Animation test wip1

need a lot more work like adding a blink, lipsync and tweening... but yeah the magical girl twirl, she has to do it. 

Edepth anime final storyboard schedule

Angel scene7 inked by Roxanne

Ink/finalize final storyboard stage: Nov 1st 2011-Dec 31st 2011 (61 days)
Total of shots: 287
For 26 minute film

Average scenes need to complete: 5 scenes a day

Starting today. :)

Visual novel game survey

We are thinking (only thinking right now) about making visual novel games for e-depth Angel series. It will be for purchase under 10 dollars/and for donors.

Just wondering what storyline would be most interesting to people. Other suggestions welcome.

Print mojo

http://www.printmojo.com/

Checking this site out.

Working slowly

Need to re-motivate myself and keep going.

I felt overwhelmed about 1-2 weeks ago, just getting back to normal...
Rescheduling myself a bit too... need a more mixed up schedule between my work and commission work to make it work for me. Other wise I get emo and don't want to do anything.


For someone who asked about recommended VA mic:  http://mayshing.com/altabe/training/sound

It's about 200-300 dollar investment... its not cheap becoming a home studio VA, you have to set it up right to deliver quality clean sound, sound is much harder to control than visual. That's why I usually pay VA when I can afford to. Serious pro level VAs are hard to come by. 

ta da updates

http://mayshing.com/edepth/wordpress/

http://mayshing.com/2Masters/wordpress/

Updated as scheduled. 

Tiana's Wish 2 updated to page 47. 

E-Depth Anime production updated with new model sheets for everyone who's interested.

Weee tones of updates once again~~~ 

中文新聞: (Chinese translation news)
E涯的中文翻譯從這個月開始會繼續進行~因為之前的翻譯員已經再幫忙翻天地,就交給新人, 感謝迦夏幫忙~還需小段時間就可以回復正常更新.

Director's Anxiety

Since Roxanne is starting her game project, she starts to experience the Director's Anxiety. Yes I just made a name for it. lol

It's something I have gone through before, and still have it occasionally, the worry of "what if it fails? After all of these efforts? All of these time, all of the time of the teammates and everyone else who pour their souls and heart into the project?" 

For Roxie's game, it's a demo currently... maybe it will need 100 hours... for my Edepth anime, it's something that would take up at least 1000 hours of all of our combine efforts... it's that costly.

Eventually I got tired of worrying about the unknown, if it has not happened... it has not happened.
The good thing is... the US... or somewhere around the world, is big enough to accept our projects, someone, somewhere out there might like it. 2Master's short film, being where it was won us some money, I am sure the next one will do better because it's a lot more effort going into it.

As for effort...
Zeiva , Mirage, once mentioned how she felt about her games not doing as well as she wanted after working on it for 3 years... I do fully understand effort does not equal to success... I feel for her on that part...some of the most popular stuff out there are not things that took too much effort... it's about the trend.

However... it is also suggested by Fred from Frederator, who made many kids show possible: "Do something you love. Don't care about the times. You never can predict the trend 3 years later."

Doing this kind of stuff is just a risk. You never know. You can guess all you want but trends in popular media change every year or two... while some part of it is ever lasting similarity (like shonen shojo) others are completely up in the air... it's like stock market right now, unpredictable. So all that's left is just enjoy what you do... If I must dance in the rain, I might as well enjoy being soaked. It's the path I chose.
It's not like I haven't been soaked before... If my stuff is out there, I will get negative comments. I view them as a form of baptism. lol~ Being showered by the market itself.

It's not your friends cheering you on, it's not your mom saying "good job." it's not your family who support you... but it's a bunch of people nit-picking praising, loving, supporting, stealing, hating your work, tearing it up, ignoring or worshiping it, I have one thing to say:
Welcome to the real market, where everything goes.Welcome to the pro world, this is just a norm.

If my project is only good enough for a small handful of people to like it, that's where I am. I have to level up, push it farther. Or just stick with what I have.

If my project is good enough for a lot of people to like it, then it's a success, and we don't have to talk more about this anxiety. 


As for my team, everyone who put time into it... I have obligation to them to sell this project as much as I can, to do my best, exhaust all resources I can to push it out there. I may not have the best personality for it, but that's not an excuse for me to just make stuff and not promote.

I am doing everything I can... I hope I will be joined by my teammates in the future to help make the project a success.... as for how big of a success... we will have to wait and see.

For now, just making it happen is enough work for us.

Creative entertainment projects is a form of self-torture for others' enjoyment... one really have to be a little crazy to keep doing this.

Amazon studio, should try this.

http://studios.amazon.com/help/filmmakers/?ref=stu_qp_animators

Good news for indy animators/film makers.

edepth anime progress

http://youtu.be/zHBTuTG25Mg

Completed less than what i wanted for otakon.... but i guess this will do.

Edepth angel anime still shot

Finalizing the fight bonus sequence today. (hopefully get it done in time for otakon)
Finished shot one today on the storyboard.
Not bad.

Keeping some mental notes: It must look perfect up close, it must match what outside standard JP industry is doing.

I was telling my friend that even if Edepth anime is finished, at its best its a "normal" anime film. A normal anime/mech film.
That's just how hard it is to make a good film... Edepth is going to be our measurement, our training film, hopefully when we pull it all together, we can say: HELL YEAH WE DID IT!
Then move on to something else. lol

皮諾丘之城: 沒用到的稿子

這是試閱以後被刷下來(因為反應是"看不懂")的幾頁... 因為台灣漫畫創刊休刊~算是做了白工...不過因為有讀者提到,還是放上來... (合約裡也是說可以放就是,藍和我談的時候真是非常客氣, 這部分的故事重敘是他幫忙寫的.)

(This is the Extra pages made originally for the publisher sample, but it ended up not being used, so it's like... wasted work. but now I can put it online because the magazine has ended. As for english translation... eh... I will put it up later.) 

Edepth Game Duel

Chapter 8's game duel result.... XD

Some server glitch happened with wordpress, all of Edepth's english content was lost, we are trying to fix it now... (More like Roxanne is fixing it... XD)

hopefully its backed up soon.

給台灣/大陸朋友: (For Chinese readers)

E涯(皮諾丘之城)英文版突然從網路上失蹤...我們正在修, 希望很快復原...

edepth new wallpaper concept? :)

Based on the chapter on Memories. X3 i think i will play around on the colors.

台灣漫畫出版: 皮諾丘之城

Edepth has been published at 7/6/11 in Taiwan, by Taiwan magazine.

給新讀者和朋友們:
我的漫畫Edepth Angel,以[皮諾丘之城]在台灣漫畫雜誌上正式連載~現在起到7-11、全家、萊爾富、OK便利商店、全國各大書局，都可以買到台灣漫畫月刊創刊號

給已經翻完雜誌的讀者: XD

crowd fight test 1

Crowd fight, rough animation test 1. Of course this needs a lot more drawings/2ndary actions. :P
First crowd fight design ever, that was pretty tough. 
Drawing count: 40.

edepth updated

Updated as scheduled:

anime progress- ink and paint

eh.... not quite there. (Why does he look so wide?.... hmmm)
But at least I got an idea how ink and paint works in 3D max 2011...

None will need a lot more shading than this. If we can't get the shading perfect... it just means we have to go back and draw things in, which will be PAINFUL.

Missing address

Finally done, with my bro's help. X3
In the future i am doing paypal fundraising.... kickstarter isn't the best when it comes to providing "print ready" addresses (plus it takes 5%) XD

I am missing a few sponsor's address for sending out my books to them. Please either email me at mayshing AT gmail.com
or note me if you see my notice.

Camila B.
Kyle W.
Ryuyujin
Eden K.

site updates

Site updated: http://mayshing.com/



>.>

3D for 2D using 3D max

This person gave me a tip on how to generate his results from 3D max: http://icephei.deviantart.com/

"In my case it is VrayToon/MentalRay contours for lineart; Cell Shaders, hand painted textures for 2d look; and overpaint for 2d effect enhancement (;"

http://www.kxcad.net/autodesk/3ds_max/Autodesk_3ds_Max_9_Reference/mental_ray_contour_shading.html

1. Choose Customize > Preferences. Go to the mental ray panel, and turn on Enable Mental Ray Extensions.

2. On the Render toolbar, click Render Scene.

   If the active renderer is not already the mental ray renderer, go to the Common panel, and on the Assign Renderer rollout, click the “...” button for the Production renderer. A Choose Renderer dialog is displayed. Highlight “mental ray Renderer” in the list, and then click OK.

   Leave the Render Scene dialog open, or minimize it.

3. Open the Material Editor. For the materials of objects you want to render with contours, use the mental ray Connection rollout to assign a shader to the Contour component.

   Another technique would be to use the mental ray material, and assign shaders to both the Surface and Contour components.

   Tip: The Simple contour shader renders uniform lines whose color and width you can control. The other contour shaders provide variant contour styles with more direct user controls.

4. On the Render Scene dialog, go to the Renderer panel. On the Camera Effects rollout, turn on Enable in the Contours group.

   To simply add contour lines to a rendering, leave the shaders in the Camera Effects rollout set to their defaults. For other options, see Camera Effects Rollout (mental ray Renderer).

Note for maya user, for maya render post: http://altarstudio.blogspot.com/2011/05/maya-vector-render.html