Latest News and Updates

January 29th, 2009

Progress has been pretty slow thus far, not so much because it takes a long time to animate (although it does), but because I'm still trying to nail down the look and feel of how the film should look. Backgrounds have especially been a problem, and I'm not that happy with what's been turning out thus far on that front. You'll notice one of the shots doesn't even have a background yet, and the backgrounds aren't finished on the other two. The middle shot is going to be redone from scratch; I don't like the style I used for his face there.

 

As you can tell, I have a hard time making up my mind on stuff. :P

 

December 9th, 2008

This is the very first shot of animation completed for the project. It bubbles more than it really should, especially at the beginning, but overall I'm pleased with the progress. ("Bubbling" or "boiling" is where the lines bounce around between frames, making it look like they're jiggling.) The shot isn't in the original animatic, but it's going to replace the boring pan of the city that takes place after the kid arrives.

 

You'll notice that, due to the limited time and budget I have to work with (and a bit of personal laziness), the animation is being shot on threes at 30 frames per second. "On threes" means that instead of the animation changing every frame, it changes every three frames. However, the background and foreground move every single frame to create a smooth pan. Since the kid and the enviroment are moving at different frame rates, it "strobes", which basically means it's obivious the kid's animation isn't as smooth as everything else. It's generally something you want to avoid, but there's only one of me, and I can only do so much without the project taking nine years to complete!

 

For those curious, most high-quality animation is shot at 24 frames per seconf on ones (best; changes every frame, good for fast movements) or twos (changes every two frames; suitable for everything else, but ones are still best).

 

Note that although the animation is finished, the shot is not complete. The colors of both the enviroments and the character haven't been finalized yet, so they'll likely change later on in the project when I start bringing everything together and work on making things match between shots.

 

November 15th, 2008

Finally, it's here! After nearly two years, Vision Riders has launched its first animation project, My Brother. Though it's taken a long time to get here, we hope that it's been worth it!

 

So far, only the animatic is up and running. We've still got a long way to go from here before the entire film is complete, but we really do hope that you'll stick around to enjoy the ride. Work-in-progress versions will be uploaded as the animation starts getting under way.

 

Note that the site design is not yet 100% complete yet. We've still got some odds and ends to iron out, and a few more core pages to add. There's also some issues with the Flash media player that we need to go over and tweak. (Sorry that it has to load the entire clip before it plays, we'll address that in the future.) We hope to get these out of the way quickly so that we can get right to animating!