News 20/7/14

Well, my printer's broken and it can't print, only scan.

This is sort of a blessing in disguise because there were problems with pencil lines showing through in the inked versions of pages, so this means there'll be less of that.

Summer is the LockedOn Season of Never Releasing Anything, hopefully I can break free from that trope but it'll be difficult. I will say, however, that Pageturner 2's been plotted out pretty much all the way, so I know what happens next to these characters. The sequel will take May and Benedict to a darker place, still with the same sense of humor but darker altogether, and it's all tied together with a fun and unique crime solving mechanic. More details on THAT in my next update. All in all, while it's not a PERFECT end to the series, and it doesn't provide much closure, it'll still be a fun, twisted mystery adventure.

I wish I could say I've been working on GQ2.0, but I haven't. There's a lot to do there graphics-wise and every time I play it I wish there was time to really improve it.

I drew up a design for a Razer that included cool new movement and attack types, that would add excitement to the stand-and-blast battles, but unfortunately there's just no time to implement it. I had also planned new weapon types with different ranges, so it wasn't just lots of blasting.

On the bright side, there are more costume previews and the Razers are finally going to look cool.

Oh, and the menus and HUDs will now be vectorized.

Here's a quick rundown on progress, that's more accurate then what you'd find in a Games Update, but a bit messier.

TEW Comic Issue 2: script done, 2 pages out of 29.

GQ2.0: Gorbash sprite done and integrated into the game.

Pageturner 2: Menu screens set up, opening cutscene started (probably going to ditch what I made, though), some music composed.

TEWP4: I rewrote a lot of the script, mostly the ending. The script's still not done yet, though.

TEW Novel: I tried to run through a bunch of plot ideas, but there aren't many stories that I'd planned through perfectly.

I'm really hoping I'll get to finish all of this stuff in time!

-- LockedOn.

The Evolving World Part 4 - 1/2 Released!

(if the YouTube embed doesn't show up, click here!)

(if the Vimeo embed doesn't show up, click here!)

That's right! Without further ado, I'll let you get to it!

And check out the complementary .5 Games Update I released along the side, by clicking right here!

Enjoy!
-- LockedOn.

TEWP4 Teaser Trailer Now Online

My 70th blog post! It's the new TEWP4 Teaser Trailer! Watch below!

I know, I know, it's short. But the whole thing is only three minutes right now so I don't have much to show anyway. I'm excited to show this, it's the first animation from the episode I've shown other then the theme. Also, since it's my 70th post, I thought I'd show you a teaser for Pageturner. Remember that old screenshot I showed in a past Games Update? Well, the game looks a bit different now:

It's been vectorized! All the character sprites now scale up without losing any quality. Goodbye, bitmap-y pixels! All the HUDs have been vectorized as well.

And to top it off, I finished Generation Quest's new soundtrack. Now it's much better and less distracting. It'll soon be available on Bandcamp!

Well, that's all the latest news! Keep yours eyes on this site for more news in the future!

-- LockedOn.

The Evolving World Part 4 - New Screenshots and Posters

That's a behind the scenes picture of the last released screenshot for TEWP4!

For the past few days, I've been animating TEWP4's third scene, which is one of the longest scenes in it. I'm very happy to say that the animation work on the third scene is now complete. The fourth episode is now two minutes and twenty seconds, which already makes it longer then the first part. But it doesn't stop there. There are thirteen scenes in all, and the final script is six and a half pages, which means that's about as long as the final short will be in minutes. That makes me about a third of the way done, which is great. If you didn't know already, I've been composing music and adding sound effects as I go, instead of waiting until all the animation is done. The reason for this is that it lets me tweak it as much as possible during production.

How close will this short be to the previous shorts? There's a theme, and the old episodes didn't have one. I also moved the title of the episode until after the theme instead of before. I no longer stick a LockedOn watermark on it. However, there will still be a credits sequence and an after credits sequence, so make sure to wait until the credits have stopped rolling. Coming up soon in my scene roster is the sneak peek that plays at the end of the credits of Part 3. I'll be recreating the old scene, which is going to be really fun.

For suffering through all this text, you get a reward: TWO new screenshots of TEWP4!

From left to right: Rorret, Reath, Knore, Arrdo, Miles and Smith

Oliver enters the secret headquarters of Humans in Hiding!

There you go!

Keep your eyes open on my YouTube and Vimeo channels for a teaser of some sort soon...

Oh, and check the Wallpapers and Posters section of the blog to see some new character posters!

Did you know I have a bandcamp page? No? Well, you may have spotted it among the site links on my YouTube channel page, but in case you didn't here it is!

LockedOn Soundtracks

It's full of stuff that you can't hear anywhere else, like two extended The Evolving World theme songs, and other exclusive content like a Pageturner album and the soundtrack to the revised versions of TEW Parts 1, 2 and 3. On top of all that, each song has a separate song artwork!

In case you haven't been keeping up on my Scratch page, Pageturner is now being split into four games, each with one mystery each. That makes it a little easier on me, and it moves the release date up for you!

Keep your eyes open for more updates and posts, or you could just follow the blog by email, check the sidebar for the handy gadget that lets you do so!

-- LockedOn.

Need a Quick Recap?

Do you need to recap on what happened in TEW Parts 1 through 3?

Are you new to the series and need to know what happened before Part 4?

Well, I've got just the thing for you! The old episodes, created in Scratch back when it was bit-mappy.

See it in all it's pixelated goodness. Plus, I recomposed every track just for the YouTube and Vimeo version, and redid all the sound effects as well.

And, if you stay until after the credits, you just might get a first look at TEW,P4!

-- LockedOn.

TEWP4 - First Look

This screenshot is from the first scene of the new TEW short. Hopefully this will establish the tone I'm trying to set, as well as showing how the lighting and backgrounds are handled.

I'm working on a linear schedule, which means that I animate Scene 1 before Scene 2, and I'll be animating shots linearly as well. Sometimes in animation they schedule the hard scenes before the easy ones so that as the deadline is approaching they'll have completed all the hard shots first. It's a good idea, but I want to be sure that if I'm half way done animating, that means I've animated half of the project, instead of having animated several shots.

There are a few other things that I've decided. In order for this short to be completed, I need to be personally invested in the project. If I'm just doing it for the fans of the series, then I may rely on positive fan feedback more then what would best serve the story. I'm making this because I want to make it. I'm going to work hard on it and try to finish a project that in the end I'll be proud of.

A few more things:

I'm still working on Pageturner, I'm just waiting for Scratch to develop on offline version because the new Scratch is really hard to work with.

I made a new page for LockedOn Animations! Check it out in the page bar under the header!

And that's all for now. I may release one or two more images, but not TOO many that it'll spoil it.

-- LockedOn.

LockedOn Animations

Say hello to a a new division of LockedOn! LockedOn Animations!

The first video is the opening theme for the updated The Evolving World! Instead of remaking every episode, I decided instead to make the fourth episode instead, with new Flash graphics and a much higher quality of animation.

Scratch isn't an animation tool, and is even less so now with it's somewhat clunky paint editor that drives me insane. That's why I've moved over to Flash. Flash is a great drawing and animation tool, used mostly for ads online. With it, I can see a "ghost" of every frame before and after, use layers, edit frames, and curve straight lines. It's 50x better then Scratch when it comes to animation.

Some dedicated fans of mine may know that I've used Flash in the past to make cutscenes, like those found in Generation Quest. They may also know that I've had a lot of trouble in the past with getting Scratch to share my enormous animation projects, usually making me resort to uploading them to Dropbox and Mediafire just so people can play and watch them!

Well, no more. Now all that matters is the time it takes to make the shorts, which will increase simply because of increased production quality. But don't worry, with your support I'm sure I'll be able to finish this series. And TEW isn't all-- my other series, Jak, is under development as well.

So obviously, fitting Flash's graphics in Scratch would be a pain, with me having to upload every frame. It's too much of a hassle, and in the end, the sound effects aren't even placed right and the whole thing sounds compressed. Ugh. So I'll be uploading to YouTube and Vimeo, two popular hosting sites.

My YouTube channel is called "LockedOn Animations", and my Vimeo account is simply "LockedOn".

LockedOn Animations is my new division, and is based on YouTube and Vimeo. LockedOn Games is the other division, and will be operating from Scratch, as always.

Now, a little note about quality.

The new TEW series will be much higher quality then the old one. As you can see just from the theme, it's full of action, and much higher framerates, as well as new character designs.

These frames take time to make. I have to redraw the characters every frame, then go back and shade them myself. For the opening theme alone, I drew, colored and shaded approximately 40 frames.

It took me three days, and the result is barely 10 seconds of action. As I said, it takes time. Thankfully, the new episode is short, just like the other episodes, but not as short, estimated to be around six minutes. I'll be using every trick I know to speed up the animation process so that you don't have to wait forever. For instance, the mechor in the opening theme is CGI, allowing me to animate it really quickly. All the backgrounds will be CGI as well, which will not only let me animate them, but it'll also let me choose any angle I want to show my characters. Don't worry, though. The CGI will not be that noticeable.

Well, time to wrap up this long post! Stay tuned for more post-apocalyptic action!

-- LockedOn.