Characters for 3D Animated Web Series Pilot

[Scazzino]

I've finished the 3D characters for Fault Effect, the pilot webisode of The Autiton Archives(TM) web series.



The development of these characters (including wires) was outlined in the following WIP threads.

Anomalous Autiton unit 0090 WIP
Generic Autiton Units WIP
Butterfly Effect WIP

The entire production process will be further detailed in the book about the production which is scheduled for release later this year.

[SplineGod]

Looking pretty nice Mike.

[Scazzino]

Looking pretty nice Mike.

Thanks Larry!

And thanks again for walking me through using IK Booster, which I'll be using to animate 0090 and the other Autitons as in these animated render tests.

[pablogrca]

Awesome work Mike!!!

[Scazzino]

Thanks Paul, much appreciated!

[SplineGod]

Mike, what do you plan to do with the web series? I worked on one called Afterworld

[Scazzino]

Hi Larry,

That's a great question. To know where I intend the series to go, I need to put it in the context of what's brought me to this point, since that will also affect my ultimate destination.

I've always wanted to create a 3D animated series to serve as a creative platform within which I could tell compelling stories. As a professional artist and programmer I've also always strived to blend my artistic and technical abilities together to create interactive content all the way back to before Hypercard. Over the past twenty+ years I've periodically researched the viability of creating an interactive 3D animated series through various test projects. These tests usually indicated that the technology wasn't quite ready to enable me to create a series the way I wanted within my limited resources. These research projects did however result in a number of successful spin-off projects over the years including the following:

DreamLight Verttice(TM): An Award-winning Game of Skill and Strategy
Verttice originally began as a game that my early 3D interactive character 2K (an early precursor to the 0090 character above) would play with a user. The tech at the time was too slow to handle animating both at the same time so I spun the game off on it's own as a shareware release on Compuserve, Delphi and GEnie, well before the Internet took off. I used Verttice as a research project in which I explored early Object Oriented Programming. I was a leading beta tester for Macromedia Director at the time and when they were preparing to release Macromedia Shockwave on the Internet I rewrote Verttice for Shockwave and released it as one of the very first Shockwave interactive games online as soon as Shockwave was officially released. This was before they had even acquired Flash.

Quipples(TM): The Internet Game Show of Satirical Riddles
I used what I had learned during the development of Verttice to create this next research project which was a combination of a Shockwave based player (the ioSCOPE) that could stream interactive content over the Internet. This project was a proof of concept for my DreamLight Autiton(TM) intelligent interactive character techology that I developed to simulate intelligent characters through the programming of a virtual mind in Macromedia Director. It was also my first use of LightWave which I used to create the interactive 3D interface of the ioSCOPE. I used Electric Image for the early version of the 0090 character at the time. The 0090 character seen above for this series is a direct evolution of this early EI character and is designed with the floating parts to facilitate interactive animation in the future using my DreamLight Autiton technology.

BlastOff!(TM) An Award-winning 3D Animated Short Film
With Adobe's acquisition of Macromedia, the future of Director and Shockwave became uncertain. As such I figured I'd put the interactive portion of the projects on hold until Director's future became more clear. In the mean time I'd move more into the pure 3D animation aspects of the project which I would need to develop further anyway. With new technology available such as video iPods, video podcasts, iTunes, YouTube, Apple TV, etc. there would be a need for short content designed specifically for these new mediums. So I decided to test the viability of creating a series of 3D animated shorts to be delivered online. Before launching into such a series full bore though I figured I'd do a dry-run test first, bringing a short from concept to completion including online delivery and film festival submissions to see what would be involved. BlastOff! was that test.

The Autiton Archives(TM)

With the success of the BlastOff! test I figured it was possible to go ahead and produce a 3D animated series of shorts with the limited resources that I had available. This would be The Autiton Archives(TM) series. After completing BlastOff! I was also approached about writing a LightWave book. Since my primary focus was this new series, which would primarily use LightWave but other apps as well, I pitched the idea of writing a book about the creation of the pilot episode of this new series. Writing the book is slowing me down in the production quite a bit but I figure the book and the continuing series could help promote each other once the book and pilot are released.

I am beginning by creating a short pilot webisode, about the same length as BlastOff! (3 minutes, future webisodes could be longer). I plan on creating each short as if it were a self-contained scene within a larger film or story. The pilot webisode is basically the first scene dealing with the creation of the main character, the anomalous Autiton unit 0090. This way I could get started quickly and release the pilot and the book together later this year. Once the pilot is completed I'll post an SD version online, basically as an ad for the series. I'll also offer an HD version and submit it to film festivals as I had BlastOff!

I'm currently funding the project by doing client projects as well and will continue to do so. I'll use the book and pilot to help promote the series as I produce the next few webisodes, which should go quicker, building upon the groundwork already done as well as no longer having to spend so much time on the book. I've also downsized my studio in this economic climate which has drastically lowered my fixed costs, enabling me to devote more time to the series and requiring less time on client projects for funding. I also want to work on some product tie-ins for the series. I've dabbled with this a bit on the BlastOff! project, selling plans for the real bed on the DVD.

I also want to build a streaming player for the series in Shockwave or Flash, leveraging the research I did with the ioSCOPE player for Quipples. This could possibly be released as an app for the iPhone as well which could be a way to eventually start generating revenue from the series. It would enable viewers to purchase the viewer at a low cost as a way to subscribe to the content. Similar to buying or subscribing to a comic book. I may also eventually seek sponsors or advertisers if I can build up a following for the series. Such a viewer app/device could also allow me to spin the series off into an interactive direction as well by adding my DreamLight Autiton intelligent interactive character technology into the player down the road.

I've used each of my previous projects as stepping stones to get to this point. BlastOff! led to the pilot and book deal. It's hard to say exactly where the pilot and book will lead. I hope to use them to open more doors to even larger opportunities for the creative assets I'm building including the characters and the world I'm creating around them. So where this road will eventually lead, I'm not entirely sure yet. But I ultimately want to bring both my artistic and programming abilities to bear on it... I'm currently just focusing on getting the pilot webisode and the book out the door though, and having a blast in the process!

Stay tuned!