Monthly Update: September 2021
Well, this last month has just been bonkers, hasn’t it? Since the release of Part V, things gotten a little crazy around here. Nothing too out of the ordinary, but certainly crazier than the last few months. Shortly after the last episode dropped my day job ramped up big time in terms of things to do, so much so it’s looking like I’m going to be pulling some considerable over time through the next month. While I normally don’t mind OT, I’m so close to finishing Part VI that it’s a little disappoint that I won’t be able to get that wrapped up by the end of October, as originally intended. I’m literally working on the very last shot of the episode as I write this. I only have a couple more hours of animation to do before I’m ready to call it “finished”. And once that’s done I can throw it all in Unreal, whip out a test render with some temp lighting, and do a pass on the edit. The thumbnail up top there is one such test render.
The remaining tasks for Part VI are all pretty simple, which makes this upcoming lack of time sting just that much extra. I still have a handful of cloth sims to kick out, followed by FX and final lighting. Then it’s on to sound, and then music, as normal. I was considering handing off the edit to the composer without final lighting, but I’m currently leaning towards waiting, since there’s a chance the final light renders may end up changing a few frames of the edit here or there. So the plan now is to continue to work on finalizing Part VI in little pieces during whatever time I can muster.
I feel confident in saying Part VI will be out before the end of the year, but things tend to come up, so I don’t want to say anything definitive. If I had it my way it would be out in November, if not sooner. I’m quite pleased with how it’s shaping up, and once Part VI is out the gate there’s just one more episode left! So that’s very exciting.
In the mean time, I’ve whipped up an updated project trailer, which I’ll post here and there in a few days time. I’ve also continued to work on various non-animation pieces set in the Forlorn world, which is considerable fun. Overall, despite my upcoming busy month, there’s not much more to say. Plan is to continue moving forward, slowly if I have to, until it’s all finished. Stay tuned for the next update, hopefully this time next month I’m not in the same exact spot. Until then!
Alex
