#2D was still cheaper to make for the most part and that's why it was made more for the most part

[anarchomoop]

I mean, like...

Kinda, yeah?

Like, don’t get me wrong, labor cost issues eventually did become a major reason for why 3D feature animation has completely taken over for 2D animation, and unionizataion being less universal among 3D animated production as opposed to 2D animated production is part of why labor costs are smaller, but unions are absolutely not the reason why 3D animation started to become ubiquitous at this time, and definitely not as early as the late 90s when Bug’s Life and Prince of Egypt came out.

Like... A Bug’s Life’s budget info is hard to come by. I see one source citing the (hilariously low) value of 45 million while other sites are reporting over 60 million and IMDB and Wikipedia are reporting 120 million. Prince of Egypt had a budget of 60 million or 70 million with some quick googling.  I’m seeing most sites running with the 120 million value for A Bug’s Life and the 60 million value for Prince of Egypt, so that’s what I’m going to assume they were.  A Bug’s Life cost probably twice as much to make as Prince of Egypt. People were not making 3D movies to cut costs.

Tech costs of 3D animation were really, really high at the time, and it was a fairly young field without a ton of people working in it, so even without a union to lend bargaining power a lot of 3D animators were able to command fairly large salaries just based on the fact that, like, nobody was able to do what they did (and especially not at the level that Pixar and Dreamworks were doing it).  By the mid 2000s eventually the field got bigger, the tech got better and cheaper, and 3D animation eventually became cheaper to make than 2D, but during the time most of the movies contemporary to the above ones came out? Yeah.  They were expensive.

Like... using a Bug’s Life in particular... just look at what contemporary 3D looked like at the time.  Look at N64 games with their jagged, janky, oftentimes abstract polygons. Look at “inferior” and “cheaper” 3D films of the time, (hell, even Dreamworks’ own Antz, which you could argue was, like, probably the 3rd most visually impressive fully 3D animated film at the time behind A Bug’s Liife and Toy Story, and notice how much better A Bug’s Life looks). A Bug’s Life was literally bleeding edge in 1998. From where we’re sitting now, it’s not impressive. At the time? It was incredible. People had seen good, well-made, hand-drawn 2D animation. They hadn’t seen 3D on par with A Bug’s Life. It was a novelty. It was draw.

3D eventually became *much* cheaper to produce than 2D, less because of “lack of unions” (you can find un-unionized 2D animation houses pretty easily, and a lot of 3D animation was done by companies that had 2D animation departments as well, and both departments were part of the animation union), but mostly because tech got better.

Like, “capitalism bad” as the condescending nazi above put it absolutely is why 2D animation is dead now.  Studios that work in 2D have to do it with a bigger budget, longer production time, and/or smaller scale than studios that work in 3D, even before you start looking at 2D having generally more union representation than 3D. All of those things lead to the capitalist perspective meaning sidelining 2D in favor of 3D. But at the time we’re looking at here? Nah. You can’t blame companies trying to avoid paying labor costs.  3D was a spectacle. That’s why it outperformed. The march of technology has dated it in a way it didn’t date the 2D animated contemporaries, but to say “people were less impressed with A Bug’s Life than Prince of Egypt but 3D movies were still made at the time because they were cheaper” is... the opposite of the truth.

[kustas]

I recently witnessed someone on twitter with the spicy but interesting position of: the only people vehemently bitching against 2D puppets are the animators who have to use them. So, what's the tea, why's this debate even a thing, and is one side wrong?

Rigged 2D animation, also known as puppet animation, and prolly other terms I'm not aware of. Most 2D animators I know treat it with disdain as something they're forced to work on to survive instead of "real" animation (=hand drawn in this case), and while I've encountered less negative sentiments towards the medium coming from fans, I have seen several people complain about it unknowingly, correctly nailing visual aspects they don't like without knowing their cause. Additionally, it can be really hard to tell apart what's rigged and what's hand drawn in 2D, with many series mixing both to their advantage.

The reason for rigged stuff being so prevalent is that it's cheaper and faster. Where hand drawn requires redrawing your entire character/thing frame by frame to make it move, puppet animation uses, well, puppets, ready-made articulated models you just need to pose. It's also possible to use interpolation - instead of deciding by hand every image between two poses, you let the computer calculate it and come later to tweak how each part moves to make it look good. There is little to no drawing involved in rigged 2D, asides of rare shots that need a little part drawn over when the puppet can't do something specific, or drawing the eyes/mouths/hands/etc when you're making the puppets themselves. Notice I said series and not films in my previous paragraph - this is because animations with longer runtimes and/or shorter production times benefit strongly from this medium. You will not need to clean, to inbetween, to color and whatever other steps can go in hand drawn 2D when you have puppets. You can use the interpolations to your advantage on some movements. It's near impossible to be off model. You don't even need to draw!

And most animators uh, they're here because they like to draw. You can say animating and drawing are two different things, that is true, I've even heard it from the mouth of an insanely talented hand drawn animator called Liane-Cho Han who described himself as a poor drawer despite an impressive 2D portfolio. Poor drawer, good animator, it blew my mind at the time but when I started animating I understood what he meant. But puppet animation is still animation, and much closer to how 3D animation works, with stop-motion being comparable to hand drawn in terms of difference between these mediums. Yet you don't see industry-spanning bitching about 3D vs stop motion! This leads to my next point: puppets are limiting.

One of the advantages of hand drawn animation compared with other animation techniques especially those using character rigs is that you're not limited to said rigs. You can just draw anything, regardless of digital puppet constraints, of art style, of physics. If you can put it on paper, you can animate it. Puppets, both 3D and 2D, have limitations - the art needs to be made (sculpt, drawings) and be placed on a complex invisible digital skeleton allowing you to correctly manipulate your character, which is a job in itself. The more stuff you want your character to be able to do, the more complex it gets. You can't automate all of it. This means productions with lower budget and/or ambitions will tend to have simpler rigs which allow less. An example is angles: when you're hand drawing a character and want to pose them, you can pick whatever angle you'd like for all body parts. Rigs might not give this as an option, especially subtler angles of the head and foreshortening. This might make some movements you had in mind impossible, with a need to stylize your poses and your breakdowns. Not being able to have these angles can make for animation that looks stiff or awkward and can be very annoying to work with depending on the animator.

That artificial stiffness is to me, one of the telling signs something is rigged, and part of the reasons I don't like it myself! That's right, I'm with the haters here. Except stiffness doesn't necessarily mean something used digital rigs, and stiffness isn't inherently a bad thing - as with all art styles, it can just be that, a stylistic choice. Enters a director who's work I'll use as a counter example to the dislike of 2D puppets, both from an animator's and a hater layman's point of view on the results: Michel Ocelot.

Famous in France and way less internationally, two staples of his work are his fixations on fairytales and Africa. Fittingly, his most famous movie is probably Kirikou, a feature film which mixes both. Ocelot's work is stylized in a way unique to him, which can make his work very repetitive, but also makes it instantly recognizable. Some of his staples include static shot compositions, actors that talk like they're reading their lines out of an old book, busy backgrounds and folk tale tropes. Stiffness is just a part of what his movies look like, as are art styles that take inspiration from traditional art and past periods. He started out working before digital puppets were a thing, and while he's embraced digital techniques, releasing a full CG feature film in the 00s before it was the norm, he has worked without, including on Kirikou which is animated the old way.

The earliest of his films I've seen is called Princes and Princesses, it's already got everything typical of his work, and one of the latest of his films I've seen (and among my personal favorites of everything he's done) is called Black Pharaoh, and while decades and different techniques separate these two, they're both based around, you guessed it, puppets. P&P is a blatant hommage/reference to animation pioneer Lotte Reiniger, who used literal paper puppets to animate fantasy movies who's style is very reminiscent of the graceful, slightly simplified illustrations popular at the time. Black Pharaoh uses digital 2D puppets and is entirely animated using the (meticulously researched) style of ancient egyptian wall paintings. Both of these films tell a story, not like movies usually do, but like an orator retelling a tale does. And it works! The characters don't move in a 3D space, but it doesn't matter, they're from a fresco or are paper. The character's don't move realistically and it doesn't matter either, they're not trying to trick your eyes into looking real, they're characters of a story. Ocelot's films are a case where using puppets and their limitations works in favor of the film, not otherwise, and his stuff that's not made with puppets looks like it could be.

I'll briefly talk about a film I hate here to make the final point before my conclusion, netflix's Klaus. This is a film who's insanely impressive animation has floored people regardless of how much they know about animating. Unlike a lot of "this looks very cool" (actually p easy to make) animations you see going viral online, here everyone's right, it is indeed insanely hard to animate like that. Klaus was hailed because of it's uncanny ability to look like modern CG while being entirely hand drawn, which I think is stupid, because it's a lot of effort and talent wasted for a result that looks incredibly generic. Would this film have been bad if it had used CG? Why do people think hand drawn is better than CG in the first place? That I can't answer but the reason studios use it is money: either because it's trendy and will make more money because it's trendy, or because it's cheaper to make, which depends on what you're trying to achieve. In the end, they're techniques. Techniques have pros and cons and things they're better at than others. Time and money are essential to producing a film wether you like it or not.

So: are people wrong to hate on puppets? Nah, it's a question of taste. You can hate the look a technique gives and that's fine. But "ugly" is subjective and it's important to be aware of that if critiquing stuff is your job.

Was that tweet right? Yeah, pretty much, lol. For many if not most animators it's a technique they're forced to use, that removes a major reason they like their job from said job, and can be frustrating to work with. It's worth noting a lot of the work you'll get nowadays is on cheap productions, and the techniques they'll use most will be associated with the slop they are. Doesn't mean you'll inherently make slop. A technique is just that, a technique.

[fanficmaniatic]

You know? The studio change makes me really sad.

A big part of Lego Monkie Kid’s soul was its animation and its use of Visual storytelling. There are frames and shots from the first 4 seasons that as stills, work as full illustrations that are able to tell so much about the story! It is clearly something born about of someone’s passion! It has dedication and so much though put behind it.

Animating is a Big, laborious effort. Productions like LEGO Monkie Kid? Even more so. The dynamic shots, the use of lights, the composition, and the fluid movement of the stylized shapes… They made the show unique, yes, but also an incredible hard show to work on. Yet it paid of! LEGO Monkie Kid is a success in China! As it was supposed to be, and even when the US is not the main audience, is doing well here too!

That’s why it pains me so much to see Flying Barks leave. Nothing against Wildbrain, I happen to really love their work and how they animate… yet, Wildbrain is mostly familiar with 3D and Puppet animation. Puppet Animation and 3D are great methods, but neither is the hand drawn 2D look LEGO Monkie Kid has become known for. I have no doubt WildBrain will make the best with the cards they’ve been dealt with, and I look forward to see what they do. But is not the same. Hand drawn and Puppet animation are different mediums for a reason, and is a big noticiable change, specially for an action cartoon.

But I have to say… I am disappointed, in LEGO. So far it looks like the change in studios is due to scheduling issues, and because Flying Barks was not able to keep up with the demands LEGO put in place… To this I say, LEGO Monkie Kid is one of the most laborious works of Animation I’ve ever seen… and they killed it because they wanted it to come out faster?

Such a big part of LEGO Monkie Kid’s identity lays on its Animation, yet the corporation changed the studio, changed the animation method… To make production faster?

Animation takes time. Art takes time. Is sad to see a corporation do this because what is next? Will they change the cultural consultants team for a cheaper, quicker one too? Will they change their writers? I really hope not… But again, most people get into the show because of its animation, and they were willing to change it for the cheaper, quicker alternative.

This looks like a bad corporate decision at best, and a big slap to the face to the artist at Flying Barks at worse.

With the attention the Animation Community has in the show, it could be doing numbers with a bit of promotional material, and a consistent streaming service, yet they never did that, and now the attention from the art people might leave.

All these is to say,

Farewell Flying Barks, You did amazing. I hope you soon get a project that gets its deserve promotion and doesn’t get cancelled or out sourced. Your name shall be known.

[daydreaming-scheming-demon]

i hate mainstream appeal, or at least an extreme and intentional amount of it. actually, hate isnt a strong enough word. despise. absolutely fucking despise.

so many companies just do not care for experimentation, and whenever they do the experimentation is barely anything. i see this in so much stuff, in how cgi and specifically certain styles of cgi has taken over cinema to the point where the few 2d animated films, especially the western 2d animated films, just dont do as well, even when they're popular IPs, because cgi has become standard. it aint an animated film if it aint cgi.

and not just cgi, but a very specific style of cgi. you see it in everything. it started with toy story, when toy story did it, it was great. it was original. it was actually trying something new. but then they kept doing it, and then every studio joined in when they realized it was cheaper. not just cgi but a specific style of cgi, not necessarily even the cheapest style, just a very mainstream one. i see it in encanto, in turning red, in inside out. dont get me wrong, i dont think this style is bad or that these movies dont still have unique aspects of their style, but you cant deny the similarities, and more importantly, the reason for those similarities, that being a need to appeal to the mainstream.

and it's annoying, and it bleeds into the story too, into the characters. they never pass a certain boundary, trying to stay firmly away from controversy, within the confines of family friendliness and a mainstream understanding of concepts. and this is restricting in some serious ways. to clarify, i do not want them to swear, i do not even want them to show blood or a whole lot that would get labelled as too mature for children. i just want them to not shy away from vaguely controversial things, to not be afraid of issues beyond a mainstream understanding, and to not cater to such a simplistic and common worldview so dramatically.

one of the things that makes stories, and media in general, so special to me, is their unique perspectives. i see this a lot in indie projects, and the contrast between them and big budget hollywood films is startling. i get a feel for such unique individual perspectives in indie projects, even the bad ones, and i guess that's what happens when the team is smaller or it's mostly only one person working on the project, because we're all unique, im sure even the individuals who make up the mainstream audience have unique perspectives, but that just doesn't come across in these larger films, or games, or anything really. anything disney, or nintendo.

and sure, you could say this is just because it's a smaller team. and im sure that's a contributing reason, no doubt. but the thing is, the contrast in worldviews between some of the more personalized large projects and the things curated to the tastes of the masses. take gravity falls for instance, a disney IP, but not one considered enough to bother curating at the time, just a show, not a film at the cinema. the style of cringe comedy it has, the way it tells stories and reveals mysteries, the absurdist view on the world it has, sure, it has a lot of people behind it, but a unique perspective on the world comes across well. the same with something like spiderverse, which is a big budget film, but damn did they know what they were doing.

and the unique perspectives disney films have on the world? well, they're there. there is kind of a difference, but it's barely as drastic. you can tell it was kept within tight confines, unwilling to present anything that the mainstream wouldnt easily comprehend, agree with, or find appealing.

and that's just so infuriatingly limiting. you can say it makes sense because the kind of person this is appealing to is like, the most common kind of person. that fact probably even plays a part in why these movies and other things are like this to begin with, though certainly not the only reason.

but do you not think the common person deserves more? deserves to be presented with things outside of their understanding? or comfort? i dont just interact with media that fits my own beliefs and perspective, yknow. because i think it's quite a good thing to do that.

i just, ughhhh. the mainstream bugs me so much. i dont even think a lot of these things are necessarily bad. encanto had good songs, inside out 2 dealt with issues of anxiety well within the limitations of mass appeal, turning red actually mentioned periods which was a small and good step outside the usual boundaries. but they just, they rub me the wrong way, yknow. they all do. most of the big live action hollywood movies too. same with many kinds of games, especially nintendo games. i just hate it, it's so limiting on our media, it's why i mostly just go with independent stuff, because that way i can see more unique individual styles, ideas, etc.

and yknow what? i do actually think they should maybe show a bit of blood on screen for these movies sometimes. and go beyond the concept of family friendliness. because all that stuff is a load of rubbish in my eyes. beliefs that got too out of hand and have so much wrong with them. yeah, i think we should pass those boundaries for big media meant for the mainstream. not with everything, but definitely with a lot of things.

this was just a random rant about something i hate that i wrote in one take, dont nitpick with any details you think im not 100% correct on please. this isn't supposed to be a perfect critique of mainstream media, this is just me venting. okay?

[arandomassortmentofbytes]

As someone who was a part of a company (and was contracted to do tons of AI work as a developer, myself), I was fully against AI Art.

In fact, our contract with Disney was nearly cut because we actually spent time with people going over the intricacies of AI (about how the data would be used) and paid them for their time to be trained upon.

I feel what you just said is probably the best articulation of why I am against it now but not against it in the future.

So many times I have seen people argue, from the abstract perspective you mentioned, of "well if we lived in a perfectly sane world, it would be a great tool" or "you're not against automation in other industries" or "it's progress, so being against it means being anti-technology". I'm sorry, we don't live in that world, we can work towards it but using it as a justification because you like the pretty pictures AI makes does not override human suffering.

If we did live outside of capitalism then using a little chatbot to answer questions about the world, writing some code to make a game, or generating some cool looking art would be awesome!

It would drive creativity but people seem to have weaponised that idea to justify its existence in a world where creativity is the most valuable component of humans under capitalism. You make something new, people enjoy it, you make lots of money, rinse and repeat. AI has essentially become another aspect of hustle culture where you get an AI to do something cheaply then sell that thing as a service with a markup to other people until a massive tech company buys you out.

Does it learn like a human, does it think like a human, are neural networks in TPUs the same as human brains, have we made an artificial brain even?? Maybe! And if we didn't oppress and force humans to live under capitalism we could all enjoy and learn about this technological marvel. Unfortunately, the people currently living on the streets don't get to partake in this progress because the end goal of capitalism is to devalue humans completely.

The best comparison I can draw to this situation is the use of Virtual Production (my industry) and 3D VFX in favour of 2D and practical sets. Wonder why everyone moved over in recent years despite practical sets and 2D animation still holding up today? Fun fact, it's because 2D animators and set designers (among others) unionised whereas a large part of 3D VFX work and Virtual Production (basically just CGI) is not unionised and therefore cheaper. The BBC people worked 9-5, no exceptions, whereas we worked 7-7, with no pay for overtime because the show "needed to happen tonight".

I remember my dad told me practical sets were called "old" and "outdated" and that a lot of the work of set designers could be "automated with virtual scenes" so CGI needed to be embraced as the new technology to optimise TV show and movie making.

You want practical sets because the original Star Wars still holds up today because of it? You're not anti-CGI are you? You're not anti-Toy Story are you?

It's the same arguments but this time with different buzz words.

So here's the thing about AI art, and why it seems to be connected to a bunch of unethical scumbags despite being an ethically neutral technology on its own. After the readmore, cause long. Tl;dr: capitalism

The problem is competition. More generally, the problem is capitalism.

So the kind of AI art we're seeing these days is based on something called "deep learning", a type of machine learning based on neural networks. How they work exactly isn't important, but one aspect in general is: they have to be trained.

The way it works is that if you want your AI to be able to generate X, you have to be able to train it on a lot of X. The more, the better. It gets better and better at generating something the more it has seen it. Too small a training dataset and it will do a bad job of generating it.

So you need to feed your hungry AI as much as you can. Now, say you've got two AI projects starting up:

Project A wants to do this ethically. They generate their own content to train the AI on, and they seek out datasets that allow them to be used in AI training systems. They avoid misusing any public data that doesn't explicitly give consent for the data to be used for AI training.

Meanwhile, Project B has no interest in the ethics of what they're doing, so long as it makes them money. So they don't shy away from scraping entire websites of user-submitted content and stuffing it into their AI. DeviantArt, Flickr, Tumblr? It's all the same to them. Shove it in!

Now let's fast forward a couple months of these two projects doing this. They both go to demo their project to potential investors and the public art large.

Which one do you think has a better-trained AI? the one with the smaller, ethically-obtained dataset? Or the one with the much larger dataset that they "found" somewhere after it fell off a truck?

It's gonna be the second one, every time. So they get the money, they get the attention, they get to keep growing as more and more data gets stuffed into it.

And this has a follow-on effect: we've just pre-selected AI projects for being run by amoral bastards, remember. So when someone is like "hey can we use this AI to make NFTs?" or "Hey can your AI help us detect illegal immigrants by scanning Facebook selfies?", of course they're gonna say "yeah, if you pay us enough".

So while the technology is not, in itself, immoral or unethical, the situations around how it gets used in capitalism definitely are. That external influence heavily affects how it gets used, and who "wins" in this field. And it won't be the good guys.

An important follow-up: this is focusing on the production side of AI, but obviously even if you had an AI art generator trained on entirely ethically sourced data, it could still be used unethically: it could put artists out of work, by replacing their labor with cheaper machine labor. Again, this is not a problem of the technology itself: it's a problem of capitalism. If artists weren't competing to survive, the existence of cheap AI art would not be a threat.

I just feel it's important to point this out, because I sometimes see people defending the existence of AI Art from a sort of abstract perspective. Yes, if you separate it completely from the society we live in, it's a neutral or even good technology. Unfortunately, we still live in a world ruled by capitalism, and it only makes sense to analyze AI Art from a perspective of having to continue to live in capitalism alongside it.

If you want ideologically pure AI Art, feel free to rise up, lose your chains, overthrow the bourgeoisie, and all that. But it's naive to defend it as just a neutral technology like any other when it's being wielded in capitalism; ie overwhelmingly negatively in impact.

[not-xpr-art]

Art Advice #3 - Drawing tips!

Hi everyone!

As you may know, every week or so I’m writing blog posts with art advice hints and tips for artists of any skill level in the hopes of helping some people out a bit! The tag is here so feel free to check out some of my other posts!

This week’s post is going to be some drawing tips I’ve picked up over the years that could hopefully be useful for beginner artists! 

(this is about 1800 words altogether btw)

Drawings tips!

I’m going to split this post up into little sections which will hopefully make it easier for you to scroll to find certain advice you’re particularly interested in!

Part 1 - How to get started?

I’m a firm believer that anyone can be an artist, regardless of what materials or equipment they have. So when it comes to my advice on what kind of materials I recommend for beginner artists, I’d mainly say ‘whatever you have’. 

But if that’s a bit vague, I’d essentially recommend you have a set of pencils which you can usually get relatively inexpensive online or in craft/art shops which range from 6B all the way to 6H (’B’ being for softer, darker pencils, often good for shading, and ‘H’ for the harder pencil leads which are best for much lighter shading or if you want a really faint sketch. Something important to note about ‘H’ pencils is not to press too hard with them since they’re a lot more likely to leave indents in the paper than ‘B’ pencils! For general sketching I personally use 2B or 3B pencils since they have the perfect balance of soft & hardness in my opinion!) 

Of course, you can just draw with whatever pens or pencils you already have, so definitely don’t feel you have to go out of your way to buy something new or expensive just because your favourite artists use a particular brand of pencil or pen... Of course, often higher quality pens or pencils (especially colouring pencils) will have better pigment payoff than the cheaper alternatives, but as someone who’s been using the same WHSmith pencils they got when they were a child, I definitely think that as long as you have something to draw with, you’re all set to produce masterpieces of your own!

A lot of my art education got us using charcoal for a lot of our drawing practise. It’s not a medium I’m particularly fond of personally, but it is a great way to practise being a lot quicker and expressive with drawing, so definitely if you’re up for the challenge you can try some charcoal stuff! Only piece of advice is that I wouldn’t really recommend those ‘charcoal pencils’ you can buy in some shops, since they mostly just break apart every time you try and sharpen them... Regular charcoal is messy, though, and smudges very easily, so if you are interested in using it I’d say to do a little bit of research before hand! 

(Or feel free to send me an ask if you want any further advice on using it!)

If you’re wanting to get into digital art, I’m planning on making a post discussing my tips for beginners to digital so... keep an eye out for that in the near future lol!

~

Part 2 - Getting over ‘Drawing Anxiety’

Drawing can be a daunting thing, particularly when artists who are already pretty good at it can seemingly produce a perfectly proportioned face out of thin air. But these artists weren’t magically born with this skill, of course, so with practise and some perseverance, I can assure you that you’ll be at that stage one day!

So my first piece of advice here is to be patient with yourself. Don’t expect yourself to be perfect straight away. 

Second piece of advice is to sketch constantly!! I notice a lot of people who haven’t been drawing long are really careful about how they draw, almost like they’re afraid to be rough with the pencil. So I’d really recommend just starting to sketch a lot: be rough, be messy, draw things you can see and things from your imagination! 

Observational drawing is another thing I think is crucial in improving your drawing skills (and I’ll go into more detail with this in a bit), but honestly just sketching things you like is such a great way to help you grow as an artist! And yes this includes drawing anime fanart or drawings of your original characters! 

Below is some comparisons of my attempts at drawing Freema Agyeman from 2013 to 2019... Is the latest version of this perfect? Of course not. But I just want to show what constant practise can achieve!

~

Part 3 - Observational drawing

I honestly think that observational drawing was one of the most important things I learnt in my years of art education. 

Observational drawing can take on many meanings. Perhaps it’s drawing a still life of a fruit bowl, or a life drawing class with a naked dude in front of you, or even drawing from a photo. The point of observational drawing is to improve how you translate the world around you onto a 2D surface, essentially. 

And you don’t need anything fancy to do observational drawing either! Just placing an array of things in front of you and trying to sketch them (try and focus on a mix of textures and surfaces for the objects. So, for example, including a cup along side a woolly hat will help you get a handle on how to create texture with your drawing, and drawing anything with a reflective surface like cutlery is both challenging and interesting to do! Basically just use what you have around you!)

If you’re lucky (or unlucky, depending on how fond you are of seeing naked people lol) enough to have the chance to do life drawing, I would honestly recommend it! Often the final results aren’t great, but it’s a really good way of practising your observational skills! And even if you don’t have the opportunity, just trying to sketch a friend or family member from across a room, for example, is something that can really help you improve! 

Top tip: a teacher once told me that when you’re drawing something like a face, for example, a way to improve how you draw is to see the face not as a ‘face’, but instead as a collections of shapes. Because our brains have a preconceived idea of what a face looks like that we end up drawing what we think we can see rather than what we can actually see! 

There’s a lot of art snobs who believe that drawing from reference images is ‘cheating’ in comparison to life drawing, Of course, this is bs, and I’d say I’ve learnt just as much from using reference photos for the basis of my art as I have from drawing from ‘real life’. For more information about my thoughts on references and how to use them, see This post!

~

Part 4 - Drawing from references: Tracing, Grids and Freehand (which is best?)

Tracing in the world of art is a ... Contentious subject to say the least. And I’m not really interested in getting into the ‘moral’ implications of whether it is ‘cheating’ or not.

Instead I want to focus on the pros of using something like tracing when you’re starting out. I think particularly if you’re trying to improve how you shade things, colour things or how to get better at blending, then I do think that tracing can be a useful tool! Even I used tracing in the very start of my delve into digital art, but soon found that tracing wasn’t really something that was helping me in the long run so moved onto freehand stuff. 

Overall, I think tracing is good as a starting point when you’re still learning about art, and also if you’re not too comfortable with your freehand drawing skills yet. I’d also recommend you mention if you have traced a piece if you share art to social media. Of course, no one is obligated to do this though! 

This is an example of an artwork that I traced (it’s from 2013, hence why it looks... like That lol)

But if you’re someone who perhaps has used tracing in the past and found it doesn’t really work for you, or if you don’t want to start with tracing at all, then a good ‘next step’ I’ve seen other artists get into is using grids. 

Now I have to admit, I’m not the best person to talk about grids since I’ve actually never used them lol... But I know a lot of artists who do, particularly people who do a lot of traditional work, since it makes it a lot easier to translate the reference image to your piece of paper or canvas. 

And in a way I would recommend grids more for people starting out in drawing than tracing, and this is mainly due to the fact grids force you to use a lot more observational drawing skills than tracing! If you’re interested in getting into using grids I’d recommend doing a bit of research yourself! 

The final technique of drawing from references I want to talk about is freehand! Now this is the one I’ve been doing for the majority of my art ‘career’ and honestly is probably the most ‘difficult’ to do of the three techniques. 

But I find freehand drawing particularly rewarding with the ways it can make you reimagine an artwork in ways you never intended! Like what I mentioned in my Reference advice post, I have found that making ‘mistakes’ in freehand drawing can actually lead to more interesting and unique works of art than tracing or grid work could ever do! 

I also think that freehand allows you to create your own characters or concepts in a much more free way. For example, my Spirit of Somerset piece was something I created from a variety of references (I seem to remember I used Isak from SKAM’s mouth as a basis for the girls’ mouth?) and the dragon was based on a real mishmash of references, which is something that I I feel I couldn’t have done if I’d have been using grids or tracing!

With this I’m not trying to say that freehand is the ‘best’ way of drawing, it is just the one that I personally have found to fit me the best, which is the entire point of this post! All of my advice is just pointers I think could be useful for new artists, it is up to you to find which ‘path’ in art suits you best!

And of course, I’ve phrased these techniques as separate purely for the sake of explaining them easier, but the fact of the matter is that you can use a combination of these in your art if you wish! 

If you struggle with drawing the outlines of hands, perhaps use tracing as a way to get a handle of the shape and then maybe use freehand to fill in the colour of them! Use a grid to draw a tree but freehand the leaves and bench below it! 

Remember that your art is your art, and no one can tell you how to draw things! 

~

I think I’ll leave this here for now! But I may do a part two at some point in the future! & my ask box is always open for anyone who wants any specific advice!

I really hope you found this at least moderately helpful, and a massive thank you to everyone for the constant support of these posts and my art!

[felinisfeloney]

Thoughts as I watch Scum Villian Part 4

so another week another episode of scum to talk about. This episode was really just one long fight scene and that is perfectly okay. let’s get into details and talk about this from a writing/animation standpoint and a production standpoint because there is a fascinating aspect that is brought in by the choice of 3D and why 3D isn’t always cheaper or easier to work with despite what you may be thinking.

tl;dr i can think of no way this is cheaper in 3d but also just because it is cheap do not call it bad. they are working within their budget and also there many aspects from a writing and animation standpoint i love

1)  so it should be stated the choreography for the fight with Hammer Time is well done even if it is a little awkward in places where follow through or continuity just hasn’t been kept. For the most part it’s not noticeable unless you’re looking for it. I liked the inclusion of the original Shen QingQui’s abuse mixed with Shen Yuan’s kindness and how it has shaped in Luo Binghe’s mind at this point. It’s a fun exploration for what can be added in adaptation if you try to read in moments between text and add on what’s there. They could have easily left this out and had us finish the fight entirely with the retreat of the demons easily but instead expanded nicely upon the text. When I talk about good versus bad adaptation and changing for the medium this is what I mean when I say CQL has a problem with how it adapts the book as it is written this is what I mean. Always adapt with a mind for getting the emotion and the story in the most economical way (and do not give me more than one episode of JC crying in a bed as everyone repeats the same five scenes essentially)  

because we no longer restricted visually to just SQQ’s head and narration we can explore new emotions and angles that were previously unavailable. 

2) I have been thinking this for awhile, but I am certain the reason the time spent in the cave changed from a few months to 3 years was because the staff new in later episodes how inherently bad Luo Binghe’s model would look having to do multiple physical interactions where the height is apparent. Because Luo Binghe’s model does not look like a child. It looks like they scaled down adult Luo Binghe and moved his eyes down and scaled them up. If you look at any shot where our boys share the screen with their bodies in view you’ll note that proportion wise Luo Binghe looks like a really tiny adult. The proportions between the two times are the same the model just scaled up and the eyes got smaller. it would not surprise me if this was dealio. It both gets around the age gap and looks less weird in animation for scenes where they have to may hug and such.

3) The big thing that this show proves to me as a reason 3D just seems like a bad idea for something that doesn’t have the time/style/budget is seeing that sword pierce through the hand. It doesn’t look like impact and a blood mess but instead the sword just phasing through the geometry of the hand which it is. This was once I read the book the big thing that made me go ‘oh this show is gonna have problems’

Let’s talk about blood effects in 3D because in my last scum posts I talked a lot about modeling and style but I haven’t really touched on blood. See liquids in general are hard to make look right in 3D even with how many presets and tricks that are available because unlike 2D where stabby violence can be difficult because you have to figure out the motion and then draw wokring in 3D requires you to spend a lot of time figuring out how to make particles and geometry move correctly without breaking everything. For the senior film that I worked on a huge element was both figuring out how to make a lava spurt along with making the blood effects natural. We spent a few weeks on and despite having out professors help and tons of resources it still wasn’t without  a lot of flaws. If given more time we could have done better but you only have so long to render your work out.

Still liquid is relatively easy. But liquid in motion presents a specific problem of needing to be handled case by case. Cheap 3D often avoid liquids or fire as much as possible because of this aspect. The particle and smoke effects and everything look nice though because there is a large amount of preexisting effects and aspects in software you can use without overdoing it on your budget and labor time. Also smoke and particles tend to not stand out as much since they are so loose in their nature. The big thing I want to taken from this is blood is a hard aspect to work with especially if it’s gonna be up close.

I genuinely was annoyed that I didn’t get to see SQQ get stabbed and it was just off screen and there wasn’t even blood or visually indicator he was stabbed. In the book the moment comes off as bloody and violent. Here it just isn’t anything...

4) So, what do I mean by things not being cheaper. I’ve heard people talk about this being a cheap production and in many ways I agree in others I have no idea where they are saving money without just throwing quality out the window. For context I recently graduated back in June 2020 with an animation degree where I focused mostly in 3D production usually in some sort of producer capacity. A thing that you learn almost immediately is that 3D is only cheaper in small areas that don’t add up long term that mostly come with taking perceived shortcuts in preproduction. The main difference between the workflow of a 2D production and a 3D production is ultimately how much time is spent in the preproduction and production phases.

3D for the most part is spent most of it’s time in production phase because unlike 2D once you get your bases down and layouts you can head straight into animating even as your texture artists are working on the UVs. Pre-Production for 2D on the other hand is working everything out on the start and then getting done an animatic which lets you move straight into refining your animatic into animation. The process sound the same but emphasis is where most your effort goes. 3D animations shortcuts don’t add up when you take into account the amount of time that will be focused simply on animation and lighting. Lighting is sooooo important and it is a bitch. Also the moment you add in big effects suddenly you have to slow that to make sure that works and that’s going to take a lot of time and money to work out without looking jank.

Because here’s the thing without styling things and working around the textures and effects cheap in 3D is painfully apparent and awful in much the same way cheap animation that doesn’t work around this creatively is. The crowd shots and minor characters look awful because they are clearly using a default skin tone that hasn’t been painted on to make it look more natural and is a lower resolution. Yes less effort goes into make repetitive motions and such but it’s very jarring.

The backgrounds look decent but they are clearly default textures made from presets. The show is constantly trying to work around the cheapness with how it’s doing it’s editing and the distance the camera holds and where it shows itself but it’s clear that isn’t able to do a lot of what it needs to. 

3D is something that needs a lot of effort and money to look good when trying to be realistic so if you’re going to have a low budget you need to work around that.

2D honestly... would have been cheaper and would hide the low budget better. What they are saving on is essentially is drawing sets because the animation budgets doesn’t really change to much from a pure motion standpoint. The animation and expression is hindered in 3D because the models are so realistic and such. The designs for the outfits are pretty and they don’t have to constantly worry about the details being draw right in 3D but honestly you wouldn’t do these overly complicated outfits anyway. 

You would simplify them and have a version that was easy to work with and allowed for better expression and zany movement. This from a budget standpoint would actually help to save money because if there is one thing animation history teaches you it is that cheap animation works really well in 2D especially comedy as long as you understand how to style it and make it look like it belongs. MDZS works around it’s budget by getting around lip flaps by using the environment or the reaction of the other character to the dialogue. If you pay attention to what is animated and how it is given focus and such it becomes clear what kind of budget MDZS had to work with. Not a new trick but a classic for saving on animation. 3D effects and backgrounds are also incorporated into 2D all the time and most cases people neither care nor complain (or notice). So those particle effects they can make work. The money saved in sets you can make back by being clever with your character animation and the sets that will get drawn it should be noted most sets are designed in 3D anyway so that 2D animators can figure out how work animation and backgrounds from different angles.

also the 2D would elevate the comedy so much and we would have more meme faces. That said I do see a lot of wonderful effort put on screen and even if it is cheap it is not bad. This show is not badly animated. It is merely cheap and styled for a video game instead of a show. The actual animation for the characters and such is lovely and cheap never has to mean bad. A lot of wonderful and great animations are cheap and a rule of thumb is to remember to account for context and recourses. 

[aion-rsa]

15 Underrated Game Boy Advance Games

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When the Game Boy Advance hit shelves in Japan on March 21, 2001, Nintendo was still riding the incredible success of the original Game Boy. After more than a decade of the Game Boy’s handheld dominance, though, gamers eagerly awaited the next evolution in portable gaming. The GBA delivered that evolution.

In fact, many features we now take for granted in portables like the Switch can be traced back to the GBA. The addition of shoulder buttons, full 32-bit color graphics, and eventually even built-in backlighting with the 2003 release of the Game Boy Advance SP were all lauded as welcome innovations and improvements. Sadly, the GBA’s time in the sun was remarkably short. Pressured by the upcoming release of the Sony PSP, Nintendo released the GBA’s successor, the Nintendo DS, less than four years after the launch of the GBA.

Yet, GBA games continued to be released all the way into 2008. The GBA is still fondly remembered for its excellent ports of games like Super Mario World and The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, and for helping launch new franchises like Mega Man Zero and Golden Sun, but its library was much more than just those major titles. Dig a little deeper into it and you’ll find that the GBA was also home to some truly excellent hidden gems that are still worth checking out 20 years later.

15. Urban Yeti!

2002 | Cave Barn Studios

Keep in mind that in the early 2000s, developing games for the GBA was much cheaper than making a console game. Steam wasn’t a thing yet, and cell phones could barely run Snake. So, if you were an ambitious young developer with a goofy idea and a dream, your best bet for making it happen was to put it on Nintendo’s handheld. 

Urban Yeti! is the type of weird, charming experience that typically only finds a cult audience on PCs nowadays. You play from a top-down perspective as the titular Yeti who is looking for his mate in a small city. Most of the time, the game plays like the first two Grand Theft Auto games with even more chances to punch random pedestrians. More importantly, finding a boombox starts a dancing freak out that clears the screen of enemies, and “missions” take the form of minigames inspired by titles like Toobin’ and Root Beer Tapper.

It’s weird and short, but always hilarious, and it’s unfortunately become increasingly obscure since its release.

14. Lady Sia 

2001 | RFX Interactive

Most of the platformers on the GBA were either fantastic SNES ports or dreadful licensed fare, but a few original titles do stand out. The first thing you’ll probably notice about Lady Sia is that it looks great. Its big, bright graphics were a perfect fit for the GBA’s small screen. The gameplay is also surprisingly deep and utilizes combos, magic attacks, and even the ability to shape shift into a sasquatch during boss fights. Yes, this is the second game on the list to feature a playable Bigfoot, but we promise it’s the last.

Lady Sia was fairly well received at the time of its release, and a sequel was even planned in 2003. Sadly, it was canceled due to a lack of funding. 

13. V-Rally 3

2002 | Velez & Dubail

The GBA was released at a time when the vast majority of console games were going full 3D. The GBA, however, was obviously built with 2D pixel games in mind. Those perceived limitations didn’t stop some developers from pushing the limits of what the handheld was capable of, though, as evidenced by the V-Rally 3 team managing to cram fully polygonal cars into the GBA.

Graphically, V-Rally 3 is undoubtedly the best-looking game on the system. Its surprisingly detailed outdoor tracks could easily be mistaken for an N64 game. You can even play the entire career mode in first-person. Thanks to some surprisingly smooth handling, though, V-Rally 3 proves to be much more than just great visuals. It may not look like much compared to modern racers, but it’s still the undisputed pinnacle of racing on the GBA.

12. Car Battler Joe

2002 | Ancient

Car Battler Joe is a decent RPG mixed with awesome car battling sections that elevate it above most of the GBA’s library. The story isn’t great (your father is missing and you have to find him), but the hook is that in this world, cars are a rarity. As such, you have to build your own Mad Max-style vehicle from spare parts found around the world and eventually battle other vehicles as you work to finish your quest.

That concept alone is begging for a sequel or spiritual successor. Sadly, most people have long forgotten about Joe, and even its re-release on the Wii U eShop in 2015 didn’t garner much attention.

11. Kuru Kuru Kururin

2001 | Eighting

Kuru Kuru Kururin is one of those puzzle games that sounds so simple in theory but ends up being surprisingly complex and a lot of fun. You play as a rotating stick (or “helicopter” in the North American version) that must make it to the goal at the end of a series of mazes. You control how quickly the stick rotates, and you’ll need to master that mechanic as the difficulty ramps up significantly in the later levels. This game remains a remarkably addictive experience until the end.

Though Kuru Kuru Kururin‘s core concept boasts nearly universal appeal, the game was only released on the GBA in Japan and Europe. A localized version finally made its way to North America in 2016 through the Wii U eShop, but Nintendo of America seems oddly stubborn about acknowledging the series. Neither of its two sequels ever made it out of Japan. 

10. Sabre Wulf

2004 | Rare

Most gamers say that Rare peaked during the N64 era with a string of successful platformers and shooters, but old-school Rare still managed to squeeze out a handful of classic games for the GBA after the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. Everything gamers love about classic Rare games is on full display in Sabre Wulf: the cutting-edge graphics, tight controls, and the trademark offbeat British sense of humor.

Unfortunately, Sabre Wulf didn’t find much of an audience. Prior to the release of this title, the Sabreman character hadn’t starred in a game in almost 20 years. The updated gameplay apparently didn’t appeal to older fans, and wasn’t innovative enough to attract younger gamers. It’s aged better than many other GBA games, though, and it’s certainly well worth a playthrough now.

9. Zone of the Enders: The Fist of Mars

2002 | Konami

While it was never as successful as Hideo Kojima’s other games, the Zone of the Enders series is still fondly remembered for some of the better action games of the PS2 era. Their unique mecha combat and Kojima’s flair for cinematic storytelling helped those games stand out from a competitive pack.

Unlike its console brethren, The Fist of Mars is a turn-based strategy game. That means it’s not nearly as fast-paced as the other Zone of the Enders games, but there is an aiming reticle for targeting enemies, so this is more action-oriented than the typical strategy game.

While Kojima wasn’t directly involved in the development of The Fist of Mars, the writing is surprisingly strong, hitting all the right dramatic and philosophical notes that mecha fans have come to expect from the genre.

8. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

2003 | Griptonite Games

EA released a couple of solid beat ‘em ups for consoles to coincide with the release of Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, but the GBA versions are actually even better than those largely beloved adaptations. Like The Two Towers tie-in released a year prior, The Return of the King is basically Diablo in Middle Earth.

There are a whopping eight different playable characters pulled from the movie. Despite the technical constraints of the GBA, each of those characters plays completely differently. Aragorn is the classic warrior, Legolas is the able-bodied archer, and Gandalf uses magic to fell waves of orcs. They’re even all completely customizable with their own weapons and equipment.

Read more

Games

25 Best Game Boy Advance Games

By Chris Freiberg

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Castlevania: Why the Game Boy Advance Games Are Worth Revisiting

By Chris Freiberg

The GBA version of Return of the King still stands out as one of the best Lord of the Rings games ever made, and future games inspired by Tolkien’s books would do well take a few cues from it. 

7. Summon Night: Swordcraft Story

2006 | Flight-Plan

Thanks to lower development costs, the GBA featured many experiments that led to unusual combinations of genres. For instance, whereas many dungeon crawlers are typically slow, plodding affairs, Summon Night: Swordcraft Story sped things up through fast-paced, real-time battles inspired by the Tales of series. Battles in Swordcraft Story story are an absolute joy since you’re doing more than just scrolling through menus.

The sequel, released just a few months later on the GBA, is also worth checking out. Sadly, while the Summon Night main series is still chugging along, the Swordcraft Story subseries looks to be abandoned at this point. 

6. Klonoa: Empire of Dreams

2001 | Namco

For a brief period in the early 2000s, the Klonoa series felt like it was on the verge of becoming a household name. All of the games were praised for their tight, diverse platforming, and the series’ word of mouth was generally strong, but the games just never seemed to reach a large audience.

Empire of Dreams is a side-story set between the events of the two console Klonoa games. It features the same use of the “wind bullet” to capture enemies and the same creative level design as its console big brothers. While it can’t pull off the 3D effects featured in those games, impressive multiplane backgrounds and advanced rotation effects do help it stand out among the GBA’s crowded library of platformers. 

5. Rebelstar: Tactical Command

2005 | Codo Technologies

Don’t be fooled by the Rebelstar name: this is actually an X-Com game through and through. While there’s no base building or resource management in this GBA title, that classic tactical combat against an alien threat that defines the X-Com series can be found here in all its glory. Then again, what else would you expect? Rebelstar was created by the same guy behind X-Com, Julian Gollop.

Of course, this being a GBA game, Rebelstar’s visuals aren’t quite up to par with an X-Com title. In fact, some may find its more cartoony style jarring when paired with this style of gameplay, but Rebelstar certainly makes for a unique experience compared to the other tactics games out there.

4. Yggdra Union

2006 | Sting Entertainment

The final days of any gaming platform are a dark time typically defined by sporadic releases and shovelware. Yet, every now and then, a bright spot appears for those gamers who haven’t yet moved on to the next generation. As a deep mix of tactical RPG mechanics and card battles bolstered by some of the best 2D graphics on the portable, Yggdra Union is one of the better games released in the GBA’s post-DS era.

While the game’s story isn’t great, the regular banter between party members is charming, and there is a lot of content to keep you busy if the gameplay manages to hook you. A Switch port was even released in Japan last year, so keep your fingers crossed that it makes its way stateside. 

3. Drill Dozer

2006 | Game Freak

Game Freak will always be known for the massively successful Pokemon franchise, but the developer has occasionally dabbled in other genres. The best of those experiments has to be Drill Dozer: a game about drilling. Need to go forward? Try drilling. Backward? Also drilling. What about jumping? Yeah, that actually involves drilling, too. It sounds repetitive, but there are so many different ways use to Jill’s Drill Dozer that the mechanic actually never wears out its welcome.

It might be tempting to check out Drill Dozer via emulation, but it’s actually worth tracking down the original cartridge for this one since it’s one of only two GBA games to feature a rumble back in the cart. It adds quite a lot to the experience.

2. Astro Boy: Omega Factor

2004 | Treasure

A handheld game based on an anime that hasn’t been popular in the United States since the ‘60s sounds like a recipe for disaster, but legendary Japanese developer Treasure could do no wrong in the ‘90s and early 2000s. Like most of the games in the Treasure catalog, Astro Boy: Omega Factor features fast arcade gameplay, massive screen-filling special attacks, and some of the most beautiful sprites the GBA could produce.

Though Treasure was once a prolific developer, responsible for classics like Ikaruga and Sin & Punishment, the company has gone quiet in recent years. The studio hasn’t even released a game stateside in the last decade. However, a re-release of this gem could mark a great comeback for the legendary developer if the licensing could be worked out.

1. Ninja Five-O

2003 | Hudson Soft

Ninja Five-O should have been a system seller for the GBA. The game feels like a lost classic from the 16-bit era. It’s a beautiful combination of Ninja Gaiden and Bionic Commando bolstered by tight controls and an over-the-top story about a magic-wielding ninja who is also a cop. Anyone who has managed to track down a copy swears up and down that it’s one of the very best experiences on the handheld.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

Yet, Ninja Five-O was set up to fail from the start. It’s unknown how many copies were made, but it was nearly impossible to find one at the time of its release. Even though the game was developed in Japan, it was never even released there. Media outlets also barely covered it. Yet, the legend of Joe Osugi has only grown over the years, with complete copies of this game regularly selling on eBay for around $1,000. Even an authentic standalone cartridge will set you back several hundred dollars. You know what, though? It’s actually one of the few rare games that may be worth the price. It really is as good as you’ve heard.

The post 15 Underrated Game Boy Advance Games appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[kitbitanimate]

I want to talk about this controversy a bit more in depth First for people who may not be able to tell: Lego Monkey Kid was first animated by the Australian studio Flying Bark Productions, which has been around since the 1960's and has a long history of successful local and international commercial work and tv shows. most notionally they worked on Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Marvel's What If..?, a short film I personally love: My Jumper It Roars, among other things.

The studio has had decades to perfect it's style of animation which includes high action sequences, bright color use, motion, and recognizably unique designs. The flow of their scenes is so precise it's down to a science. This studio was the one responsible for Season 1-4 of Lego Monke Kid development. They are particularly skilled in cell animation and blending 2D centered characters/assets into 3D environments.

All of that is on display I think best with the season 3 trailer:

Now that's not a completely fair comparison to the new studio WildBrain. which is a much younger studio by comparison (Founded back in 2016). But their portfolio is just as visually interesting on it's own. With shows like Carmen Sandiego, Blaze and the Monster Machines, and Ninjago. Their studio specializes in 3D animation, especially styles like Vector Animation, motion graphics, and Screencasting. All beautiful styles and unique in their own right. Most people don't tend to notice the uniqueness of these styles of art, since the graphics move smoothly (if not smoother) than 2D cell animation, but it's incredibly noticeable in the joints of a character's body and the jaw movements.

Now watch the Season 5 trailer, notice how the characters heads move, their limbs are more stiff, the movements of the jaws are more vertically aligned. The conversation between Mei and Red Son show this the most. The multi-headed bird monster also does this, and the look Sun Wukong gives to Macaque shows where the "body parts" are independent from each other.

Compare the Season 5 trailer to Azure Lion's introduction in the season 4 trailer (00:33-00:56)

Now I'm never one to disparage artwork. Both styles are fantastic and it's clear Wildbrain is trying to keep up with the work Flying Bark put in. But it's incredibly obvious the Lego Corporation is cutting corners where they can.

And that hurts a show's quality, audience, and customers. By downgrading the animation from it's original studio to a younger (and left be frank here Cheaper) Studio and crew; the company is hoping people will still be interested in their products, and the hype that was there before will keep on track. They are hoping for complacency, "it is what it is", and toxic positivity to carry their business through this budget cut.

Why should I care about a show and toy line when the people financing it are not willing to put their money into making it better, grander?

The animation was the key factor for me to watch the series, to start buying Lego's again. I've known Journey to the West from the early days of anime. But the AU of this internationally important novel is not enough to keep me as a regular viewer, when the company is willing to cut the most visually fun artwork down to paper cutouts.

My argument boils down to my gripe with AI: why should I watch something when it's clear the people green-lighting and Financing the show don't care about it? Why not delay season 5 until Flying Bark studio could commit to more seasons? Movies and Tv shows have been pushed back for more petty reasons that scheduling conflicts.

Lego Monkie Kid is a product.

I don’t intend to make any more posts of this style for some time, but I’d like to put this out here for everywhere:

(After this, I’ll go back to uploading my usual content. I’m sorry for deviating from that, but I really wanted to make a post or two about season five.)

Lego Monkie is a paid-for product. You can buy it through Amazon, watch it on the Lego Channel with ads, import the comics from China, etc.

You pay for it. It’s not something put into the world for free. It is a product that people consume with their time or money.

It’s not something made with only time and love.

Lego Monkie Kid is a paid-for product with thousands of dollars worth of tie-in merch.

It is not bad; and will never be bad, to criticize the products you consume. We do not have to blindly consume for the sake of animators, or for the sake of a show.

Do not tell people to ‘just be happy’. Do not tell people that ‘the animators are just trying to feed their families’. Do not tell people to ‘just get over it’. Do not tell people that they’re ‘being ungrateful’.

People are allowed to form opinions of changes, whether negative or positive- especially when it is a product they pay for.

People are going to have negative feelings and thoughts and emotions. You are not a knight or a soldier. You get nothing out of standing guard against even the slightest scrap of unhappiness.

Toxic positivity solves nothing in the long run. You can’t just complain people’s upsetness away. You can’t kiss disappointment like a wound and expect it to heal.

People are upset about a downgrade in quality in the product that they pay to consume.

And that’s okay.

Stop telling them it isn’t.

[micoco]

DEEPER AND MORE RESEARCH

To summarize the research and areas of food waste I did last week, It includes serious problems of food waste in manufacturing, and business (restaurants, hotels and canteens); food wastes from consumers; the influences of food waste to society and environment; food safety; different methods to reduce or avoid the food wastes in manufacturing and businesses; a lot of new designs, technologies, products especially for consumers to reduce the food wastes and rise awareness; financial costs and profits in food industries and manufacturing; food packaging wastes and so on. 

New take-aways & questions after class: 

- Food manufacturing/farms: imperfect food to cause food waste 

- Second harvest food bank around the world 

- In the whole food chain, where is the most food waste part? 

- How do people value the food? size? health? cheap? expansive? tasty? What can we do to help people value food? Why is it important? How do different countries value the food differently? 

- For consumers: Having food outside in restaurants and food delivery services are becoming the parts of reasons to cause food wastes? Does it increase the food wastes? How do they affect food packaging wastes? 

- In the food manufacturing and businesses, do they use more energy or more costs to store food to keep them fresh and safe? What kind of methods do they use? Are they successful or not? Are they wasting the technologies or limited energies? Not only the technologies or machines the industries used, it is also important to do research on employees, how they can reduce the food wastes? 

- Researching a new food system - storing the food, advancing the food growing system -  to replace traditional farms or manufacture industries - more efficient and productive. 

- Looking for some food packaging design: edible seaweed water balls / edible cookie cups and so on

- Future directions: Food packaging design (edible packaging, more sustainable) , App (value the food and rise awarenesses of food wastes), food delivery app, an ideal food system in food manufacturing, impactive design for businesses > transforming the food wastes to other products. 

WHOOOO & DESIGN & MORE RESEARCH 

The design & projects to help customers better measure & value food - avoid food wastes

A student designed the “Good Food” App - Value makeup consumers’ minds about what criteria their “good food” should meet and create your personal food profile in a form of spider chart - make choices - get feedback - I think it could be an example of avoidable food wastes. Customers can have a new perspective on various kinds of grocery products and have a better understanding of what they want and need from those! https://designawards.core77.com/Interaction/61179/GOOD-FOOD-Empowering-Food-Decisions 

Sage Project: A new way to look at the nutrition labels - avoid food wastes https://www.core77.com/posts/54916/Sage-Project-is-Changing-the-Way-We-Learn-About-Food 

Tupperware-style products: Chicago-based tech startup Ovie has launched Smarter-ware, a line of food storage products that alert users when food in their fridge is going to spoil. https://www.dezeen.com/2018/05/29/smarterware-ovie-smart-tupperware-internet-of-things-food-waste/

IN A COMMUNITY AND SOCIETY

1. The research from the Public Interest Research Center: https://valuesandframes.org/resources/CCF_briefing_food_values_positioning_paper.pdf 

Through the psychological research of values with different people in the world, it introduces the elements to influence people’s behaviour and the importance of it. And it has defined 10 values groups like Benevolence, Universalism and Self-direction and so on. Deeply, it talks about food and values: 1. individual choices ( how customers change the idea of food, what will influence our choices? Time, family backgrounds, belief, special pandemic ���…) 2. Community health: sustainable and ethical food choices can relate to one community health. It needs education and community work. Example in the paper is the “Our Common Place”. Similarly, I have researched the “Second harvest food bank” or “Culinary Slow Food Project”. I think all of them prefer the educational impacts on food: change the ways to look at food and focus on one community's health from everyone’s effort. 3. Societal structures influence the food system: Compared with different countries: “After controlling for GDP, countries that placed relatively higher importance on Power and Wealth (oppositional to the Intrinsic values), had higher emissions, lower maternal leave, lower child well-being and more advertising per minute of commercial TV aimed at children.” I think the sub topic is talking about the relationship between society and individuals.  “How the food system affords or blocks us from expressing intrinsic values?”

2. “How do people value food?” from PhD. Jose Luis Vivero Pol 

It is a longggggg book. And It has talked about the food narratives, exploring the idea of food as common as commodity and emmm some others. 

I was looking at: the industrial food system, sustainable food systems and alternative food networks. It points out the serious problems of agro‐industries: farming considered as a business. It focuses on improving the profits, lowering the costs “a low cost food system > over consuming, more food loss or wastes, destroying the ecosystem, employment issues at the same time ……. It has an idea: sustainable development / agriculture affects food production. p38-40.

How do people can be involved in food production - to improve awareness of the limited natural resources, how to reduce wastes and use those resources, preserve the environment as well?  

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jose_Vivero_Pol/publication/320864109_How_do_people_value_food_Systematic_heuristic_and_normative_approaches_to_narratives_of_transition_in_food_systems/links/59ff41dda6fdcca1f29db212/How-do-people-value-food-Systematic-heuristic-and-normative-approaches-to-narratives-of-transition-in-food-systems.pdf 

IMPERFECT FOOD / HUNGRY HARVEST 

https://www.hungryharvest.net/

Advantages: Users shop from those websites, they can get a box of “ugly” food products with cheaper prices compared with other regular groceries’ product prices. In some ways, it can eliminate the food wastes during food farming /  manufacturing industries. / provide job opportunities to people / Let farms get more profits 

However, does this method can largely reduce the food wastes? If the farms still will produce more because they want to get more profits from them? 

PLATE SIZES & FOOD WASTES - FOOD SERVICES

1. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/335094922_Impact_of_plate_size_on_food_waste_Agent-based_simulation_of_food_consumption

The pdf is about the food wastes in food services. When people go outside to have meals, how food services & “all you can eat” stimulate more food consumption. The research finds out more parameters from consumers to influence the food wastes: food types, high traffic, plate-size, food-stations, arrival-period, flow-rate, wait time and more. 

Especially for the plate-size, the results: switching from a large to a medium plate and a small plate decreases the number of not-eaten food items by 21.1% and 43.5% on average respectively. Switching from medium to small: decreases 28.4% on average between two scenarios. 

2. If the size changes, what will happen:  https://www.refed.com/analysis?sort=jobs-created

CHANGE THE WAYS OF LOOKING AT FOOD - THROUGH 5 SENSES OF HUMAN BEINGS: In this area, the products people designed are interesting to me! And in this area, 

1. Using the cute and strange products to put in the middle of the plate - Let customers feel the plate is big and food is enough - Visual sense to change the mind of having too much food  > reduce food wastes. https://www.dezeen.com/2017/05/11/marije-vogelzang-tackles-mindless-food-consumption-odd-shaped-tableware/

2.Finger-shaped spoon could make food taste better than normal cutlery https://www.dezeen.com/2017/02/08/finger-shaped-goute-spoon-michelfabian-make-food-taste-better-cutlery/

3. A concept of transformative appetite from 2D to 3D. The ‘flat packaging’ concept for substantially reducing shipping costs and storage space and it also provides new food forms. https://www.media.mit.edu/projects/transformative-appetite/overview/

4. And another is about a TED talk, how the music changes our appetites? taste food differently? 

TRANSFER FOOD TO NEW PRODUCTS  - Reducing food wastes / food wastes as valuable sources of bioactive molecules 

1. Zera food recycler - transfer food wastes into fertilizer in 24 hours. However, 1000$ is kind of expensive! https://www.core77.com/posts/60166/Whirlpool-Selling-Machine-That-Turns-Food-Waste-into-Fertilizer-in-Just-24-Hours

2. Book: “Food Industry Wastes: Assessment and recuperation of commodities” by Colin Webb and Maria R. Kosseva - Transform food wastes to be nutraceutical and functional food: phenolic, vegetable, coloring agents, dietary fibers and so on/ Example: a lot of wasted bread - Fermentation products 

3. Exploring the future products - algae can be future food, sustainable packaging, algae bar and so on….. 

https://designawards.core77.com/2014/recipients/algaemy-crafting-future-food/index.html

FOOD PACKAGING DESIGN

In this area, I want to talk about some professionals in the field of sustainability, also about compostable materials

1. Pairish is a food waste intervention solution: change consumer attitudes and behaviors, creating a manageable solution and empowering users to enjoy doing good. https://designawards.core77.com/Packaging/97642/Pairish-Food-Waste-Intervention

2. Plastic Free packaging - which could have huge influences on decreasing the food packaging problems. https://designawards.core77.com/Packaging/84869/Boudin-SF-Plastic-Free-Food-Packaging

3. Using the potato skins to make fries packaging 

https://www.dezeen.com/2018/09/26/peel-saver-potato-skins-ecological-packaging-fries/

FOOD DISCRIMINATION & FOOD WASTES

Food discrimination and food wastes / mass produced

- Food waste driven by price discrimination by retailers. Retailers price discriminate by charging different prices for items of different quality. 

- Reducing food loss and waste potentially will produce significant gains in developing countries

- Dealing with food loss & wastes without expanding production https://www.nap.edu/read/25396/chapter/6#48

FOOD WASTES IN DIFFERENT COUNTRIES:

https://www.ifco.com/countries-with-the-least-and-most-food-waste/

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2015/08/which-countries-waste-the-most-food/

FOOD GROW SYSTEM EXAMPLES:

1. SEALEAF is a floating agricultural platform designed to enable growth of crops along urban coastlines via a modular, expandable system.

https://designawards.core77.com/2013/recipients/sealeaf-floating-farms-coastal-megacities/index.html

2. The Cloud Farms products were designed to make indoor growing incredibly easy in a small space. A soilless growing system. 

https://www.core77.com/projects/37171/Cloud-Farms-Personal-Farming-System

THANK YOU FOR YOUR READING~ 

[phoenotopia]

2019 October Update

Woops, I slipped by my stated blog date since I thought September had 31 days for some reason. So here's the end of September update, 1 day late.

--------------------------

Writing... And more writing.

That captures the majority of what transpired the last 2 months. The biggest cutscenes have been scripted as well as most towns, so we're really close... I estimate that the writing will conclude within the next 3 *weeks* and we will actually have a game that can be played from start to finish... Don't get too excited though, because then begins the game's vigorous playtesting phase and more polish. And since I've never launched a commercial game before, the next steps (PR, marketing, lot checking, ESRP rating application, trailers recutting, release date finding, etc) are uncharted territory. The only experience I have is launching a flash game 5 years ago, and that was a lot quicker and a lot less complicated... And so, I can't gauge how long it'd take nor give an accurate release date yet. However, as soon as I do know, it'll be sure to post it here first!

--- COMPUTER BROKE DOWN ---

Among the events that transpired in the last 2 months, my computer actually broke down. It would manifest as the computer shutting off about 10 minutes after turn on. And this was really worrisome because if my computer croaked, it would be a huge blow to the game's development. The time it would take to restore the specific dev environment I had set up would be considerable...

Luckily, it was repaired after 4 days of intense troubleshooting. I'll spare you the long list of events that transpired, but eventually my brother and I were able to narrow the problem down to non-spinning fans on the graphics card. I was able to zippo-tie two chassis fans together, and insert them below the Gfx Card's heat sink. Much cheaper than replacing the whole graphics card!

(please hold until the game's done)

--- MORE PLAYTESTING CHANGES ---

I'll discuss here some additional fixes/changes to the game based on my brother's previous playthrough (still going through that list, heh...)

F. Remember you can climb roots

I remember from a public demo I attempted (3 years ago?), that a lot of people got stuck at these roots, not realizing they could be climbed. Since then, we did a few things to ensure that the first encountered roots would be climbed. The roots' colors were brightened so they would stand out. A character, Ernest, comments that others have climbed the roots. And finally, standing in front of the roots will cause the "Press UP" tutorial prompt to appear.

So how did my brother fare when I did the playtest 2 months ago? He climbed the roots, thankfully. He climbed the next few sets as well. However, later on, in a dungeon, he forgot that climbable roots were a thing. Back to square one. So there's a lesson here... Even if you teach a player something, there's no guarantee that it'll stick.

So in the picture above, you can see my next attempt at an invisible hand to remind the player. In the red circle, notice there are 4 blue dots. These blue dots pulsate wherever there are climbable roots (They're a lot more visible in motion). The idea is to tie an unusual image to an action. I anticipate when the player sees 4 pulsating dots, they'll react by attempting a variety of actions, before eventually concluding that you can only climb them. And that this experience will be more memorable for it - to be conjured up whenever the player sees 4 blue dots. I look forward to observing what happens with the next blind playtester. (Btw, in reading this blog, you have disqualified yourself from playtesting :P)

G. Instant Food Eating

As stated in a previous blog post, the player can't eat from the menu. Food must be eaten in real-time. It's up to the player to find a safe spot to eat, away from interruptions. Some foods can be eaten more quickly, proving more valuable in a fight.

However, what about on the world map?

You can't use tools or items on the world map, which means no healing at all! I saw my brother opening the menu and tinkering around, confident that it could be done. Because why couldn't you?

Indeed... he didn't say anything, but I wrote it down as a feature to be added. And after adding it, found that eating from the menu was  fun! After years of using the new system, to have the old flash system's implementation of healing again was refreshing.

And so I decided to add it as a possible new characteristic of food. There's now a special class of food, "candy", that actually can be used from the menu (world map or no). Rest assured, candy items will be balanced - costing more than regular food, and their healing effects will tend to be less than other more timely items.

(the “eat” subcommand appears for "candy" class items. The candy icon on the bottom-right denotes a candy class item)

H. Fishing Hud finally updated

This wasn't something discovered through playtesting, more of an unfinished task that sat around for far too long. 

(Old fishing hud on left. New fishing hud on the right)

In the old fishing hud (perhaps an example of minimalism taken too far), the fish's health is represented by 10 white dots. In the new fishing hud, the fish's health lines up and mirrors the player's own stamina. Whoever outlasts the other wins!

I had actually been sitting on the finalized graphics for over a year. For some reason, the last 10% implementation of a feature tends to be the most boring. In game development, I find myself jumping around often, working on whatever can catch my interest. That's good for ensuring that the game's development is always moving forward in *some* capacity. But now at the tail end of development, only the most boring tasks are left...

--- WRITING ---

So I mentioned writing. One of the things written in the last 2 months was the entirety of the "monster" village's NPCs. This time I also roped in Pirate (formerly artist, now also writer), since she's quite familiar with their lore having drawn them and their town.

When I wrote trolls, I wanted to give them a unique speech, not unlike the Mr. Saturns from Earthbound. My idea was to capitalize all words and then strip away as many unnecessary words as I could, while keeping the meaning identical.

Pirate then took the result and improved upon it, establishing rules their language could follow to be consistent:

Simplified negatives (no instead of not/don’t/can’t/etc);

Object pronouns replace subject, possessive and reflexive pronouns (me/name instead of I/my/mine/myself). 

No ‘be’ verb or it’s conjugations (am, is, are).

No verb conjugation.

No articles.

(A sample of troll language. Harpy language is similar, but no caps, and a few other variations.)

Another neat thing that happened naturally over the past two months was a construction of a "timeline". The timeline takes the form of a 2D chart, with the major players lined up on the left, and the years up top. There are new characters this time around, and having the timeline as a reference, helps to make sure the lore is on point.

(the timeline, blurred. An internal tool to aid writing)

--- FIVE YEAR ANNIVERSARY ---

Speaking of which, it was the game's 5 year anniversary this past August 20th. Thank you to Firana for reminding me!

Five years... Five Years... T_T (I thought I'd be done by now)

It'd be neat to do a longer in-depth retrospective on this game's long development, but I'll wait for the game to be properly finished first.

--- FAN ART ---

We have 3 lovely fan arts that came in the past 2 months.

(Art by Amaury Lorin)

I like how this picture selectively colors the night sky, comet, and fire. Very artistic! Amaury also submitted a poem (in French). Here it is!

Parmi cette clarté que la nuit seule émet, Au-dessus des radis géants qui s'épanouissent, Nonobstant sans souci les herbes qui frémissent, Sous un ciel calme et sombre, un village dormait.

Éprise de liberté, une puki part Là-bas, quelque part où des prés plus verts la tenant. "Oh, s'écrie un enfant, une étoile filante!" Veille, enfant : pour tes grands yeux curieux seuls, ce soir,

Indifférente au sol précipité sur elle, L'étoile tombe... Écoute, enfant, elle t'appelle; L'étoile : "Suis-je un ange, un messager du ciel?

Avec mes feux, suis-je augure, ou suis-je étincelle? Gloire d'un monde haut, d'une nuit éternelle... Et j'arrive!" --Dors, enfant, tes yeux ont sommeil...

                                                         ...mais demain...

(Art by LittleLys Owo)

Gale smiling and flashing the peace sign. Nice! I like the skillful use of vectors to draw the lineart.

(Art by Shafiyahh)

Shafiyahh, who also drew fanarts in the last update, returns with this cool picture of Gale sporting the katana, a hidden weapon that... JK. I Love the composition of characters, and the flashy background - very anime-esque!

That's all for now. Next update will come at the end of November!

[beansandco]

Script for Documentary

Hello there, My name is George. I am currently enrolled at the Colchester Institute studying VFX & Animation. We create in adobe software and 3D software to composite effects into scenes and create movement of characters. However it’s really only Animation that I’m interested in, hand drawn and digital 2D especially. 

Now I’ve never been much of a detailed illustrator but I can deal with cartoons and really thats all I want to do. The idea of drawing a character so many times that they come alive on screen is really captivating to me. In college I’ve created a couple short animations, all of them teaching me what it’s like to draw digitally. I soon discovered there is a lot more to it than I had originally thought. Just drawing the character in different positions isn’t enough, you need to think about the fluidity, consistency and weight of all movements. I decided to study the rules of animation set forth by the disney founders. I then implemented these into my FMP which has given me a deeper understanding as to what really makes the difference between an amateur and a seasoned animator. I learned to become quite accustom to Adobe Animate while making them and I now enjoy using it as my main tool to animate.  

Despite all this, I’m held back by my lack of drawing skills. I enjoy drawing simple cartoons and with animation that’s generally a good thing. However since I have to make all parts myself for FMPs and such, backgrounds and other details are going to look lack luster, which could break the immersion. Working in a studio this might not be a problem, as there will be background artists and others that do the detailed work. Leaving the in-between animation my own duty. However you will still be expected to have artistic capabilities if you want to move up and become a key-frame artist or a producer/director. 

I learnt about this from hearing the story of Hayao Miyazaki. He actually is where I take a lot of inspiration. His work was always about high risk, high reward. He would pay close attention to every little detail of a scene. So much so that the production time would be a painfully long task. There’s a saying that if you pause a Studio Ghibli movie at any point, it would look like a stand alone painting. What has this got to do with me? Well his attention to detail and hand drawn method of making animations are exactly what I aspire to reach. He stared as a in-between artist at Toei Studios, became a key-frame artist and eventually branching off to make his own films in his own studio. He did this, through a long laborious gaining of experience. 

This is where university I think will help me. While I’m learning at university it will be far more specifically aimed at the practice of Animation, that I’ll be gaining lots of crucial practice. Most uni’s offer the chance to work with a partnered company for work experience at the end of the course which would be an incredible “foot in the door” opportunity. This is why my plans are so specific, finish college, go to uni and then get to work in a studio. Its the way a master like Miyazaki did it and its exactly what I plan to do. 

I specifically want to go to, Norwich University of the Arts. Its a dedicated arts university, therefore most of their resources are put towards helping creative practitioners. Its also only an hour away from where I live and the accommodation is much cheaper than that of London's.  

This all however depends if I can get into university. There are various obstacles that might make this difficult. The one I’m most concerned of is the creation of a portfolio. Portfolios are there to impress the Uni’s with things you have created and the creative journey behind them. For me I have a handful of short animations that took dozens of hours to create. My hope is they will understand this as animators themselves, how long a process it is to make them. With my lack of drawing skills however, that’s something I will have to just build up while I practice. My plan is to drawn progressively more detailed background for my animations, each one using a new technique like lighting and focus. 

I’ve followed many animators, mainly because they often have a lot to say. Many recommend not getting into animation. They say it’s a long and mind bending process. But one thing they all say is that the end result is always worth it. One animator, Zach Hadel said, “Anyone can animate, it doesn’t matter their drawing skills”. Animation isn’t how real it LOOKs, its how real the world they’re in FEELS. Thanks for listening.

[mcbride58conner-blog]

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[sycriptouk]

Introducing Chronicle: The Sustainable & Fan-Friendly NFT Platform https://bitcoinist.com/introducing-chronicle-the-sustainable-fan-friendly-nft-platform/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=introducing-chronicle-the-sustainable-fan-friendly-nft-platform

In industries like media, arts, and entertainment, the value that fans bring in is immeasurable. The growth and development of these industries largely depend on fan-artist/fan-celebrity interactions. It is these interactions that drive sales, increase profits, and propel the brand value of artists and the industry as a whole.

In this context, the recent advancements in blockchain technology and the rise of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) have opened new avenues for fan-artist interactions online. NFTs are digital collectibles that give fans a unique experience of exclusively owning a piece of their favorite celebrities’ work. In the digital world, NFTs are a new way of showing support and declaring fanship towards an artist, celebrity, or franchise.

In fact, the NBA rightly capitalized on this trend and created its Top Shot NFTs that raked in over $700 million in sales in less than a year. However, it is worth noting that NFTs are new to the marketplace and still practically inaccessible to the masses. Besides, they impose a significant environmental load due to the blockchain network they mostly use. This is why we need an NFT marketplace that is environment-friendly and is built with its primary focus on fans. This is where Chronicle comes into the picture.

Building a Futuristic NFT Marketplace

Chronicle is a fan-driven studio and marketplace for showcasing NFTs. It lets users buy, sell, mint, trade, and gift certified digital collectibles from top brands across the globe. This brand new NFT marketplace is fully accessible to everyone, even beginners because it accepts transactions in USD and its crypto variant USDT.

While there are other NFT marketplaces working on similar goals, most are built on the Ethereum blockchain, which consumes energy equivalent to a small country and leaves a large carbon footprint.

Chronicle, on the other hand, has made a conscious decision to deploy the platform on blockchains that use the proof-of-stake (PoS) algorithm which is cheaper, faster, and most importantly sustainable. Chains that use the PoS consensus naturally have a smaller carbon impact when compared to chains like Ethereum that use proof-of-work consensus.

To achieve sustainability and build more environment-friendly NFTs, Chronicle partnered with the NEAR Protocol that builds the Aurora Ethereum Virtual Network that will serve as the backbone to its infrastructure. NEAR Protocol is a highly efficient proof-of-stake blockchain network that aims for carbon neutrality by planting thousands of trees across the globe. The network is easy to use, easy to build on, and acts as a bridge that connects Web 2 to Web 3.

Being built on NEAR makes Chronicle a faster, scalable platform that produces NFTs in a guilt-free, sustainable manner.

The Chronicle Ecosystem

A myriad of roles, components, and services within the Chronicle network contribute to the smooth functioning of the platform.

Firstly, there are NFTs that form the center around which the ecosystem is built. These NFTs on Chronicle are licensed collectibles that represent 3D models, images, music, art, and videos from top brands across the globe. All these collectibles come with their watermark so users can verify their authenticity before buying, selling, and trading these NFTs in the Chronicle store.

The next important part of the network is the Chronicle Studio that consists of 2D and 3D digital character artists who design and develop these NFTs and deploy them on the store. Further, the platform has licensing partners who partner with Chronicle to license the digital collectibles for a percentage of the generated revenue.

Apart from this, the Chronicle network provides a variety of services to its users in the form of the Chronicle Store, NFT as a Service, Chronicle Marketplace, and Premium NFT auctions with an aim to create immersive experiences for fans, connecting them to their favorite brands.

The XNL Token

All these ambitious, futuristic initiatives of Chronicle are powered by its native ERC20 XNL token that will play a key role in the development, functioning, and governance of the Chronicle network. It has a total supply of 100,000,000 XNL with a plethora of use-cases within the ecosystem.

The token holders get exclusive access to NFT drops, sales, and auctions and can even claim discounts on the Chronicle store. Users can stake this token to participate in protocol governance to help in the progress of the network. The platform is also working on DeFi programs where users would be able to earn yield and interests off of XNL.

What Does the Future Have in Store

Even though the Chronicle network has launched quite recently, it managed to create a buzz in the marketplace with its unique visions and innovative implementations. Coinciding with the launch of its platform, Chronicle has partnered with the world’s most beloved bear, Paddington.

Paddington books have sold more than 30 million copies, and the character recently had several commercially successful and critically acclaimed films, Paddington (2014) and Paddington 2 (2017), with Paddington 3 set to begin filming in 2022. The exclusive collection on Chronicle will feature art from 1976 BBC TV show animator Ivor Wood and book illustrator Peggy Fortnum.

Chronicle also recently partnered with Bleecker Street, a leading distribution company, to give away an NFT of the official teaser one-sheet for the film I’m Your Man. This marked the first time a film studio released a one-sheet as an NFT.

With today’s NFT market thriving and sales topping $2 billion in 2021, Chronicle seems to be positioned perfectly to leverage this growth by offering an NFT marketplace alternative that is built to sustain.

[your-visual-connections]

Tips for Motion Graphics Company

Motion graphics is an evergreen industry. Because of the software it’s created with is getting cheaper and more accessible, so is the eagerness of artists to create even greater pieces of work.

From TV commercials to the movie introduction, quality motion graphics can be seen just about anywhere.

If you're a beginner that's ready to jump into the world of motion graphics, here are some nuggets of helpful information to have you creating your best work yet.

 Knowing exactly what

While this tip may be more helpful for Motion Graphics professionals, if you’re just starting out this is something you still need to keep in mind. Clients may not always be the easiest people to work with, and many times they won’t really know or care what goes into creating great motion graphics work.

After all, if they did they could be doing it themselves. But they still have a vision or an idea for what they want displayed to the world. It’s up to you to bring their idea to life in the best possible way.

Knowing exactly what the client wants will ensure you won’t have to do any revisions, and you can get the project done in the shortest amount of time. So you need to have that interview with the client.

What ideas do they have? How much creative freedom are they allowing you? It’s important to keep in mind that while clients know what they want, it doesn’t always translate well to motion graphics.

That’s why it’s up to you, the artist, to suggest ideas you know would work better with this unique medium. The client won’t always take your advice, but it’s important that you present your own ideas.

 Make It Flow

Having good flow for your project, either its easy piece of title or a complex project requirements that tells a story, is very important for the viewer to understand what's going on.

Don’t just throw in a flashy effect because it looks cool. Instead, think about how each new cut transitions into the next, how you're guiding the viewer's attention, and if the viewer will be able to follow along.

   Decide on a Style

Having a proper style throughout the entire project is important for keeping the viewer engaged. You don’t want to have a different colour pallet for each cut or a completely different font style for the next set of text.

This will make your shot feel fragmented and difficult to understand. Talk with your client clearly about the style you want to create for the project or decide for yourself.

In many cases, it's favourable to bring a few examples to your client beforehand to help them visualize the styles you’d like to create. Oftentimes, these examples don’t need to be more than quick sketches with some color where appropriate, but they can go a long way to show your client the ideas you have inside your head for each shot.

 Use 2D Effects

To Save Time 3D has become an integral part of motion graphics, but that doesn’t mean you will need to incorporate it into every project you work on.

Sure, you can create some amazing effects with the powerful dynamic systems most 3D applications include, but this can take a significant amount of time to create and render.

If you’re on a tight schedule try to find places where you can exclude these flashy 3D effects, a visual effects (VFX) application like After Effects can very easily create convincing 2D effects that can look just as good, and be completed in a much shorter amount of time.

Of course, that’s not to say you shouldn’t ever use 3D effects. In fact, they can be vital for the success of a shot, but they aren’t always needed for every project.

Make It Clear

This tip is closely related to style deciding. When you have your style set, you need to make sure what you're presenting to the viewer is perfectly clear.

No matter the project, even if it’s a simple logo animation or a complex story that's being told through motion graphics, you need to maintain clarity. Clarity in your work is much more important than flashy effects. If what you’re presenting to the viewer isn’t clear, then no amount of interesting effects can fix it. In fact, simplicity in your work is often the best route to take. Sure, applications like After Effects can create amazing VFX, but that doesn’t mean they need to be implemented into every project. A motion graphics piece that is simple and clear to the viewer will leave a lasting impression.

[intrepidsourcing]

How to do Low Volume Injection Molding for Plastics?

More and more manufacturing plastic businesses look at low volume manufacturing in order to cater to a much more demanding customer base these days. Customer expectations have reached new heights and going for lower volume allows businesses to explore new products and markets with less risk. How do you do low volume injection molding in today’s plastics manufacturing industry? In this wiki article, let us explore the advantages and disadvantages of low volume plastic injection molding and why it is relevant in this industry. While 3D printing is getting more advanced, it is still not feasible to affordably make plastic parts with the desired characteristics at a reasonable speed and at reasonable cost. This might be a good option in the future, but for now injection molding remains the best choice. Read here more on possible future trends for small scale plastics production.

Why Go for Low Volume Injection Molding?

Plastics manufacturing is a fast-paced business model wherein even small up to mid-sized business are expected to release their plastic products into the market at a fast rate. However, plastics production is not a quick process as it is a thoroughly complex process to begin with. The demand of the plastic market totally contradicts the nature of its production which leaves plastic company in the middle adjusting to these factors. Depending on the plastic custom parts design, each design requires an injection mold customized to achieve the right tolerance, finish and prove its functionality. Injection molds also take time to be created and most small batch plastic manufacturing companies simply order their plastic molds from other companies to cut down on expenses. Depending on the complexity of the mold design, it may take 2 weeks up to 3 months to create the mold which is unacceptable in a fast-paced industry. Low volume injection molding is the perfect reply to the current problems small batch plastic manufacturing companies face in the industry. This option shortens lead time for quicker production and most importantly, they can now be versatile when it comes to the budget required for their business. Low volume injection molding is a cost-effective method perfect for small up to mid-sized plastic manufacturers. However, even major plastic companies have picked up this option to give their businesses flexibility on other aspects of manufacturing.

The Process of Low Volume Injection Molding

Much like regular plastics production, low volume injection molding generally follows the same process wherein it requires a mold, a 2D or 3D design and then use processing methods such as wire cutting and polishing in order to create the final mold. It is basically traditional plastic manufacturing except the mold use aluminum or lower grates steel which don't have to withstand hundreds of thousands times of injection press as production mold. This is not only faster but also significantly cheaper. Molds made out of aluminum or pre-hardened steel of 10,000 to 100,000 molding cycles which is more than enough for the needs of low volume plastic injection molding. The manufacturing process is greatly shortened since steel do not have to be hardened. Also, working around soft steel is also better compared to dealing with hardened steel, which makes the entire process easier and faster. Low volume injection molding is a cost-effective method also referred to as rapid tooling or plastic prototype tooling.

Advantages of Low Volume Plastic Manufacturing

The biggest reason on why plastic manufacturers choose low volume injection molding compared to massive manufacturing is the fact they can greatly reduce business costs. Hardened steel production mold is generally a huge investment and small businesses may not be able to quickly adapt to the fast-paced environment they are in if they are locked in on a tight budget. This option gives them better flexibility and allows them to work around their finances yet stay competent. Another great advantage of low volume plastics manufacturers is the short lead time which leads to quicker production. Unlike massive plastics production, low volume plastic parts may only take 3-4 weeks for them to be ready. This allows companies to take their plastic products on to the market faster and be able to get some returns right away from their business investment. Last but not the least, there is no disparity at all when it comes to the quality of plastics produced through low volume injection molding compared to harden steel production method. Low volume plastic parts are simply as good as traditional plastics and are not subpar unlike one would normally expect due to the cheaper and conventional approach. The main drawback of low volume injection molding is that it is a method not designed for large mass production quantities. It is not advisable if your plastics company is expected to produce thousands of units at a fast rate. As the name suggests, low volume plastic manufacturing initially accustomed for small up to mid-sized businesses. Read the full article