Skip to main content

Bat Storm, Cool Froyd, Business People, Alvin Owl - TET Project Updates

I realized that over the course of the last year or so I've started a number of projects in this blog and haven't really got back to them so I thought I'd give you an update on where things are at.

Bat Storm, Episode 2

Last year I announced I was working on Bat Storm, Episode 2, with an expected release date of August 2012. Obviously that didn't happen. For various reasons I had to shelve the project. The main one being me becoming some what frustrated with the direction things were going.

I think I started to get a little too ambitious and I also didn't like having a script written in advance. I never wrote a script for Episode 1, the story just evolved organically as I animated it. That's what really held my interest and pushed me to finishing it. I wanted to know how it ended.

Recently I've released new Bat Storm, Episode 2 images onto my Facebook page because I've started working on it again. At the time of writing I have a full two minutes of part 1 animated.

This time around I've scaled back my ambitions to just creating as much as I can using existing GoAnimate content (as I did with Episode 1). I've also been adding new lines to the existing script as I animate, to make it funnier and to return to the organic way the original first episode was made.

I'm not going to put a release date on Part 1 of Episode 2 but my enthusiasm is higher than it has been for a long time to work it.

Cool Froyd

Cool Froyd is my most recent project using Crazy Talk Animator Pro to create all the animation. I had hoped to have completed a first episode of my intended series, featuring the animated version of one of my original painting, by now.

Unfortunately I've struggled to come up with a good script for the character despite doing a fairly extensive mind map of possible things Cool Froyd could chat about.

I am still mulling over what to do with Cool Froyd and hope to have something soon -  even if I have to sit down and just try and improvise something.

 Business People


My Business People were intended to be my first serious Crazy Talk Animator Pro project however at the time I really struggled with learning Crazy Talk and I also needed to learn Serif Draw X5 so I could trace the characters into Flash (.swf) files.

Since starting, I did make an attempt to turn the business man into a Flash character with Serif Draw but never managed to finish it to the point where I could start bringing him into Crazy Talk.

I also started to animate him using Koolmoves so I could put him in my Animation 4 Business promotional video.

Currently Cool Froyd has taken over as my first serious Crazy Talk Animator project but what I'm learning from that has really helped me understand how to move the Business People project forward. My intention is to go back to work on them once I've completed the first episode of Cool Froyd.

Alvin Owl

Alvin the Owl is a character I started to animate after his sketch designs were rejected by a client. I felt he was too good to leave as a sketch. So far I've animated about three actions for him in Koolmoves that I did as part of a Koolmoves tutorial video but haven't worked on him in quite a while.

I do hope to get back to animating him with at least five to six standard actions by which time I'll release him to the GoAnimate Community.


So that's a run down of all the projects I've started/announced in this blog that I hope to complete over the next few months.  I'll do my best not to shelve any of them again.

Topics:

Comments

  1. TotallyEpicHDMay 11, 2013 at 11:43:00 PM GMT+9:30

    Yay! Bat Storm is coming back! :D

    ReplyDelete
  2. enjoyinglifeinseoulMay 16, 2013 at 1:33:00 PM GMT+9:30

    I'd seen your BatStorm posts on FB. nice to hear about the others as well. Perhaps for Cool Floyd you could do something about him talking about his owner, perhaps preparing notes with another cat. I once read a pretty funny novel where the cats were the mian charcters in a murder mystery and us humans were refered to as "tin openers."

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. TET (David Arandle)May 17, 2013 at 6:06:00 PM GMT+9:30

      Ha Ha, I like that idea of humans being 'tin openers' - wish I'd thought of that :-)

      Cool Froyd talking about his owner is a possibility. I'll have to add that into the mind map I did of potential topics for him. Can't believe that didn't cross my mind. Thanks!

      Delete
  3. UnknownJanuary 11, 2014 at 10:06:00 PM GMT+10:30

    I think you have got tons to brag concerning! and that i would not worry about being "overly boastful" as a result of you are tooting your own horn! i prefer to listen to the great stuff that folks do. It's far better than hearing the long list of crap and ailments they're experiencing over ... and over ... and all over again. Hearing dangerous stuff all the time is simply not smart.
    cricket-bat

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

This blog is monitored by a real human. Generic or unrelated spam comments with links to sites of dubious relativity may be DELETED.

I welcome, read, and respond to genuine comments relating to each post. If your comment isn't that save me some time by not posting it.

Popular posts from this blog

Inochi2D - Free Open Source 2D VTuber Avatar Rigging and Puppeteering Software (Part 1)

Inochi2D Creator - Free Open Source VTuber Software. If you've been looking for a way to live perform as a 2D cartoon avatar on camera, whether it be for a live stream or for pre-recorded content like educational videos, then VTuber software is a low cost (or even no cost) option worth looking into. In my previous post, How to Become a VTuber - 2D and 3D Software for Creating and Controlling Your Avatar , I took a brief look at the relatively new but completely free and open source Inochi2D  which I thought showed great potential for my own needs of creating a live performance character rig for my own TET Avatar that I use for all my promotional materials. While it is possible to live perform my character using Cartoon Animator itself, Reallusion's MotionLive2D capture system isn't great - with lip sync in particular. More importantly though, I can't exactly teach people how to use Cartoon Animator if I'm using Cartoon Animator to control my Avatar. What is Inochi2D...
1 comment
Continue Reading »

LTX Studio (Beta): AI-Powered Visual Storytelling, From Script to Screen in One App.

LTX Studio can generate consistent characters across storyboard panels - even if one character is a dragon! W hile text to image, and text to video (and image to video) AI tend to be getting a lot of the press, the real exciting aspect of generative AI implementation is how it can be used to speed up creator workflow. Being able to realize your creative vision in a shorter length of time can lead to more ambitious projects. Particularly if you're a team of one, with a very limited budget, but you one day dream of creating your own epic animated feature film. LTX Studio (beta), a new 'all-in-one' AI film making tool, is not going to let you realize that dream from a single text prompt but, by bringing a bunch of generative AI technologies together, the developers have created a one platform workflow that can help anyone rapidly visualize and deliver a story from initial idea to finished film in days rather than weeks (depending upon how ambitious the project is). Even bette...
Post a Comment
Continue Reading »

Review: Toon Boom Harmony 14 - What I learned in 21 Days

Toon Boom Harmony is widely considered the industry standard for primarily 2D animation. You don't get to be that if your software isn't exceptional. However, industry standard and exceptional usually translates to steep learning curve and probably contains more features than I'll ever use. So, in reviewing the latest version, Harmony 14, I'm setting out to answer two questions; How easy is it to learn the basics and is it software an independent artist/animator, like myself, should seriously consider as their go to, 2D animation studio of choice?
15 comments
Continue Reading »

Reallusion's Cartoon Animator Versus PixVerse Image to Video and Lip Sync AI - Battle of the Talking Head Avatars

PixVerse's Show Muscle Effect is a real flex for other AI generative video sites. AI  generated digital avatars have improved greatly over the last 12 months, to the point where you can replace yourself with a digital, talking head, clone avatar that can say anything using your AI generated voice clone, and casual viewers wouldn't even notice. I tried cloning myself back in July of 2024 in my post,  Creating an AI Digital Avatar and Voice Clone of Myself with Free and Low Cost AI Tools . Since then, I've seen human clone channels on YouTube that I'd never guess in passing were digital humans. This is one of Hedra's better generations of video using my TET Avatar as a source. One area that has been slower to catch up is using AI to create 2D cartoon style avatars, from very specific character designs, that don't have realistic human proportions. I put my TET Avatar through Hedra , one of the best talking head avatar generators currently available, and got a compl...
Post a Comment
Continue Reading »

Krita AI Diffusion - Generative Image AI For Krita is Seriously Useful, Powerful and Free (If You Can Install it Locally)

Generative AI sequence of a woman in a business suit. From sketch to refined image using Krita AI Diffusion - by TET G enerative image AI, where you describe an image with a text prompt to an Artificial Intelligence model and it produces a new image based on your prompt, is gaining a strong hold as a tool for many artists. Krita AI Diffusion brings generative AI image tools right into your favourite free and opensource, graphics editor, Krita. Not only that, if you have a computer with decent specs (and at least 10GB of hard drive space), Krita AI Diffusion is completely free. What If I Don't Have a Powerful Computer? If you're in my situation, with a computer that was around before anyone in the mainstream had even heard of generative AI, you can still access Krita AI Diffusion for free, using a cloud based AI server, Interstice  and 300 tokens, to get you started. Once your initial tokens run out, purchase 5000 more for 10€ (approx US$11.00). Tokens never expire. I would...
1 comment
Continue Reading »

The Ultimate Independent Animator's App and Resource List - Animation and Video Life

Image created with Cartoon Animator 4. Being an independent animator is not like a studio animation job. There's so much more to do that is indirectly related to the actual task of animating. Over the years I've sought out many apps, tools, and services that can help me achieve that one single task, expressing myself through animation. Below is my Ultimate Independent Animator's Resource List for 2024 (last updated Oct 2024). It started out as a list of free or low cost apps that could help you in every stage of producing either 2D or 3D animation, and then just kind of grew from there. You may not have been looking for a Time Management App as much as you needed something to get you started in 3D animation but when those commissioned projects start coming in you'll have a head start on maximizing your time. All the apps and services on this list had to meet two main criteria: They had to be useful and relevant to an Indy Animator/artist. The base app/se...
9 comments
Continue Reading »

Eight 2D Animation Apps For Your Phone or Tablet Mobile Device

M obile productivity apps have become so capable that they can be great alternatives to their PC/MAC equivalents or serve as great tools in their own right when you're away from your desk. While some apps simply mimic their desktop counterparts, others offer well thought out, touch-friendly interfaces that are easier and more fun to use. Every so often I check out what's available for 2D animation for Android devices, since that's what I use, that can complement my workflow with Reallusion's Cartoon Animator 5. Some may be available for Apple devices as well. Below I've listed six free (F) apps (with optional paid (P) upgrades) on the Google Play Store that you might want to explore. Some are just fun apps on their own while others may be useful as part of your workflow on bigger animation projects. Not all are exclusively animation apps and could be used on any production. JotterPad (F/P) The name JotterPad makes this sound like a notepad application but it's ...
Post a Comment
Continue Reading »