looks cool. the flip animation is fantastic, i think you nailed it. can’t wait for ep.2! 
The planet itself, along with the statues and odd building, is looking beast. I saw the textures on that crashed spaceship and instantly realized, I’m using one of those textures on CHIP!! Here’s to CGtextures. =D
The flip animation isn’t bad. When he’s in midair is almost spot-on, it’s just that he has to rotate further. Currently, he’s landing at a point where he’d go flat on his face if he put weight on that leg.
Working on the character animation some more. Tried to employ some suggestions, but didn’t get a chance to do all of them, yet.
Dan
This is a set I’ve been working on for about a day and a half. Going to feature it in the second part of Plagarus.
I’m completely redoing most of the work I’ve done so far on Part 2, simply because my skills have improved as well as the tools in Blender have gotten more sophisticated, allowing new techniques to be used. Therefore, I’m redoing the opening scene of Part 2 to be much better, as well as slightly longer. Rerecording the dialogue as well, once I get a useful microphone.
The challenge with this particular movie is that the protagonist is almost 8 feet tall, whereas the rest of the characters are about average human height. This presents challenges in designing the sets, as the doorways have to be big enough to accommodate the height of Lethgoshis while at the same time make sense.
In this case, this apartment complex services a number of alien races, and so, I imagine that the building designers probably tried to accommodate as many species as they could. I can get away with the ultra tall door here, but elsewhere, it may present a problem.
Dan
I would have gotten bored of the project by now, but I am glad that you are not…Yes lip synching would be great…Very nice intro…bring it on and blow us away
Dude you’re doin a great job, cant wait for the finished result
Thanks, all. Some updates on the set. Finally landed a deal with a friend of mine to do some VO work for the voice recording. Going to hopefully get the vast majority of the movie recorded sometime next week using his equipment. We’ll see how that goes.
On the visual front, I’m still giving some materials and geometry to Ackla’s apartment. Probably going to be able to release this scene on TurboSquid or some such places. We’ll see.
Dan
That’s a great set, there! Maybe a bit too clean and bright for my personal taste, but awesome none-the-less. I wish I had your level of talent right now as I’m woking on my own sci-fi project.
Terrific sets. I love the colors.
Steve S
So, finally getting around to recording the vocal audio with a friend of mine who is an audio artist (also named Dan!) tomorrow evening. Hopefully it turns out we get most of the dialogue recorded.
His sound equipment is far superior to mine (which consists of a USB microphone, which I used to record Part I of the movie). He also is a college student in audio with experience in vocal recording, so it should be good. I think the main problem will be getting the performance to be better than the first time around, as there is a load of more voice acting in this one, including more nuanced scenes.
Many thanks to #1 Dan for his help.
Meanwhile, in preparation, I’m blocking out the scene and the placement of characters in it. Suffering from severe lighting issues with the characters (the set is overblown and too flatly lit and the characters are too dark), so I’ll probably work tonight on getting them with a lighting set-up of their own which is separate from the room around them.
Oh well, guess this project won’t let me take the lazy route, will it?
Room = too bright! Characters = too dark! All around = too flat and overexposed!
Another angle = same problems.
Hope you’re all doing awesome.
Regards,
Dan
Two suggestions. One: Use Celtx for scriptwriting. It’s free (the optional online services aren’t, though) it works for both Mac and PC, and automatically formats your script to professional screenplay standards. You can even add notes, media, and break down the script for shooting, budgeting and assets. Two: Maybe try giving each character their own lighting setup, parented to them, that you can manipulate as needed for each shot?
episode two will be even more awesome from the looks of it. can’t wait!
A good evening spent with friends also produced much more amazing results than I ever anticipated. The quality of the vocals (there is a comparison between the original Part I dialogue and the new, unedited, Part I recording at the bottom of this post), was far more superior than I ever imagined possible. This was despite the fact that the environment we were recording in was still less than ideal.
Thanks go to #1 Dan for his enormous help and expertise. It’s great to have someone around who knows what they’re doing.
We decided to use a Blue Baby Bottle microphone. I admit, I was incredulous at first when I saw it, but it turned out to capture the voice much, much better than my own microphone, which was used to record Part I.
We got all but three lines done on the written script (the last part still needs to be written out). We’re aiming for this Sunday to pick up the last few lines. There are a few issues here and there, but overall, the recording was surprisingly rich and clean. We averaged about three takes per line of dialogue, with four characters, all aliens, being represented. The quality is a vast improvement over the previous Part I recording. Take a listen.
Now it’s time to edit down and choose the final takes I’ll use in the movie and then start animating to them. Lots of work left to do.
Hope you’re all having a great time.
Dan
critics nada you are awsome man.
Man, that is good
Blocking out character animation is, by far, the most tedious and difficult part of the process. First, we write the script. Then we record the dialogue. Then we start animation. That’s where we’re at, now. Character animation is not my forte, but it needs to be done to convey the movie, obviously. So, I bite the bullet and start blocking out shots.
I’m learning a great deal from sites like the 11 Second Club blog. So that’s helpful.
I try to take big poses and then refine it down to the more nuanced poses. It’s nightmarish for someone like me who doesn’t like going over the same place, revisiting the same work over and over again. 
But oh well. 
Dan
I like the blocking you’ve got so far, and the lighting. I can’t offer much advice or support in the way of animation, but if you’re ever stuck for cinematography, I can recommend having a look at Master Shots: Volume 1, Volume 2, and Volume 3. I own the first 2, and they’re great for reference and instructions on how to pull of certain cinematic techniques. I find them especially helpful when the shots I have in my head don’t translate well to the screen, and I need to find something that works to replace them with.
So many characters remind of Raziel from Legacy of Kain - your main character is included.
I guess that game made such a huge impact on me.
I am an amateur but perhaps if there were more wrinkles on his cape it will look cooler. The neck area covered with fabric looks nice.
Awesome project.