Antubert's
1
What if TalkRadioX never existed?
The picture you see here is a single frame rener of a project I was working on before TalkRadioX. It was called Project X and it was to be cgi animations using old time radio shows as the audio track. I chose a show called "X Minus One" to start with. It is a great sci-fi radio show that I could easily visualize. Cgi animation is very tedious. To start I designed characters from basic 3d models sculpting them into cast members for the show. Wardrobe is modeled in a similar way. There are a lot of details you may not consider at first, for instance: What will the surface texture of this item be. What is the reflectivity, the transparencey, the luminence etc.
Once everything including the sets are virtually built then comes the hard part. The motion.
If you work on animation long enough you start looking at the world in 1/24th of a second intervals. The way something moves along a timeline. How fast does it accelerate does it deform with motion. How heavy is it. The complex motion of the human body is mind bending. Paths of action, anticipation follow through, squash and stretch are all principles of animation that help create the illusion of life.
The look of this animation project was to be retro, almost as if it were a TV show from a different time line, where computers existed in the 40's.
This "TV Show" would have an opening sequence during the narration that represented scenes from other episodes in the series. Since this was the fisrt of it's kind I went about creating ultra short clips to be "montaged" into the title sequence.
This frame was from one of the scenes. I have some various renderings and test animations but most everything, six months of work, was destroyed by a harddrive crash ( from a new computer purchased just for this project) HP replaced the drive but not any of the files.
This rocked me a bit, having almost 2 minutes in the can ( that is many many many hours of rendering) I couldnt even begin to think about starting over, I couldn't recapture the creative fever that drove me to start the project.
Animation is a tedious process. It can take months for one person to create two minutes. Each frame is a work of art.
So instead I found Radio Dan and started TalkRadioX
2
These images were created with a program called Poser. The program comes with generic "models" of basic human form. The models are constructed of many polygons called a mesh which form the surface structure. Each model also has a skeletal structure for the support and control the mesh. The surface of the mesh is "painted" or mapped with a graphic file that is kind of like a skin stretched out flat when you look at it in a paint program. these skins add the coloration to the model. Other image maps are used to define surface texture and reflection properties. The basic shape of the mesh can be adjusted and formed in countless ways. Some controls are preset such as dials that control size and shape of various features. you can also define your own mesh displacements to model the mesh sort of like clay. All of these parameters apply to the virtual sets as the examples show here. The basic meshes that make up the bridge can be found around the net, with different folks making different modules. I used these various meshes and constructed the basic set adding the image maps and surface properties from custom graphics I created. All the characters were completely remodled by me and in the case of the vulcan test you can see the variations of features I was trying out. Also the different levels of mapping I used for the skin tone included some translucency maps and other tricks to try to add a realistic look to the characters.
It was fun to work on this but animation is a very tedious and LOOOOOONG process and you have to be 100 percent commited to a project. Each still frame render below represents about an hour of computer time with complex scenes taking much more than that. I eventualy found a project that I could invest my time in, but thats another story and album soon to come.
4
This video was one of the first "proof of concept" tests of my live performace animation sytem. It is in fact more of a puppet than a cartoon and was designed, created and performed by Antubert.
It is based on an old process used in the 60's. I could never find any info on how this process worked, so after years of being "on the back burner" a light bulb turned on above my head and in that instant I swa the complete system in my head. With a fever similar to Richard Dryfuss in "Close Encounters" I began tearing up things around the house such as mouse pads, paper towel holders, Pez dispensers and other stuff to realize this vision as a tangible item. Eventually I constructed a production model in which I used latex castings, custom brass actualtors and other custom reproducable parts made from basic materials. As I was developing this model I often used old songs to "lip sync" to, in order to work out the possible expresions and emotions available.
This video is one of the first tests on what was to become the working road model. The live video signal is reversed, making black white and white black (and yellow becomes blue). I made a rig from an old A-frame keyboard stand shrouded in black cloth. This housed the puppet, video camera, lighting and microphone. I convinced some comics to write Shecky into the act. For a live performance I would set up somewhere in the back of the room so I could see the audience, but they couldnt see me ( hidden in the shadows). On stage was either a TV set that I brought with me to the club, or the house big screen set up on stage. The video camera used to process Shecky was transmitted to the TV on stage and my microphone ( the one currently used on The Live Test Show)was patched into the house PA system. Then on cue the TV went from black screen to Shecky and he started interacting with the comic. At this point most folks think they were looking at a video tape and the comic was just timing himself to it. Then Shecky would start talking to someone in the audience directly and making references until the audience realized they were watching something live. Kinda like a cross between comedy, puppetry, animation and magic.
This led Shecky to a regular gig in a small comedy room near 5th and Broadway where he would be host each week and introduce and interact with the lineup of comics. After some time I opened my own comedy club and had a large video screen built right into the stage curtain, where Shecky hosted each week and often made apperances during the show when the comedian on stage called "Shecky, where are you?" Right now the answer to that question is "On the top shelf of the linen closet"
