A Tanadrine Studios Original Fantasy Sci-Fi animated series: Delura

[TanadrineStudios]

Edward Bosco and Frank Hunter from these forums play guest starring roles (with others contributing as extras) so I thought I'd post it here!

The latest installment:

Runtime: 23 minutes

Viewer discretion is advised for brief scenes of violence and strong language.



Production required about 6 months of part time work, there are a lot of firsts regarding its creation and I certainly feel that I am far above where I was when I had just finished EP 003, but I realize I still have a lot of improving to do especially in the modeling and texturing department.

[Zankoku no Yami]

Hmmm, this was rather interesting. Animation kind of reminds me of the good old days of Reboot.

What I really liked was your attention to detail; emotion wise. Subtle things like picking up the suit case or pulling away from the computer for what was to be said was quite heavy on the heart.

Mixing wise, it was pretty good. Though I might have went with some sort of echo for the announcement whenever it was being observed from the listeners and going back to a normal whenever centered on the character, etc.
Also, more music. Something that helps with duller/slower moments is music. Though there was some, it felt like there wasn't enough. And I felt it would have REALLY helped a few scenes to have more or stronger music.

Edwyn did a great job as Lucius! I mention him since his performance sticks out. But the over all cast was great too!

A bit on the slow side, but we're still at the beginning, some what. But you have an interesting set up here! Great job!

[TanadrineStudios]

I agree... the audio ambiance definitely needed more love and its something I'm going to be taking notes on and thinking about as I go into episode 4. Episode 2 suffered from other audio problems like Aiden's voice getting too quiet towards the end and the volume jumping around too much from loud to quiet (I feel audio balancing is much better this time around at least). I think in this case its just a matter of practicing as I go and using old episodes as a guide to what to avoid and what to add. One of these times, I'm going to get everything right the first time, heh.

I actually wasn't too happy with Karnagie's voice; I did the best I could but my portrayal wasn't optimal... but none of the auditions seemed to fit well enough to justify having them cast. Zel (the pink one) I was much more satisfied with, but the quality degradation of the voice morpher I used means that I still have to seek a different voice actor for when she finally speaks telepathically... I figured the low quality level of her "out loud" voice could be justified as the character spoke through a mechanical device.

As for the music side of things, its still what I consider a weak part of my skillset. I don't think I'm up to the point to where I could fill an entire animation with musical scores and be satisfied with the result. I do have some royalty free stuff in mind that I intend to use, but of course it has to mesh well with the project's style and not sound out of place.

Down the road, when to get to episode 010 or so I intend on remastering the series and releasing it on DvD if it gets a large enough audience (doubtful). Regardless, whether the series continues is not dependent on the audience so it will go on as long as I'm inspired and able to produce.

[Adam]

This is really done well, especially for one person doing the majority of the work. As animator I understand how hard it can be to balance yourself in doing every aspect of the project, the story development, the base animation, the audio mixing and leveling, etc. It can become a daunting task.

There's a huge talent pool here and I would highly recommend listening through the demo section and possibly even just scout voice actors instead of holding auditions. You'll have a bigger variety and you'd be able to approach certain actors individually. As it is right now, the audition area is a little on the lower end of activity but if you're not finding the voices you need through auditions then I highly recommend you try and scout through the demo reels on this site.

[TanadrineStudios]

As it is right now, the audition area is a little on the lower end of activity but if you're not finding the voices you need through auditions then I highly recommend you try and scout through the demo reels on this site.

Thanks for the tip and I will definitely take that tip into consideration next time. I do think though that the demographic I was looking for is not as easy to locate for Karnagie (IE: a 35-50 yr old male) than it was, for example, a younger character like Charlie or Rudo (in the 20-30 age range).

[Adam]

Thanks for the tip and I will definitely take that tip into consideration next time. I do think though that the demographic I was looking for is not as easy to locate for Karnagie (IE: a 35-50 yr old male) than it was, for example, a younger character like Charlie or Rudo (in the 20-30 age range).

Check out the VA Russ. Thank me later.

[1mfilms.com]

as a fellow animator (I use LightWave 3D also), i have to say, good stuff! i like the cuts too. to me, the style feels like a cross of an N64 adventure game and a 90's PC game.

i really like how you did the holographic interfaces. did you learn that from a tutorial? if so, can you direct me to it! lol.

[TanadrineStudios]

i really like how you did the holographic interfaces. did you learn that from a tutorial? if so, can you direct me to it! lol.

I used flash CS3 to create the animated holograms... which were simply AVI files set as textures (WARNING: This can SLOW down lightwave significantly if you don't use 2d placeholders!). Some of them are simply paint-shopped 2d images... other holograms are made in various different ways. For example, the terrain map in Karnagie's room is actually just a copy of the building+terrain shrank down with the "render lines" option ticked.

I imagine there is a better way out there to create cooler looking holograms, but its a work in progress as with everything else

[TanadrineStudios]

Deveoper's Diary #4 below
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIfZYR7dbt8

I wasn't sure where to put this, so I'm just going to affix it to this thread. The last half of the video details my experiences in directing up to and including auditions I took from here.

Developer's Diary is a series of videos I am making to outline the triumphs and frustrations I face when creating 3d animated content. In each periodical video, I go into detail on what I'm doing the same, what I'm doing different, what I'm experimenting with and sofourth.

In this edition of the developer's diary:

-The "pre-project" (Asheron's Call Video cinematic)
-Delura Ep 1-3 commentary (and my criticisms)
-The challenge of directing (voice actors)

[TanadrineStudios]

I released this a bit ago but figured I'd post it here. Featuring once more the extremely talented Edwyn Tiong... I can't really get enough of that guy's voice.



And this episode guest stars Debbie Grattan, a commercial voice actor who, despite the fact she normally only does paid gigs, generously provided her talents to me free of charge. I guess she found it interesting to do something different for a change? Either way, I'm very grateful.




And finally... here's something I VA'd for. I actually had to drive to a deserted area and use a borrowed laptop to get these vocals as the walls in our place are way too thin for shouting without annoying neighbors (or having them call the fire department, in this case). Taben voiced the brown-furred character, and Frank Hunter and Edwyn Tiong have a cameo at the end. It was a non-canon short mainly aimed at practicing/testing a new animation/rendering method I was doing. This was released right after EP 004: