Biblical Animation Blog

New Website Online!

2012-01-27T17:01:00.006-05:00

I'm pleased to report that my newly designed website is now online. The new address is the same as the old: http://danielanimation.com/. Check it out, let me know if you have any valuable feedback, and enjoy!

Nebuchadnezzar is not on the new website for its launch, but look for it in the not-to-distant future. The focus of this iteration of the website is to attract clients for freelance work, but I am continuing to work on Biblical animation in my spare time, and I even hope to eventually develop my business progressively more and more towards the place where I can do Biblical animation full time.

Thank you for sticking with this blog during the time when there's not a lot of new Biblical animation work being posted. As I mentioned in the previous post, that is soon to change. Look forward to this upcoming project. It takes my Biblical animation to a whole new level.

Hello, 2012!

2012-01-12T15:58:00.003-05:00

It's a new year, and, as most new years go, its entrance is welcomed with promising possibilities of what this year may contain--what God may have in store for it. That makes me excited, are you excited about this upcoming year?

A few exciting things are emminent pertaining to this blog. One is that my personal website is currently undergoing a major overhaul, which will definitely be something you'll want to check out once it's ready to go online.

Another thing to look forward to is the project I've been quietly working on for several months but have yet to reveal one this blog. It is a Bible project, and it takes the experience I had working on my senior film Nebuchadnezzar along with the added proficiencies I've been working hard for since graduating from college. Be excited about this one.

Speaking of the Nebuchadnezzar film, when the newly re-designed website goes online, be sure to look through it--the film very well might be found there, most likely under the "Animation" tab.

Well, I hope that you are greeting this new year with much anticipation for the things that God has had in store for you in this year since the foundation of the world. I hope that you're also anticipating the process of discovering the many, many things He has in store for me through reading this blog.

Back on the Highway

2011-09-28T22:20:00.003-04:00

It's been far too long since I've posted on this blog. I apologize. My lack of posting was not because I wasn't working or that God wasn't working on me—quite the contrary. It was simply a matter of not feeling I had relevant enough material to post.

God's continued to teach me a lot. As I've said in another post-college post, this Biblical animation thing often seems less about me animating the Bible and more about God animating me in accordance with His Word. Ultimately, the goal is to have both concurrently, but even more ultimately is to accept whatever He's got in mind.

Over this “silent time,” God's taught me a lot about art and ministry. He's added to the skills I can now bring to the task—as only He can do. He's also increased my reliance on Him, which is far more valuable than any advanced drawing technique or animation principle.

As many times in the past have shown, a new project begins as my natural response to something that happens between He and I. “Unless the LORD builds the house [animation in this case], they labor in vain who build it.”Psalm 127:1. This post reflects such a beginning, although the project has actually been in the works for a little while already. “Back on the Highway” reflects the “Detour” posts, which I mostly didn't even post. Oh well, their effects will be evident in the road ahead.

More posts to come...

Detour Stop #1: The Local Barbershop

2010-09-18T14:37:00.017-04:00

One of my fond childhood memories of time spent with my dad is when we’d go get our haircut. It seems that the barbershop used to be an awesome place where guys would hang out all the time. Apparently, once upon a time, they would also sing. This developed into a musical style of the same name—a musical style that I had no idea was going to be a part of this trip God has me on.

This stop actually started during the earlier stages of my senior film production—so it truly is “Detour #1.”

My all-time favorite spiritual song, which has meant so much to me over the years ends the first verse with the line “…in darkness, He giveth a song.” Indeed He has, and often, and not always just in dark times. This detour started with a bit of one though, and to help “cheer me up” an awesome buddy of mine took me out to a local restaurant. Not suspecting a thing, we soon noticed a group of old men walk in, sit down and start singing—barbershop songs! Well, my buddy and I enjoyed this impromptu performance, and, seeing our enjoyment, the guys invited us to come out to one of their meetings and sing with them. My buddy never did (pity), but I took them up on that offer—again, not suspecting a thing. I find that to be the case with things God drops into my life—I don’t suspect a thing until it’s already going strong.

So, this time, God didn’t “giveth a song,” oh no, instead He gave me a bunch of old guys with books full of songs. I thought it was just to cheer me up and give me a fun pastime, but again with the whole not suspecting a thing thing—I couldn’t have been more shortsighted.

How does this detour apply to the pursuit of Biblical animation? Well, that’s a good question. I met these guys during the process of making my film. A couple of them came to school where we recorded some songs that I still intend to some day incorporate into an animated film (which hopefully will happen—we’ll see).

As time progressed, however, I’ve began to see that barbershop is so much more than that on this pursuit. When I finished college, the recession was in full swing—very tough to find work. Barbershop helped keep me sane with all that. Right after I finished I was in my first show (and was so nervous the butterflies in my stomach had formed governments and were waging war with each other).

Barbershop, well, my barbershop group, the 13th Colony Sound, has provided me with a host of older men as mentors. There is a tenor, Tom, who has become my business mentor. With the big opportunities I mentioned from January, God was urging me in a certain way on a certain detail. One night, at the very same restaurant where I met these guys, Tom just started advising me on business, giving me in specifics what God had urged in general. I tried not to let my mouth hang open as I realized that God was talking through Tom. When all things come to fruition with this Biblical animation thing and me, regardless of whether the still current project goes through, Tom’s business advice is the thing that will have helped most.

There is also an interesting man, Ray, who is the most amazing music guy I know. He graduated from Julilard probably 50 years ago or so, and he has also become a mentor to me. A mentor in an area that actually happens to be it’s own detour. When all things come to fruition with this Biblical animation thing and me—with God’s overall plan for me, his advice on that particular detour is the advice that helps me become a fuller, more well-rounded artist.

There are so many more such men that I could tell you about, but I’ll be content for now to mention just one more. I’m not sure how exactly this relates to Biblical animation, but it’s too awesome to leave out, so humor me, and this is a very specific awesome blessing God has purposed to give me, so yeah, here it is.

The man is a tenor, and his name is Dan. Dan is probably the oldest man in the group, and has the most interesting story of anyone I’ve ever met. One of the first things I did with 13th Colony is sing the National Anthem at a historic cemetery on Memorial Day one year. I asked Dan if he served, and he told me he did in WWII. Amazed, I asked him, “Europe or Pacific?” He responded, “Neither. I was at the laboratory in Los Alamos, working on the atom bomb.” As I came to discover, he made the trigger mechanisms for all the A-bombs used in the war—including Hiroshima and Nagasaki. My Grandpa Daniel was in the Pacific back then, and he always believed very strongly that Truman’s decision to drop the bomb saved his life, which consequently saved my dad’s and mine, since my dad had not been born yet. To get to meet this man is a huge honor, and yet I get to be friends with this guy and sing with him all the time. One last thought about Dan, who I do believe truly knows the Lord, he did this thing that saved so many people and made such an impact on the world when he was about the age I was when I met him. It goes to show you: even as a young man, full of ambition but not much else, God can use you to change the world.

Big detour, no doubt, but I’ve picked up a giant load of good things here. I am now not only a member of the Barbershop Harmony Society (formerly known as SPEPBSQSA), but I’m a current board member of the 13th Colony Sound (the Savannah Chapter). I’m in a couple of quartets—which are awesome in so many ways—and I’ve even started to write barbershop music, which will probably eventually find it’s way into my Biblical animation. How those two things will merge together is for your imagination and mine to dream up for now.

It is true that a lot of this post isn’t really necessarily all that much about Biblical animation. It is also true, however, that it is entirely about the way that God is animating me. He knows where all this is going. His leading brought me to SCAD, lead me to study animation, and instilled within me this desire for Biblical animation. He’s leading me even now, through these uncertain times, and He will lead me wherever I need to go.

A Detour of Faith

2010-06-24T22:51:00.008-04:00

Well, it seems that it’s again been quite a while since my last post. Perhaps that’s because I’m not sure that I have anything valuable to add to this blog about Biblical animation. But lately, it occurs to me that maybe I have something to add after all.

I remember many, many years ago, my cousin Kevin got married—I think somewhere in Pennsylvania, perhaps? It’s been so long, I don’t remember. On our drive back to Michigan after the wedding, we didn’t actually head west like one would think—we headed south and east, which clearly isn’t the fastest way to get to Michigan. It is, however, a very nice detour. We visited Philadelphia, saw the Liberty Bell, drove through Delaware and Maryland, visited the Capitol, went down into Virginia, West Virginia, seeing the sights along the way. This detour gave me memories of many awesome and historical places like Gettysburg—memories that I would not otherwise have had—experiences that have stayed with me all these years. “Are we there yet, Dad—are we there yet?” No, we weren’t in Michigan yet—there were still more experiences to gain along the way.

That pretty much describes what my time since graduating college has been. Especially graduating in this tough economic time, especially with this dream of Biblical animation, which is indeed the entire focus of this blog, this has not been as simple and straightforward of a journey as I would have thought. This part of the journey has a detour—a detour much like the one I took as child. God has given me adventures and blessings that I seriously doubt I would have gotten without this scenic route. Blessings that will no doubt impact the Biblical animation that I am able to produce.

If you’ll humor me for a bit, these next few posts may showcase a few of the highlights from this detour. It may not necessarily appear to always be perfectly related to Biblical animation, but remember that this is the scenic route. My childhood trip did finally end up back in Michigan, and likewise, I’m certain that this current trip will lead to its intended destination, but not without having gained all the good things along the way. God definitely does not seem willing to withhold any good thing from one of His children, and graciously, I am no exception. Psalm 34:10b says, “…but they who seek the LORD shall not be in want of any good thing.”

Some of the possibilities I mentioned back in January are still possibilities—I reserve those stories for when everything is a done deal. God may also choose to just drop another such possibility my way, completely out of the blue. I’ll admit that on this part of the journey, a lot like the one I took as a child, I often have the desire to ask, “Are we there yet, Dad—are we there yet?” No, not yet, there’s more to be gained along the way.

The Story of the Pachitope

2010-02-12T17:10:00.006-05:00

I’m sure that you’ve noticed the little animal I’ve got in my demo reel, but may not know what it is. This animal does not belong to any Bible story, or even to the animal kingdom itself for that matter, yet there’s something to him that makes me think that maybe, just maybe, he does in fact belong in this blog.

So, you’re probably asking, “What is it anyway?” I don’t know either; I made it without really having any plan or reference. When I asked my high school biology teacher to figure out what it should be called, he wrote back that it appeared to him to be a combination between an elephant, a rabbit, and a deer or antelope. Thus, he figured: PACHiderm, rabbIT, antelOPE = PACHITOPE. That’s the story of how the pachitope got it’s name, now for the story of how the pachitope came to be:

Here is the one and only one place where the pachitope has anything to do with Nebuchadnezzar: this story took place somewhere in the middle of making my senior film. One day, in my art history class, the professor chose to show us a seriously disturbing film that I still don’t understand, and don’t ever intend to understand—it was probably an experiment in film’s potential as a torture device. This film reminded me of the worst experience of my life in quite a strong manner. That was more than enough to give me an unbelievably bad day, for sure. Later that evening, I had already decided not to do any homework for at least the rest of the night, all things considered, yet, somehow, I had this strong, inexplicable desire to be productive. In my strange logic, I figured I could justify doing something so long as it wasn’t homework, after all I was supposedly taking the night off.

So I sat down at the computer, launched Maya, and within 2 or 3 hours, I had modeled this creature. Again, no plan, no reference, no intention of actually doing anything serious that would ever be worth anything, but God saw something different. (I think there was one sketch that I made during the earlier part of that class that looks like an earlier version of this thing.) I also did fear that I’d never be able to look at this thing without remembering the really bad experience of that day, but, again, God saw something different. The next morning I worked on UV mapping him, and then set him aside. Over the course of my time home for all the holidays (SCAD’s schedule is really awesome, allowing you to go home before Thanksgiving and not getting back in session until after New Year’s), I found him again and resumed this project. I textured him and started rigging him. My professor in my portfolio class saw him among my other work and really took a liking to him. Now, this little unintentional creation is my logo for all the stuff that gets send/shown to prospective employers. So far, I haven’t met one person who doesn’t like this little guy—if you find one let me know. There just seems to be something about him.

So what is the thing that God apparently saw with this pachitope that makes it so special? Well, I can only think of one thing (though it does seem to have some pretty solid appeal from a design standpoint). We all have trials, we all have storms which come and start raging in our lives—storms that, as the disciples thought, are too big to handle—and you’d be right, many of these are God-sized storms. That’s why you need to allow God to come and deal with them. He comes to the front of the boat, says, “Peace be still,” and you can kiss that storm goodbye, even if the tough circumstances themselves still remain. Also, if you belong to Christ, all things work together for your benefit, remember this (Romans 8:28). Had there been no storm for me, I can safely say there would be no pachitope either. We've got to just hold out for all the pachitopes of our trials. And that’s the story of the pachitope.

A New Year, A New Post

2010-01-30T19:58:00.001-05:00

It certainly has been far too long since I’ve posted anything new. Since the last post, I finished my degree, graduated, and have been unleashed on the job market, which is definitely less than ideal at present, but God is good and reigns over even this difficult time. Over this time in looking for work, I’ve spent time further developing the skills I developed in college, which has been a good use of time as it also increases the chances of finding work. I update my website with these new things, so visit there to see all sorts of new artwork I may not necessarily post here.

As a result of the Lord’s working and people finding my website, I have gotten contacted by individuals who want me to produce Christian animation for them. These things are still in the works at the moment, so be praying, but God has worked to this effect.

The future of this blog will probably combine stories that arise in the process of producing Christian animation and might include some posts on animation-related things that are important to the process somehow. I will definitely try to post more regularly as time allows.

Demo Reel

2009-03-02T17:03:00.011-05:00

For prospective employers, I have temporarily put my demo reel at the top of this site. Scroll down to view the actual content of the blog. Thank you.

I now have my website online: http://danielanimation.com/. It's still pretty new, so I'm going to be continually working on improving it, fixing issues, etc.,

I have updated this post with the current version of my reel, but it seems to be having some issues. You can also view my reel and it's shorter version at my website. Please do so, especially if you are having issues viewing the reel here on Blogger.

As of March 12th, I have finished all of my classes for my BFA degree! Now time for some sleep...

Merry Christmas!

2008-12-24T20:49:00.002-05:00

I just wanted to wish all of you a Merry Christmas!

…and yes, that is Nebuchadnezzar dressed up like Santa Claus. I guess the wisemen are getting coal this year—haha. I couldn’t resist having a bit of fun here. Interestingly enough, it may very well be that those wisemen were of Nebuchadnezzar’s nationality. The Chaldeans and Babylonians were astronomers and astrologers, who studied the stars to the point where they could determine what day of the year it was by gazing at the night sky, just like God predicted when He commanded the stars into existence, “…let them be for signs and seasons, and for days and years…” (Gen. 1:14). The wisemen, in particular, studied them religiously, as they advised kings by seeking for signs and omens among the stars, though all the while missing the One who created the stars—well, that is, until this one star shone in the East…

Long, long ago, God humbled the proud Nebuchadnezzar, even to the point of insanity, in order to break him for his own sake so that he might come to know God. 600 or so years later Christ, being God, choose to humble Himself, even to the point of death, breaking Himself—not for His sake—but for ours, that we might come to know Him.

This Christmas, remember that the same God who gave Nebuchadnezzar all his glory and took it all away in order to establish Nebuchadnezzar is the same God who set aside His own glory and came to earth to be with lowly man. He has given us the invitation to come to know Him and someday sit at His table, paying the full price Himself.

Faithfulness & Finishing

2008-12-04T21:22:00.010-05:00

The film is finished! (-apart from a number of tweaks and fixes, of course.) This fall has been a whirlwind of activity, as I had to have the film finished for class. Having just passed through all of that, I can't help but remember where I was one year ago--before I even created this blog. That fall, God put this desire in my heart, causing me to reason that this was what I needed to do and that was the time I needed to learn how to do it. I had no idea what I was doing all term, and everybody (including me) knew it, yet God had purposed this and planned out several things that kept me at it.

God put the spotlight on Nebuchadnezzar early on--actually having me do a project in an earlier class on him. Before long, my secular professor became fixated on the character of Nebuchadnezzar--thinking that he was too interesting to pass up. Another big encouragement was from godly individuals at the church that I had just started going to that term. More godly people from that church, including the pastor, have continued to be encouraging. Actually, God also had three individuals at that church fill some critical parts in the production. I decided put the Lord in the credits under "Special Thanks to..." mainly because He's done so much I couldn't figure out any other single spot to put Him. I can't thank Him enough for all of that, or for how much my skill and ability have grown just working with His guidance.

These pictures you see are frames from the actual film, though some may be enhanced later when I fix a few things. I do want to point out a few things about these frames, as God has continued to bless and be faithful. First of all, as you can see, Neb has a brand new bed, and it's a much more fitting bed for royalty. A Christian game design major who I met and befriended this term textured it for me. The lighting here is one of the things I'm going to work on to try and enhance. I'm trying to strike a nice balance between the soft orange glow of the candles and the soft blue of the moonlight coming in through the windows. At the moment the lighting is a bit inconsistent.

Another thing I'd like to point out is an addition to the rig that my assistant animator (one of the individuals from my church) came up with. He noted that when people are dreaming you can see their eyes darting back and forth in REM sleep, even while closed. All I needed to make this work was allow the eyelids to rotate left and right, instead of just up and down. This isn't that noticeable when he's moving all around in his sleep, but adds a nice touch.

I made a slight addition to the dream so when the stone enters the scene, the sky darkens, referencing Matthew 24:29. Even though that detail wasn't actually mentioned, it seems reasonable that Neb would perhaps not have mentioned that if it did. The only real light in the scene during this part is the super bright light coming from behind the stone.

I ended up having a challenge I didn't anticipate with the visual effects for the statue's destruction. My visual effects guy found himself so bogged down with work that he was unable to do it. He told me this around midterm time, and, by the grace of God, I was able to figure out how to do particle effects with Maya in less than a week. The VFX guy's reaction to the effects shot was "you've got to show me how to do that sometime." This frame is from the start of the visual effects. It cuts to show the whole statue being vaporized and blown away in the wind. As an added bonus, the statue seems to turn towards the direction the stone was coming from--as if it is giving honor to the Lord in its final moment.

At the end of the term, I watched as the music that my music guy composed (he's also from my church) and the visual part of the film synced up near perfectly without us actually doing the necessary work to make it that in sync. As he said, "God did that." I then watched as another person from my church and another friend of mine came to record some of the brass parts of the music. Again, things happened that leave you with no other choice than to say, "God did that," (and the people He put on all these tasks did excellent). Later, I showed the film to the professor who taught me how to animate, who also happens to be a Christian. He gave me great advice on what to fix and expressed interest in wanting to see me do the next part of the story--the one with all the other characters I modeled. God puts nothing to waste--I was wondering were those guys would come back into the picture.

This definitely isn't the end of this blog, nor is it the end of my pursuit of Biblical animation. Stay tuned for more.
:)

Rigging by Faith (Which Sure Beats Doing it by Plain, Dumb Luck)

2008-10-06T23:48:00.010-04:00

It’s been a while since my last post—that’s because I’ve been rigging this whole time, and if you notice in my last post, I had been rigging then too. Rigging is the process of making your character model ready to animate. You have to add in all the moving parts and make sure that the right parts of the model move with the right parts of the little digital skeleton you make.

I started the rigging in my Senior I class, in the spring. I then had to keep working on it at home all summer long. I ran into several weird problems along the way. On one occasion, I had finished the part of the rigging process I like the least, and then I noticed a problem with the file. This particular version of the rig would fatally crash Maya unless I loaded a previous version first. Well, that’s just weird. I chose to set the rigging aside and work on texturing, which is what my last post is all about. Finally I started working on the rig again, choosing to go back to the previous version and losing all the work on that part I so dreaded. Since then, problems have arisen almost constantly. I can’t even recall how many problems I’ve had, or how many times I didn’t think I could get past this stage of making the film. Here it is; this is where faith comes in to save the day. I began seriously praying before and during times when I would work on the rig. When I ran into problems, like I did the other night with another rigging issue, I had no choice but to go to the LORD. I finally said, “Well, LORD, this is Your project; You take care of this problem in Your time and in Your way.” That worked. One week ago, I finally finished rigging (with the exception of a small handful of issues that came up, like the one the other night). Naturally, guess who got the glory for getting me here? This picture you see here is the one I made as I finished the rigging, and I think that pretty much explains it.

Did I mention that God has blessed a lot during the rigging? Even with all of the issues that set me back? Well, let me point out a few cool little features on the rig. I put together a little rigging demo/thing for the body. Understand that Nebuchadnezzar’s robe will be animated later using cloth FX, which is why I turned off that layer. That’s also the reason why I’m not terribly concerned about the bunching/pinching at some of the joints—maybe I should be, I don’t know.

Well, from that you can see that he moves okay, that he has an independently rotating hip, and that his signet ring moves with his ring finger, but the really cool stuff is in the facial rigging. He can’t make any vocal/phonetic mouth shapes, and his lower lip is stuck to his jawbone, but he can still be expressive—and his mustache moves with his mouth, too. The tongue moves independently, the beard and “mullet” have controls for secondary motion, and the unibrow has controls for its various key spots. My favorite spot, though, is the eyes I can move them all around, move them independently, and control the upper and lower eyelid for each eye. Finally, my all time favorite control is the ability to dilate and constrict his pupils, which I believe will add volumes to the animation.

After the rigging was finished, I moved on to rework the animatic a bit. I intended just to add a bit of what I called “animatic blocking,” posing the character just enough to help the animatic make sense. As I worked my way through the film, I got more and more carried away. Finally, I got to the last shot in the dream sequence. At this point, the stone that struck the statue has been growing into this mountain that would encompass the whole earth, and Nebuchadnezzar is losing his footing on the shifting ground.

In this shot, Nebuchadnezzar starts falling, and the camera follows him as he falls, until he snaps awake in his bed. I really didn’t have much of an idea what I was going to do here, until it just happened like that. Thinking about it a day or two later, I realized that Nebuchadnezzar was physically falling at about the point in the vision where he would be falling in a slightly different sense. That type of symbolism is really my kind of thing—except I didn’t plan it to work out like that. So, again, this tells me that God is still an active participant in this project. Finally, at this point, I can actually see it coming together and working as a film, which excites me to no end. The fact remains that I still have no idea what God’s plan is for this film, but I don’t have to—I just know the God who has a plan for it, and that’s enough.

Glazed Bricks, Ancient Dragons, & Royal Eyeballs, Oh My!

2008-08-08T22:26:00.011-04:00

I've been continuing to work on texturing. My attention turned to Nebuchadnezzar's bedroom. The Neo-Babylonian empire under his reign rebuilt Babylon, and became famous for their barrel vaults and glazed, blue bricks. They created mosaic-like reliefs (wall sculpture) in the bricks. The most famous example is the Ishtar Gate, which inspired my depiction of Nebuchadnezzar's bedroom.

The Ishtar Gate has several animals depicted on it. One is a lion, another is a ram (both important animals in Babylonian culture and mythology). The other is an unusual beast, a dragon. If you bring your thoughts back to Genesis and the Fall, then take a closer look at this particular animal, you may see that it's essentially a snake with legs. Now, add this to the fact that this dragon, known as a "mushushu" is the symbol of Marduk, the chief god in Babylonian religion and the patron god of Nebuchadnezzar--hence why I put it over his bed.

Nebuchadnezzar faithfully served this god, even naming his son and eventual successor "Amel-marduk" (man of Marduk). Again, playing with the same thing as I was with the wise man, even with the symbol of his god guarding his bed, he could not avoid the dream and vision from the LORD.

I believe that God used his own religion to draw Nebuchadnezzar to Himself. One of the cornerstones of Babylonian mythology is the Epic of Gilgamesh. Gilgamesh was a mighty kind like Nebuchadnezzar. At certain times, Gilgamesh had dreams/visions given to him from the gods. These visions usually meant something really bad was about to happen--like his partner's death. Without a doubt, Nebuchadnezzar knew this story and considered it the night he had the dream. In contrast with the myth, the reality was that the one true God had something wonderful for Nebuchadnezzar. Eventually, King Nebuchadnezzar turned from worshiping Marduk to worshiping the one true God.

It has been said many times that the "eyes are the gateway to the soul." If that's the case, then much of Nebuchadnezzar's character is defined by his eyes. So far, he's been kind of bland in that department, but not any more. I decided to give him brown eyes--an obvious choice given his ethnicity. However, I wasn't satisfied to leave them pure brown. The Greek word for "rainbow" is "iris." Appropriately named, that part of the eye--the window to the soul--must be the bright window dressings, so I decided to put a bit of a "rainbow" of color into the eye--mainly, blue and green. Following the progress along from left to right, top to bottom, I kept working on the eye until I was mostly satisfied with the color. Then I moved on to the bump map, which can be seen best in the image at center, bottom. The finished eye can be seen below.

Then, of course, I put them into Nebuchadnezzar's head (that just sounds fun). Here is the textured Nebuchadnezzar with his new set of eyes--all the better to see with. I think the irises might need to be darkened a bit, as his skin tone seems to match them a bit much.

Hopefully everything will get straightened out with my computer, and I'll be able to work on the rigging again. This would be the "oh my!" section of the post, since the summer is quickly drawing to a close. All in all, though, I'm amazed at all of what God's had in store for this summer. I couldn't have fit anything else in if I had tried; it's another blessing to add to the list.

Texturing, Tiny Freckles, & Some Quick Anatomy Studies

2008-07-10T23:14:00.010-04:00

I've been working on the rigging part of the production most of the summer so far. Rigging is the process of taking the model and making it ready for animation. This is the most difficult part of the whole process, yet, again, as God continues to bless this project, this section has also gone relatively smoothly--much easier than I expected. I have nearly completed the point weighting , which is a very substantial part of the rigging process. Then Maya started having some issues, and the file won't open without having a fatal error and crashing Maya, however, I think that the problem is due to Windows Vista's incompatibility with most software. Right now, I have my old Photoshop on the computer, so I've put a temporary hold on the rigging process and am focusing on the texturing for a pleasant change.

There are many maps to make when texturing, I started with the most obvious: the color map. Having next to no experience with texturing people, I just went at it. I started thinking too much about skin and began to look up medical anatomy stuff to learn about the veins beneath the surface of the skin. I put many of these in and then muted them down so they look like they're under the skin. If you look closely, you might be able to see a few, especially in the hands.

With the face, I remembered something I read in an illustration book at Border's years ago. The author divided the face up into thirds vertically, and labeled each one with a dominant color (top down: yellow, red, and blue). So, I applied that here. By the way, this is Nebuchadnezzar without any hair, in case you were wondering.

I went on from the veins to realize that skin has lots of tiny imperfections that give it character. I added tiny freckles all over his body, then really tiny freckles--even freckles that are lighter than the skin tone. This added so much, and I was fairly pleased, especially with the chest area here. There's a nice-looking vein on the inside edge of one of the pectoral muscles, just below the collarbone, but it's so faint now that I can't even see it most of the time. This also show's Neb's tan line. Most of this detail here won't be visible in the actual film, but this has been a great learning experience.

The hands and arms are the most crucial parts of the body to texture (other than the face, of course), and I found these a bit more difficult considering that the pair I have are very different then the ones that Nebuchadnezzar would have had, so I Googled images to find Middle-Eastern men (preferably approximately 30, like Neb in my story) and stared at their hands. This is the result. I noticed slight redness in the skin around the nail, and a slight bluish tint from the lighter flesh tone in the palm in the nails themselves.

The tough part of this for me is figuring out the balance in Nebuchadnezzar's life, between tan-producing outdoor activities and non-tan-producing indoor activities--between skin-roughening physical activities and skin-softening mental/social activities. Neb was a powerful ancient king, which demands a lot of both. Anyway, I think I was able to get at least some of that balance right. Oh, and I have found one source that suggested that his bathing rituals were basically to have slaves poor a sort of detergent rinse over him. I forgot about that, but it may make a difference in his skin.

Feel free to critique or make suggestions; it will help. Also, it's long overdue, but thanks to all of you for all of your prayers regarding this project. They truly make a difference.

Progress Update

2008-06-23T21:34:00.003-04:00

I haven't posted anything new in a while, mainly because finals hit, and then packing and going home for the summer. Fortunately I now have Maya at home, so I can keep working and will do so throughout the summer. Here's what's been happening since the last post:

The last weekend of classes I created a 3D animatic (moving the camera around in the environment to make a really rough version of the film, even though there's little or no animation yet). This animatic ended up being drastically different than the 2D one I did in Concept Development. I kept a few things that worked, but I've known for a while that it needed work.

I discovered around Thanksgiving/Christmas that the film "Meet Joe Black" has a lot of good cinematography, and a story which, in part, is almost perfectly similar to Nebuchadnezzar's situation. This film shows a powerful man who comes face to face with Death, and has to come to terms with it as the one thing he can't control. Anyway, so with this film as reference, I chose to cut out all the narration and just head straight into the heart of the story without introduction. I figured if that's what worked in a 3 hour movie, that'd work in a 60-90 second short.

So the animatic starts with the camera entering Neb's bedroom, where he is sleeping. The camera creeps up to him, and somehow, unconsciously, he senses the camera's presence and turns away from it. The camera gets obnoxious, breaks the "180 rule" and jumps to the other side--to get back in his face. This happens again, and finally, the camera climbs over him, and looks down from above. He opens his eyes, and as he does so, you find that you are in his dream with him. The massive statue shimmers in the sunlight, as Neb is blown away by its splendor. Then Nebuchadnezzar sees something in the distance--a stone, cut out without hands, rolling towards the statue at a fast pace. The stone strikes the statue at its feet and the whole statue is crushed to dust. Neb is utterly overwhelmed as he witnesses all of this, and then the stone begins to grow. He braces himself as it swells to become a great mountain....and then he wakes up--film ends.

I ended up cutting out every character other than Nebuchadnezzar himself. That makes things easier, though I kind of feel weird having done all of that work on the other characters. The film in its current state is the best case scenario. I had hoped that I could make it so it acts as a complete short in and of itself, a trailer for a bigger piece, and a scene in that potential bigger piece, and that is exactly what I've got. Praise the Lord! He has done some much on this project, and it has been a blessing to me just to be working on it.

These images are examples of how the lighting will look; the final lighting will be better, but this at least shows where things are headed. I am also going to texture the models, so that will enhance the look even further.

Wardrobe, Props, Mouths, and Some Manly Jewelry (well not really that manly)

2008-05-03T20:07:00.012-04:00

So, I, figuring naked Bible characters wouldn’t have much of an audience, decided to model some clothes for my characters. Logical next step, I would think.

Anyway, so I started with Nebuchadnezzar, he being the only character whose clothes I actually have full reference for from ancient sculpture. If you Google “Nabonidus,” look at the images that come up, and you should see a carving of a guy that looks remarkably like my Nebuchadnezzar. This Nabonidus was the last king of the Neo-Babylonian empire. (He was the king who ruled when the regent Belshazzar saw the writing on the wall and lost the empire to Darius the Mede). I intend to have decorations like the ones on the robe textured into Neb’s robe. As for the ring on Neb’s finger, I figured, how effective could a king be without a signet ring? So, I gave him one. The signet ring’s seal will be textured in, probably as the dragon/serpent that Neb seemed to be so fond of.

Arioch is the coolest, I just have to say. He’s sporting his Assyrian copper/bronze armor with an under-tunic/robe beneath the rows of scale/chain mail of his breastplate. He is wearing chain mail and cloth grieves (leg armor) and doesn’t have gauntlets on his arms, as these apparently were not used. His left arm sports a wood and copper/bronze buckler. His other hand will carry his spear, which is close to the height of an actual Assyrian spear.

This Assyrian flavor to Arioch makes me wonder a bit about his background. Jonah didn’t want to go preach salvation to Ninevah because of the abhorrent atrocities that the Assyrians committed against the Israelites; having seen relief sculpture documenting some of it while doing research, I can see why he hated them so much. My thoughts at the moment are that Arioch grew up there around this but somehow softened and mellowed when he joined the Neo-Babylonians. If I ever get to do the full blown story on Nebuchadnezzar, Arioch will be the guy who silently witnesses all that God is doing, and can’t help but believe as well.

Wiseman has no reference whatsoever for his outfit, so I had to use all the rest of my research and artistic license to make an educated guess. I gave him this simple robe, but couldn’t stop there. Randomly at 4:30 in the morning, for no apparent reason, decided to keep working and give Wiz the earrings I saw on the lamassu statues (Google it and look at the “extra large images,” you’ll see what I’m referring to). The actually seem to fit him. This got me thinking, “Ah if Wiz was the wise man/sooth sayer/magician/sorcerer/ that he was, wouldn’t he adorn himself with all sorts of jewelry, particularly amulets, and the like to attempt to earn the favor of whatever gods he could?” So, not only did I give him the earrings off of the lamassu (think Mesopotamian version of angels), I also gave him a sun/flower bracelet, and central gold piece of the sun inside a crescent moon, kind of day and night idea with that one. That fits perfectly with Neb and his dream. The problem for Wiz is that he doesn’t know the One who made the day and the night.

And that brings me to Daniel. Wiz came in to the king with all of his charms and supposed favor-bringing trinklets but failed. Daniel comes in, not with jewelry, trinklets, amulets, or even a hat or beard for that matter, but in the name of the LORD, and that made all the difference. So here is Daniel, with his plain robe, which has a more Israeli flag color scheme, further distinguishing his vastly different ethnicity from the other characters.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot, I also finished the inside of the mouths, which I hadn't done yet. The teeth and gums are compliments of my friend Grant, who also happens to be the guy with the Sprite thing from two posts ago. I tweaked his model to suit my characters and installed a mouth and tongue around it.

Now they're off to the UV mapper then on to texturing and rigging.

"Look Who We've Got Our Hanes on Now"

2008-04-25T02:09:00.008-04:00

Well, they’re probably not Hanes, but I figure making an Egyptian loincloth to put on the characters would make viewing their models less grotesque than leaving their bodies as is. I have only modeled one detailed body before this, and the mesh got all complicated and nasty—so nasty that I never decided to rig the model. So, this was going to be a challenge.

I tried some tutorials, making a couple of attempts this time around and kept going back to the drawing board because they didn't work. Finally, I decided to make a string of polygons around the bottom of the pectoral muscles, then another around the abs, and yet another sloping down off of the hips and going directly into the groin. From here, I added the collarbone and eventually connected all of the parts until there was just one body. Then I started the legs.

Up until this point in the modeling process, I had been overwhelmed by how evident the Lord’s hand in this has been. I cannot model a face as good as the faces you see on this site. I cannot model a human body well, especially since anatomy/figure drawing is my weakest area as an artist—working on that. I am convinced that God has been the moving force behind my quality surge. He has also blessed with the anatomy/figure drawing in a similar fashion, and some of that is thanks to good friends He’s given me.

When I did the legs I was frustrated and kind of went, “okay, now this is how I model.” That being said, the Lord then continued His habit of blessing the modeling, and the legs, as you can see, turned out fine. End of the day, the mesh is low-poly (good thing) and the mesh works. My professor was very impressed with the heads, now she’s impressed with the bodies as well. She thought so highly of it that she asked me if I wanted to be a modeler. I think I said something about it just needing to get done. The only part of the body I have left to model is the inside of the mouth.

From here, it’s on to UV mapping (setup for texturing), then rigging (setup for animation). Well, when you got up this morning, I’d bet you never thought you’d be seeing King Nebuchadnezzar in his undies. If you did think that, you’re probably spending too much time chatting with me.

Ancient Sandals, A Free Sprite & Awesome God, & More Really Cool-Looking Ancient Guys

2008-04-17T16:30:00.010-04:00

Back when my friend Lauren did the character sketches for me, she also took some initiative and did something additional that I didn’t even know to ask for. She came up with a design for the footwear of the characters. She figured this moccasin-like sandal would save me from having to model and animate the toes—efficient design for that purpose. I really didn’t care much for the design because I didn’t think it was historically accurate. Later on, I was doing some research online for some reason, and I ran across some types of Assyrian sandals/footwear. To my amazement I saw a sandal almost exactly like Lauren’s sketch. Well, my opinion changed real quick.

I’ve been working on the heads of the characters lately—tweaking the original mesh and transforming the generic Sargon-like model into the individual characters. Last weekend a buddy of mine’s family came into town and I spent some time with them. I keep looking at his brother and thinking, “That’s more like my Daniel should be.” So, he was gracious enough, and I took some reference pictures of him to use when modeling out Daniel. Daniel doesn’t look that much like him, but his reference proved valuable in tweaking out the character. He does have hair, but it’s still in the works.

Without a doubt, Arioch is quickly becoming my favorite character; he’s just full of depth with his many seasons of battle etched into his face (literally, once I texture him and add the scars). Late at night, recently, I went to school to do a little bit of work, and ended up doing a lot. I first worked on Ari’s copper/bronze Assyrian-style helmet. I got done with the main part and began to model the detail on the top. When I was doing this, the LORD pricked my heart a bit, pointed to a friend of mine working two computers down, and said, “Go see if he needs any help with anything.” So I went over and asked, He sent me down to the vending machine with some money to get a Vault energy drink for him and something for myself while I was there. I didn’t realize how thirsty I was—I really needed that, and so did he. When I got back to work, I saw something I had never noticed before—my design for the top of Ari’s helmet was wrong and I needed to redo it, and that’s what you see on his head—more accurate, and cooler-looking. Apparently I needed to take a break and get a Sprite to see that, and it was refreshing, too.

I went on to do Wiz’s cloth hat, and tweaked his eyebrow into more of a King Sargon brow. I like his new look; he looks like a smart guy who maybe gets beat up or pushed around a lot for being such a loser. You know, he really needs to hang out with Daniel more—maybe he’ll learn something.

Now finally, King Nebuchadnezzar! He has a thicker brow ridge to enhance his intimidating appearance when seen from a low angle like his subjects view him. He has an almost “Steve Carrell” style nose, and his face and expressions are intended to be a bit like a young Marlon Brando. He is sporting a crown like seen on a relief of the last king of this empire, Nabonidus (you’re probably more familiar with his regent, Belshazzar). This crown resembles the crown of Upper Egypt with the color of the crown of Lower Egypt. I think there may be some more tweaking to be done on this model. Eventually all these characters will have ears.

The Beginning of the Modeling and King Sargon

2008-04-08T22:53:00.017-04:00

Now time to go from preproduction work to actual production work. I had been working on a model for the project off and on for about 7 or 8 months, but I quickly scrapped it once I heard my professor basically say that if you can't model really really well, don't do it: it will hurt your animation. Well, so long, model, time to go all out and use a tutorial.

I didn't have Lauren's sketches scanned in when I began modeling, so I used an old favorite of mine from Babylonian art: the head of Sargon. I don't know why, but that ancient Akkadian guy just looks cool.

I followed the tutorial (the Joan of Arc tutorial, very good), and ended up with Sargon, the mighty ancient king. From Sargon, I intended to push points and polygons around to end up with each of the characters. I finished most of Sargon's head and decided that the old model was good for something after all. So, I copied and pasted the old mustache, eyebrow, and beard over from the old model. I reworked and remade some parts of the hair, and was happy.

Next class, I'm working on my cool new model, when I get advice from the friend of a classmate, who happens to hang around a lot in my class, but her advice enhanced my modeling quite significantly. Later that night, I finally found my modeler, who I didn't have contact information for before that night. I'm going to keep working on these models but leave her as much modeling as she wants to do, which will hopefully be a lot.

Tonight I reworked Sargon into Wiseman, then Wiseman into Arioch. Both Wiseman and Arioch still need some work, but progress has been made. I think I need to make Wiseman's face as thin as Arioch's is now, and make Arioch's face as wide as Wiseman's. Wiseman (or "Wiz") may stay closer to Sargon's appearance than the other characters because I like the look of Sargon. Also, I need to make them look less homogeneous and more individual.

Wiz has somewhat longer and looser hair than Arioch (or "Ari"), and that's because of their respective occupations. Wiz is a magician and soothsayer priest--his role is advisory, whereas Ari is a soldier and must maintain a tighter haircut and shorter beard. In Babylon, the length of a man's beard and length of a man's skirt usually reflected his importance in society, however, Arioch's beard and skirt, as well as that of other soldiers, may be the exception because they need to keep both shorter to be fit for their military duties. Ari's ball of hair in the back is pushed down because of his helmet.

Next step, Nebuchadnezzar and Daniel...

Character Sketches

2008-04-02T11:56:00.014-04:00

Here are the character sketches, which my talented friend Lauren redesigned for me. My original designs are the Illustrator artwork. Lauren's designs almost make you wish this was a 2D project.

Each one has the name of the character with the meaning of that character’s name underneath (poor Wiseman, always left out). I figured the names were valuable in figuring out some of the character.

Nebuchadnezzar is, of course, the main character. His name means “May Nabu Protect the Crown.” (Nabu was the Babylonian scribe god). He is an extremely powerful king who has been very well educated in the arts, sciences, literature, religion, politics, and war. He rules over the world and everything in it. Only God is more sovereign than he is. He is married to a Median princess named Amyitis. The have at least one son, crown prince Evil-merodach (Amel-marduk).

Arioch is the captain of the guard/chief executioner. His name means “Lion-like,” and after being seasoned by war, he is. He is the strong and silent type, earthy, aged, and scarred from battle. He remains loyal to Nebuchadnezzar and silently bears witness to all that God does with Nebuchadnezzar.

Daniel is a young Judean noble who was taken to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar’s forces. His name means “My Judge is God,” and follows that to the point of being very conscientious and wise. His Babylonian name “Belteshazzar” means “Prince of Princes” or “Bel’s Prince.” (Bel would be the equivalent of Zeus, think “Baal”), Daniel is a prophet, and God has given him the ability to understand dreams and visions of all kinds. Daniel is well educated, possessing both a Judean education and a Babylonian education. Nebuchadnezzar begins to favor Daniel above all other wisemen.

Wiseman is, well, a wise man (by occupation only). His wisdom is worldly, and thus prone to fail when dealing with the things of God. Wiseman is probably Chaldean, which is also Nebuchadnezzar’s nationality. Nebuchadnezzar respected and valued Wiseman and his associates in the past, but now that God has begun dealing with Nebuchadnezzar, Wiseman is out of his league, out of favor with the king, and simply out of luck.

Animation, the Gospel & Nebuchadnezzar

2008-03-29T20:40:00.000-04:00

Art is perhaps the ultimate form of communication (after all "a picture is worth a thousand words"). Animation is perhaps the ultimate form of art. One animated film may contain practically all art forms in one way or another. You have drawing/painting, sculpture (for 3D), acting/drama, cinematography, music, sound design, fashion, etc., all combined and unified in presentation to communicate whatever it was intended to communicate.

For the Christian, we have a message that we need to communicate--the Gospel. Animation/film is one potent method we can use, and should use, to communicate this message of hope to this lost and dying world.

As an animation student at Savannah College of Art and Design, I am endeavoring to learn the animation trade and figure out how to go about accomplishing the above through animation. That is why, when developing the concept for my senior project, I focused my attentions here, thinking this was my opportunity to figure out how to do this.

For some reason the LORD has kept bringing up King Nebuchadnezzar. My final project for my storyboarding class was Daniel 2-4. Nebuchadnezzar came up in my concept development class, and, although his story is far too epic for a 60-90 second short, my professor fell in love with the character. He reiterated the common thought that the “bad guy” is often the most interesting character because there is typically a depth to the bad guy, perhaps a reason why he is the bad guy. In my project, I am not portraying Nebuchadnezzar as the “bad guy.” Considering that “there are none righteous” and “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God,” which of us, by God’s measure, are better than Nebuchadnezzar?

One thing that was different about Nebuchadnezzar is that he was given absolute sovereignty during his reign. He had the power to do anything he pleased, anyway he pleased to do so. The only one who had power over him is the LORD Himself—the One who gave Nebuchadnezzar his power and the One who had the power to take it away from him. God was not content to let Nebuchadnezzar live out his days without knowing the One who reigns even over him. So, the LORD went about progressively revealing Himself to Nebuchadnezzar, starting with a dream, and ending with Nebuchadnezzar losing everything and going around like an animal, until finally his reason returned to him, and he identified that the LORD is the Almighty. That, in my opinion, is the story that should be told about Nebuchadnezzar.

This short animated film takes place the night Nebuchadnezzar has that first dream. It is my hope that this short will show me what needs to happen for Biblical animation to work well.