Sneak Peak

Shh!

Urban Nature (New Film)

This is not an animation as you might have noticed. Don't worry, those will be coming very soon! Rift is a really ambitious project of mine, so I want it to be done good!

So what's this video all about? Urban nature? Well, to explain, I walked into a random direction (which was full of plants). After about half an hour I decided, why not film this? and so I did. It's also a bit of practice for cinematicness for me, as well as brushing up my macro skills. I'll probably make more of these but I wont upload 'em (this one was particularly good, and I felt it was worthy of the channel) . Without further ado, here it is:

Link because embedding videos is not working, sadly

Do you feel the power?

About half a year ago, my old pc's video card died on me. I had to install a new one, but the case was too small for any normal card to fit in, so it had to be done without cooling. Pretty big mistake. For the last 6 months my computer's been overheating just by watching Youtube videos in Chrome (pretty much the lightest browser you can find). But no more! Meet Hobbes (I like Watterson's work), my new gaming rig. 

I got the sucker custom built for me (warranty and stuff) and boy, is it an upgrade! Here are a couple o' pictures of the set-up:

I had an old monitor laying around, so why not! Handy for multi-tasking.

Here she is! Go cable management!

For the techy people out there, here are my specs (the important ones at least):

Case: Coolermaster HAF932-KKN1-GP

Motherboard: ASRock 990FX Extreme3

Processor: AMD FX-8350

RAM: Crucial DDR3 16Gb 1600Mhz CL8

Graphics card: EVGA GeForce GTX 680 2Gb

This set-up should last me about 6-7 years (first 4 years playing games on max and then 'round about medium).

A couple of questions answered:

Why should I know this?

Well, this new set-up allows quicker rendering and more fancy stuff. It'll allow me to pump out more content.

How does said game on max look?

Here's a screenshot of Skyrim (popular adventure/role playing game):

Why name it Hobbes?

I like Calvin and Hobbes.

That's about all I have to tell you guys about the new rig. For those how either read the post (or scrolled down) here'd an update on the brickfilming situation. I've got Squid voicing, and the general filming should start sometime next week. It'll probably take one or two months, and then it'll be done!

That's about it, thanks for reading and have a nice day!

-Kees

Creation

Here it is:

Designs, Dungeons and Rails

Hello everyone! As you might see, my blog has been updates and improved (thanks to Repelling Spider for various tips, his blog is awesome!). In my opinion it looks much better and is way more user friendly. A few changes are that if something very important happens then it will be posted on the front page, under the bulletin board as well as just as a regular post. Feedback of the new design is appreciated  and always welcome (though do be nice about it please).

     Project Creation has been coming along nicely, and tomorrow is the day that I finish filming. After that it'll probably still take a few weeks before the release seeing as it is quite a challenge to edit (and music, *hint* *hint* ) 

     I'd like to thank one of my friends (who I will call F for the time being) for lending a couple of his rails so I could do some tricky camera work. Video production has been a bit slower then usually because I've been addicted to playing a couple of rouge like games (FTL and Dungeons of Dredmor) however in the future I'll try to avoid such things.

    Finally because you were kind enough to read this (or you just scrolled down, either way) here are a couple of tests utilizing the new rails. Ignore the light flicker. I personally also think the last once was better, although this probably is because I figured out the best method of sliding the camera down the rails. Anywho, glad you read this and enjoy!

Creation Sneak Preview Scene

A sneak preview 'scene' of my upcoming movie Creation. This was one of the hardest things to animate, ever. The color correction is still a WIP, however thoughts and opinions are appreciated.

Sneak Preview

2 frames of my upcoming movie. The movie's goal is to improve my skills with a camera whilst still giving quality content. Enjoy!

The Cancellation of Rift

Today I must bring some sad news. Rift, a project that I have been working on (although only have animated about 10 seconds of) has been canceled. The reason being is that almost all the shots require things that I don't have, or something that is just plainly impossible with LEGO. Do not fret though! I'm currently thinking about some new ideas and I should hopefully have something pretty soon.
Hope you guys have a good day,
Kees 

The Orb of Prosperity

Finally it's out! Enjoy!

Updates & DeviantArt

Hello one and all!
I'd like to start of this post with some good news. The final scenes of TOoP have been shot and now editing remains. Sadly this may take a few weeks for school has provided me with much work (thankyouverymuch14pagehistoryassignment). Some other news though, a while back I made a Deviant Art page! For those who don't know what Deviant Art is, it's basically an art sharing website. I've done this because I've taken the liking of making some digital art. Some feedback would be appreciated. My account is called IntrepidDrawer (http://intrepiddrawer.deviantart.com/)

One of my drawings

My entry. This might not make any sense if you don't watch his videos.

The second topic of this post regards a contest of a user called Zisteau of whom you may or may not know. Zisteau is a LPer (someone who does game commentaries) and he recently hosted a contest for his T-Shirt designs. I decided to give it a shot, and here is my result:









And that's about it. Have a good day, and see ya in the next post
-Kees

Art

Something small I made that I'd like to share.

Photography 4: Nature

All right, I've started taking photography a bit more seriously, so expect more of these.

This time the theme is 'Nature'

Updates

Hi everyone,
You might be wondering, why I haven't uploaded anything in a while. Well, I'm working on something huge and it will probably come out in August. It's a pirate themed brickfilm, starring Loic, Pritchard, Jargon and Shutterbroke. More I won't tell :P. I will however show you some raw pictures:

As an extra; my updated BiM signature

Making Animations in Windows Live Movie Maker

Please note that the following tutorial is a Windows 7 exclusive and covers only the animation, and not sound design. 

So you just started brickfilming, but you're broke. You don't have any money to buy the software, like Sony Vegas or Dragonframe. You wonder to yourself, how do I do it then? Well fear not, that's why you're reading this! I'll show you step by step how to make top-notch animations with just the standard software that comes with Windows. 

Step 1.

Open Windows Live Movie Maker. It should come with every windows 7 PC.

Step 2.

Open up your images.

Step 3.

Make sure that everything is selected (you can see if that is the case if every image has a blue box around it) and then set the time to 0,07 for 15 fps and 0,04 for 24/25 fps.

Step 4.

Click save as and then High-Definition. Choose your file name and location and you're done!

Tips & Troubleshooting

• If the image quality is seems low and blurry in the display box but not on the actual file worry not. WLMM is just rendering the images. The same applies for a black screen. It should be over in a few minutes.
• If you have a bad case of light flicker but don't feel like re-shooting you can click the visual effects tab and click on the brightness slider.
• If you're images are coming out in a 4:3 ratio (black bars on the side) but your images aren't then click the project tab and hit the 16:9 button.
• If you have any more questions be sure to send me a PM on Youtube or comment below!

Saxo Trouble

Photography 3

Photography 2

Updates & Tutorial Things

Hello everybody! So first of I want to say that one of my videos has reached 2,000 views! Secondly I've made a tutorial of Spider's walk cycle. I got his rights and it can be viewed here. I'll probably end up posting more articles on this blog if I have the time!

Macro Photography

So I just dug up this old macro lens and this is it's result:

A picture of the book 'The World History of Animation'. The actual image size is too large for this blog :|

My New Outro