GADE

https://x.com/i/status/2076458633127244109

https://youtu.be/XdIR-wGF-Mw?si=o8ORFEp3LdQ0e3Gc

"Lunatics!" is a free-culture, open source, animated science-fiction series about the first permanent settlers on the Moon, set (beginning) in the year 2040.

http://patreon.com/lunatics

Lunatics! Pilot - "Patreon Trailer" Credits:

Story and Series Concept by Rosalyn Hunter and Terry Hancock.

VOICES (Appearing in Preview):

MODELS:

MUSIC:

SOUND EFFECTS:

Lunatics Project | lunatics.tv

Skip cycle animation with moving camera for Georgiana Lerner model. (NO AUDIO)

This is the first time we've tested any major body motion for any of our characters. There are a few imperfections in the model which we can sort out later, but it's a good start. Also my first animation cycle of any complexity.

Character: Rosalyn Hunter

Lunatics Project | lunatics.tv

I'm working my way through the animation learning curve!

This is the new model of Georgiana for the Baikonur scenes in "No Children in Space", with the updated body/face rig which we are now using as our standard character rig. This rig was developed by Keneisha Perry, based on the Rigify body rig package by Nathan Vegdahl, and with direction from Terry Hancock. We also used the Sintel face rig as a design guide.

The Georgiana model is by Bela Szabo, with a new costume created by Keneisha Perry.

This is several different actions being tested separately. These will be refined and combined to create the animation for the final shot.

Lunatics Project | lunatics.tv

This is to go with our latest Patreon Update update on our Patreon account ( http://www.patreon.com/lunatics ).

The acceleration jump in the previous video has been fixed, and I've corrected the reflections that show up on the shiny "hubcaps" on the train. This video was rendered with Freestyle disabled, so the "ink" lines are missing. That's just a short cut to get a quicker preview render.

Lunatics Project | lunatics.tv

This is a test render of this shot in its present state. It's very definitely "work-in-progress", but I need to see fully rendered animation now and then to get a better feel for how things are working. The initial bump from the slack being pulled out of the train cars is about how I want it to look, although the acceleration after that is too sudden and the speed too high at the end of the sequence. And of course, the train interior hasn't been fully-dressed yet.

The window reflection is not looking right yet, but I suspect I'm going to want to do that with compositing, since Blender's internal mirror-reflection doesn't support Freestyle inking lines. Also, it should be easier to tweak the compositing process than the mirror material settings to get the desired effect.

Also, this shot ends on Georgiana's face, but I haven't added the character to the file yet. All coming soon!

So it's still pretty incomplete, but I'm really excited to finally be working on animation now!

Credits:

Lunatics Project | lunatics.tv

This is an approximately realtime "live" recording of processing a prop model from BlendSwap so that we can use it to dress a set in "Lunatics!". This includes:

I decided to do this realtime as a way of showing my thought process. So there are a number of missteps, dead-ends, and corrections, which partly accounts for the length. I may do a more abbreviated version later, but if all you want to know are the settings I ended up with, that can be expressed with a still image. Or you can just download the Blend file itself from our Subversion source repository:

https://svn.lunatics.tv/browser/trunk/Library/Models/Props/Chairs/conference_table-PD-RomanGischig-rgischig-BSWP.blend

A preview of the resulting model:

https://svn.lunatics.tv/browser/trunk/Library/Models/Props/Chairs/conference_table-PD-RomanGischig-rgischig-BSWP.png

Note that the SVN server has a self-signed HTTPS certificate (it's to keep project passwords secured). You may have to make an exception to your browser's security policy to browse the source.

As the video notes, the original model was created by Roman Gischig (rgischig at BlendSwap).

Lunatics Project | lunatics.tv

A tour of the resources we have available through our project website for people who would like to contribute, reuse our source materials, or just know more about the project's internals.

[NOTE (2022): This video from 2014 is quite dated, of course. Many things have changed since then.]

Lunatics Project | lunatics.tv

For "Lunatics!" - http://lunatics.tv

This is a track-through screen-test of the "Railway" set which will be used in the opening sequence for our pilot episode, "No Children in Space".

We've been working very slowly on getting the pilot completed, since we're basically working on a pure-volunteer basis. But we are getting closer. Our current goal is to get the "Prolog" segment of the episode completed (which is about the first 12 minutes, which will be before the titles in the completed episode).

This set was created by Terry Hancock in Blender, with some BlendSwap elements (users: Goten22, farcgs, WTInteractive, BMF, bishop). The plants were digitally painted in MyPaint and then used as billboards in five different particle systems (this allows for a patchiness in the layout of the plants), with a sixth particle system providing the rocks in the rail bed. Freestyle is used sparingly for some background elements I wanted to be well-defined.

This view of the set will primarily be seen as a reflection.

Lunatics Project | lunatics.tv