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Showing posts from 2018

Oh, Yeah, I Haven't Posted This Yet

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Because, clearly, the BIONICLE content thus far was not enough. I actually published this around April, but felt I had to choose between this and the eye-tracking post and went with the latter.  Oddly enough, this video become easily my most watched video, having surpassed 1,000 views by this point (early four times as many views as my next most-watched video and over seven times ABYDOS' view count).  I think this is the first time I actually used Photoshop on a special effects project: unlike my live action work, where I have a physical camera and can record record the wall behind my actors and actresses (if someone jumps really high in a movie, for instance, I'd have to record the empty background to get the effect correctly), Tahu essentially stays in one place during the shot, meaning I had to remove him digitally.  After some initial masking work in After Effects, I ultimately took to Photoshop to manually remove him from the background; I'm feeling particularl

Getting on Track with Tracking

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I think I should stop trying to fit puns into the title.  And I think this is the first time I've even tried to do that.  This title is almost Fun with Filters -level bad. Before you can ask why I've done another BIONICLE thing with my sister so soon after the last related post, I've done another BIONICLE thing with my sister!  (Plus the last thing I've posted on was actually released around half a year ago so they're just posted really close together.)  Just to clarify, all of the story, camerawork/puppetry, audio effects, and color grading (as well as most of the voices) were done by Leena, and Onua and Tahu were voiced by Zorg Valtapaz (the Jedi in Star Wars -VIII [which was far less controversial than the actual VIII] and Djebauti in ABYDOS ), making this a three-person work overall.  Now then, on to the technical details! For the eyes I used a feathered mask of a white layer for each eye (sometimes using more than one layer), giving them some color af

The Return of Yoda...

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Some thought it wouldn't happen.  Had I left the world of mutant monkey heads?  Had I forgotten that Yoda was still an unfinished project, and that five years ago I had promised his return in Japanese? Fortunately, it occurred to me to do something!  So, for the 5th anniversary of my previous Yoda post and my 100th post on this blog, I'm glad to present my latest variant on Yoda! I'd been thinking about this project on and off; in 2016 I'd replaced the cylindrical lightsaber with one from a different project (similar to my replacing a spherical hand with my sound project's claw), googled a tutorial to get a glowing lightsaber effect, modified the hut's door a bit and added some image textures from a fan texture pack in a version I dubbed mark 4.5, but not having the artist's permission to share it, I decided it was best to to try again.  A little while later, I decided to go for a bit more of an overhaul featuring a much more accurate hut--apparent