Our pilot episode has been released! http://vimeo.com/24364625 It is available in high definition for both streaming and download. (Login required for download.) I hope you enjoy it. More to come soon!
Good job, and a great interduction to your crew! Can you give me an idea how long it takes to animate one minute of video? On average? I know once you have stock footage the process with go faster.
Hey, I'm in that! Good job guys. Way to stick with it! I'm looking forward to the further adventures!
Haha! They certainly are not anatomically correct...but it gets better in later episodes. I am asked this question a lot. On average, one minute of video equals about one hour of animating time. This does not include drawing new backgrounds, new characters and poses, new props, and creating the special effects. That all takes much, much longer. There are many factors which influence this ratio. Once I have all the art and voice recordings things go smoothly. Clear voice recordings allow me to use an automatic lip sync tool, but for people with sloppy speech or certain accents I must lip sync frame-by-frame which is incredibly tedious. Special effects and things like walking take a lot of time for me to do, but I get better with practice. If you are interested in animation, send me an e-mail and we can discuss in greater detail. NCC94253@GFCmedia.net I do another short web series which always features the same characters in the same settings, so I can finish an entire episode in one evening if I have all the voice recordings. I'll be e-mailing out the scripts for the second half of the season before too long. It ended up being less stressful to just focus on half the season at a time. Thanks for watching!
very nice to see animated fan films! my only complaint is that everything feels kinda flat. for example you have just one angle of the ship and characters that move around, but just at the same angle, making it look awkward. check out how they do the show archer: they have multiple angles of everything. and for their backgrounds use 3d renderings touched up in Photoshop
Just watched episode 1 and I have to say you're off to a good start. I like the ship, the sets, and you've already said that character design will improve. I have a couple of questions though... Is the XO simply decorative, or will she actually have something to do soon? (Okay that's a little harsh, but damn, she just sat there.) What happened to the Hirok? (not sure if I spelled that right & great looking ship btw.) One minute it was adrift near the Klingon BoP, the next it was gone and forgotten. I re-watched that part twice just to make sure that a stray shot from the Romulans didn't nail her, but she seems to have just drifted off, and is left when Mariner slipstreams out. Oh wait! I found her! She drifted right out of the imbedded video screen and was wandering around my browser window. No wonder Mariner lost track of her. Uploaded with ImageShack.us In my opinion, the XO should have beamed over to the Hirok right away with security and medical to secure the ship and render aid. Once the shooting starts, Mariner moves to protect both ships. When the BoP looks like it's going to blow, Mariner is suddenly in a mad rush to tow Hirok out of danger. Finally, Hirok, with XO in command, follows Mariner back to Starbase. Great find BatBoy!!
I started with the 45-degree view because it was easy to recycle for multiple situations. Thanks for posting that reference art! Drawing and rigging more views can be very time consuming. Archer looks wonderful, but utilizes two entire studios of animators instead of one guy with a job and family. I admittedly take shortcuts where I can, but improving the look of the show is something I'm always working on. Thanks for solving the mystery of the disappearing Haurok! I'm glad you like the sets. I used actual shots from the canon shows as a guide, but not all of it translates well into animation so I took liberties here and there. 1x02 will likely have you wondering about the XO's legitimacy even further...but from 1x03 on she actually does important stuff. I promise. I appreciate all the feedback, and I really appreciate you all watching our show!
oh yeah i can understand being busy, I'm a full time college student, while balancing working 40 hours per week, working out and gym. Eventually i plan on doing an animated project, but dont always have the time. what programs are you using for this? I use illustrator for the character designs, poser for lip movement, flash for animation and blender for backgrounds / ships
BTW I've been beta-reading & giving feedback on Starship Excelsior's (http://www.starshipexcelsior.com/) scripts all season, and would also be willing to take a look at yours. Wowbagger can vouch for my quick turn around and (at times) lengthy notes.
I started drawing with Illustrator but I've moved everything into Anime Studio now. It has all the Illustrator drawing tools I know how to use, and it is far cheaper than Flash. It's also more intuitive than the last version of Flash I played with but it's been a few years so I assume Flash has improved. The second biggest thing which has been slowing us down has been writing. We recruit a couple people to write, then after one or two episodes they resign and we need to find writers again for more episodes. It would be nice to have someone new take a look at a few scripts. I'll PM you with details. Thanks!