Post Scorpionem
I just realized "Hydromecha" has "Rome" in it
It’s very convenient that Roman coins weren’t perfect circles. Now I can call this scribble historically accurate! Just ignore the fact that the face isn’t in profile.
That’s Latin for “After Scorpion”
Those of you playing along with the home edition have very likely already seen the big scorpion scratchbuild video. In case you haven’t or if you’re just tuning in, you can check it out here:
There was a bit of a kerfuffle with the audio in the first upload of the video, which I fixed after a multi-hour variable-framerate wild goose chase. The version linked above is the reupload with the audio un-kerfuffled.
The sound in the initial edition started with a subtle desync, which got progressively more desynced as the video continued. At first I thought it might’ve had something to do with mixing framerates while editing (the footage was recorded at 29.97 FPS while the animations were done at 24), but that turned out to be a non-issue.
I spent several hours attempting to troubleshoot that non-issue.
It seems incredibly obvious in hindsight (as these things tend to), but all I had to do was change the audio codec from the default AAC to Vorbis. If you or a loved one is suffering from Audiodesynchronitis (in Blender’s video editor), Vorbis might be right for you.
And now a few interesting behind-the-scenes tidbits:
The SCORPIO MAXIMUS in the background is a 2D image in a 3D scene. I cropped out a picture of the scratchbuild and put it on a hill (which uses a picture of the model’s base with a Scattershot node for the ground texture) with some lamp posts (that are also in the foreground) to give you some semblance of scale. The posts all the way in the back are scaled down slightly to better sell the effect.
The black bars in the penultimate animated shot actually exist in 3D space. I changed the focal length of the camera a bunch to get that cool forced-perspective look and I had to do some funny things with the bars so they would look nice in-camera.
There was also some cool stuff I did with compositing, but that’s all node spaghetti that I imagine won’t make sense to a majority of the readerbase. If you do want to see more stuff about compositing, do let me know and I can talk about it after I finish the next video.
The Next Video
Like I said towards the end of the recent feature presentation, the next video is gonna be something like a Vsauce video with Xavier Renegade Angel-esque writing. It probably won’t be what you expect (unless I’ve already told you what it is, in which case you know exactly what to expect).
The audio’s done, by the way. It’s been done. For almost a year now, actually. It’s been collecting dust in my hard drive since January.
No idea when it’ll be out, maybe a month or two? We’ll see. Once It’s done I should have a better idea of how long making this sort of thing takes. I’ve got another script ready and some funny ideas for some future animations.
I’m not done with scratchbuilding type content, by the way. I have plans for the next thing I want to make but first I gotta finish something else.
Autoscout Progress (The Something Else)
A couple months ago I posted some WIP pics of this Transformers custom. I’ve made a bit of progress since then, largely focused on disassembling the base figure more. That involved knocking out a bunch of pins (I had to drill a hole through the windshield to remove the pin in there so I could take the torso apart) and sanding some stuff down in an attempt to prevent paint chipping (we’ll see how well that works later).
I couldn’t think of a good segue to the next part.
Item Tag Randomizer
Long-time readers might remember rumbles of a tabletop RPG I’m working on. I’m starting up a new Table Knight playtest campaign this weekend and I wanted a way to randomize loot using a big list of item tags with various effects. That turned into a small webapp that lets you roll 1 - 5 tags for weapons, armor, and accessories. You can see an example roll below:
I threw this together in a few hours and I’m quite happy with how it turned out. You can see it in action on the Goblin Base website, although I’m not sure how much mileage you’d get out of it since you’re more than likely lacking a lot of context. Do note that the website isn’t optimized for mobile displays just yet. If something looks broken, try clearing your browser’s cache first.
I’m planning on making some more of these small automated tools over time, with the long-term goal of having everything you’d need to play Table Knight/Tablespace available on the Goblin website. I also gotta put the updated game rules on there at some point. It’d be kinda difficult to play without those.
Tales From The Food Dimension
There were some interesting things cooked last month. The first of which was ribeye steak marinated in honey, lemon juice, lime juice, orange juice, garlic powder, onion powder, salt, pepper, cilantro, parsley, basil, oregano, rosemary, and Korean red pepper flakes/powder.
This was really good, and rather sweet if you couldn’t guess from the ingredients. I gotta make this again sometime.
Next up is this lemon-y chicken dish.
It was loosely based off of the recipe from this video (great channel btw):
And last, but certainly not least, are some more pizzas I made.
Dehydrated cherry tomatoes and minced garlic are like crack when you put them on a pizza.
In other news I still want to try using Blender to make a comic using 3D stuff, but that might have to take a seat on the backburner for now depending on how much time other things take. I might try at least making one character model this month.
That’s it for November. I’ll see you again next time with another newsletter.
Have a good one,
-Hydro