemplates a daring ensemble consisting of boxers and a giant helmet.



Sal says Eyyy, go for it!



But Vero is hesitant. How will this story end!?!?

Speaking of half-naked Vero pics, there's another one on deviantART.

A few weeks ago I showed you a test of a digital "static" effect I'd drawn for the opening of episode 4. Started animating everything together today, so here's the fully animated version of that opening shot, with "shaky cam" jiggling, etc; this takes up right where episode 3 left off:

I'm not a fan of the "shaky cam" effect in live action productions, but it looks pretty neat here.

Yeah, and don't worry, I won't do it too often. ;)

Got the lion's share of the episode's animation put together; just one last scene to assemble, then it's on to voice work. Some fun animation snippets:

- Everyone knows that pushing the button repeatedly--and/or shouting--makes computers work faster.



- Do not attempt at home; this man is a zero-gravity expert.



- Know anyone who likes to take their frustration out on their keyboard? Not a pretty sight.



(In case you're viewing these from the forum or the news page and wondering why they flash a little "MOVIE" tag in the upper left corner at the beginning, and link to themselves when clicked, it's because these also go out via the RSS feed, and some RSS readers *cough* Facebook *cough* like to convert images to arbitrary sizes and formats, which reduces my animated gifs to a single frame. So in theory people viewing those will see a static image with the "MOVIE" tag in the corner, and can click it to view the animation they'd otherwise be missing.)

Voices are recorded, now it's just synching and music, pretty much. If no more summer barbecues or sudden urges to add RSS feeds for doodley comics crop up, I should have episode 4 finished off before the end of the week. Not-so-famous last words, I suppose.

Some sample voice samples from the ep. 4 recording sessions:
- Mick always has a hand in some fun
- I sure have a damn lot of trouble with Vero's swearing--even after a big swig of water for the throat (hah this one loops pretty well :P)
- finally managed to get that line
- Sal's voice

Hadn't intended for Sal to sound like he'd smoked quite that many cartons of cigarettes, or whatever the equivalent is in A* (?), but I was having a hard time disguising my voice with more moderate amounts of gravel. I guess I'm a little paranoid about it since last weekend some friends who'd listened to the episodes came up to me and were like "I recognized your voice!" which is the last thing someone who needs to play all the roles wants to hear! Gar.

Last step: adding music.

Hunting up music for this episode on incompetech.com, I noticed that the composer, Kevin MacLeod, has some YouTube videos about his work, which you might be interested in if you've been enjoying his music in A*:

Choosing a Palette for a Larger Project
This one includes some pieces I've used in previous episodes of A*, including "Monkoto," the music I use in the credits.

Studio Tour

How to Write Video Game Music in under 3 minutes - A case study