Monthly Update: April 2022
Hell of a month. As you may have seen on my last post, animation is now fully complete for this arc of Forlorn! It’s been over 3 years now and it still hasn’t fully sunk in that I’m finished. And that's probably because I’m far from it. I still have a few dozen shots to light and set up FX for, and then it’s onto sound and music. This is the longest, most complicated episode yet, and so sound design is looking like it will take longer than the other episodes to set up by a factor of 2. And then music will take however long it takes, and then, finally, this chapter of Forlorn will be complete.
Thankfully some good fortune has come my way. The schedule for the film I’m working on is currently putting the previsualization team on hiatus for a couple weeks while they go to location to shoot, and as such I’ll have a chance to dig my feet in the ground and get all this stuff settled, once and for all. So, assuming nothing comes up or goes awry, I should be completely wrapped by the middle of May. How exciting!
In addition to Forlorn, some other interesting things of note are going on. Due to the various freelance projects I’ve been helping out with for the last few months, I’ve saved up some money to invest in a beefy new computer. No longer will I be trying to work around the limitations of my paltry GTX1080. In a few short weeks, I’ll be the proud owner of a shiny new RTX 3090, with all the RAM and storage you can shake a stick at. With this power in hand, I plan to move onto my next project. I have a very simple idea I’ve been mulling around for quite some time, and now is the perfect time to try it out. I want to attempt to utilize Unreal Engine 5 and create a short film entirely within the engine. That’s right, I want to keep my time in Maya to a minimum this time around. With this simple 45-60 second idea, I’ll be able to really dive into aspects of UE that I’ve always wanted to learn better but haven’t had a chance to thus far. These include things like Niagara fluid systems, chaos physics, hair and cloth systems, the character control rig, dynamic water (maybe), and utilizing motion capture for some elements rather than animating every single thing by hand like I currently am. And with a new PC and UE5, I’ll be able to harness the power of all the fancy new Lumen and Nanite systems and put them to the test. And while all this is going on, I’ll still need to assemble Forlorn as one unbroken short film, and put that into the wild.
There’s also some interesting personal news. My wife recently been offered a leadership position on a show in the great city of Vancouver. While details aren’t settled, and things could change at any time, at this point it’s seeming likely that sometime in a few months we might be packing up and heading north for a spell. Having visited this past weekend, I’m very excited by the prospect. I’m also extremely thankful to be back in Los Angeles at this particular moment, because due to an airline clerk who didn’t understand the Covid travel rules, we lost over 2 hours at the airport for no reason and only just managed to reach our flight. Anyway, this potential shifting of locales could herald the next chapter of my life. Or it could be nothing, who knows!
We’re so close to the finish line now. Rest assured, even when all is said and done, this is not the last you’ll be hearing from me. I plan to keep this blog alive with my various goings on for as long as I have them. Until next month!
Alex
