MOMENTUM...? · 25 OCTOBER 2021
I'm not sure how often I want to post about this short. Usually whenever I would complete some work, whether it was a stage like layout, blocking, or even final for a single shot, I would post progress here. The intention was to keep a record of the work as well as serve as some kind of inspiration to keep going. I'll probably just post whenever I feel something is worth it or just want to make an update so that actual work done doesn't get lost. It can be a bit of a pain posting multiple stages like I'm doing here. So, better to at least post as work gets done so this part doesn't pile up.

The process does get a bit cumbersome, especially when starting a new shot. It's not too bad, but it can slow me down, getting the videos in the correct format, adding notes, and making sure links are working. The setup I revised a few years ago does make it easier than before, but I probably could optimize it even more. However, I don't want to focus on more web optimization since this project has stalled so many times.

Did some work on the next shot in the sequence. This is a short shot and I also add a blocking version (v5) to the shot page, but only posting about the current version. I will most likely added another post when this is closer to a final version. Since I'm trying to optimize the process, this video is the direct maya playblast, just re-exported from media encoder so it is an mp4 instead of an mov. That means it doesn't have the blue filter I put on the pre-vis "look" from both AfterFx and the new Premiere edit I'm working from now. I could export from there, but I'm really trying to streamline this process, so posting work is less time consuming.
REBIRTH · 15 OCTOBER 2021
After more than five years of not working on this project, I'm finally coming back to it. Not sure if that will last, but my goal is to at least do all the animation and try not to worry about the rendering, the unmodeled sets, commerial for the tv sequence, sound, and everything else that will take lots of time to do.

It's been so long since I've worked on this that I decided re-do my project directory strucure. This of course broke all the references in Maya and video links in AfterFx. Maya was easy to fix with a script that looks for the missing reference location and loads up a the new location if it finds it. AfterFx was more probelmatic since old versions tend to break video files and old codecs aren't as easily fixed. However, after a few days of converting videos and updating some scripts, I got everything back to working order for both 3d and 2d side.

I started this project so long ago that AfterFx was better than Premiere back then. Premeire has become very useful though, so I converted all sequences to a new project in that and will most likely use that to edit moving forward. It's also easier to keep a boards, layout, and animation version separted from a working edit with mixed footage in Premeire. So, the extra effort was worth it in the long run. Assuming I keep working on this.

Also found a list of what still needs to be done dated June 2011. Figured I would add it to the shot counter on the right as a reminder.

To get back in the swing of animating, I started where I left off on shot 25. It was mostly done, just needed some polish and overlap on the Teddy's limbs.