Monthly Update: June 2021
Wow, it’s already been a month? I feel like both so much and nothing at all have happened in the span of a few weeks. This is probably due to both the movie I’m working on and this latest episode both heading towards the finish line at the exact same time. That, combined with the repetitive nature of working from home, have made time and it’s passing completely irrelevant to my brain. Oh boy, do I need a vacation.
Anyhow, on the Forlorn front this are so close I can taste it. Only a handful of shots are left to polish, and the hope is to complete those as soon as this weekend. It’s literally animating fingers for just 4 more shots and then Part V is officially completely animated! Unfortunately that still leaves a half a dozen shots left to do cloth sims for, and about 16 shots total are in need of lighting and FX polish. So I’m not quite out of the woods yet, but I can feel the sea breeze, I can hear the sound of the waves. Soon, so very soon. Did I mention I needed a vacation?
The nice thing about lighting and FX is they aren’t too intensive to work on after work, so I may be able to wrap those up without having to wait all the way until the weekends. And after that, we have sound. The sound for this episode will be a lot more complex than any of the others, due to it being more action focused. Sound usually doesn’t take too long, but it’ll still be a while yet until Part V is out of my hands and in the hands of the composer. I think my prediction last month of it taking about six weeks to finish the short is looking to be mostly accurate, but I wouldn’t expect the actual short to drop until the end of July or so, maybe even early August.
I’m also in the process of taking stock of what I’ll need to build or update for Part VII. I’m looking to make some tweaks to certain elements to bolster their fidelity, and I still need to fully rig one more character. I’ve also been playing around a bit with Unreal 5, and it’s very exciting tech that I can’t wait to use once it’s fully released. Unfortunately I’m running off a GTX 1080ti, and that can barely handle this project, let along something with a full suite of raytraced lights and materials. As I’ve mentioned before, once Part VII is out I plan on doing a once over on everything utilizing a beefier rig and UE5, editing the whole thing together as one unbroken short (as it was initially conceived), and outputting it in 4K as opposed to a measly 1080p. But for now I have to keep my eyes on the prize, as it does me no good to drastically change technologies halfway through a project.
There’s not much to say other than that. It’s been a very nose to the grindstone kind of month, with nothing terribly new or interesting happening in that time, both in terms of the project and in terms of my normal goings-ons. I guess I’m seeing movies in the theaters again, that’s pretty exciting. But by this time next month Forlorn Part V will be almost 100% completed, and I really can’t wait to get it out there. Until then!
Alex
