HCK:OMR Update

jje · Posted: Sat Sep 25, 2004 11:27 pm Post subject: HCK:OMR Update

It's not much of such but Casting is complete.
What that means is I finally can stop obsessing about migrating all major characters into V3 geometrys. Although I wouldn't put it past me to still have a few tweaks up my sleeve.

It also means that the remainder of the script now looms heavily. If I'm a really good do-bee I'll have the second draft finished by the end of this week. If not, then the week after.
Then the fun begins as I fall upon it with a hand-honed Wusthof Trident chefs knife.

snicker-snack!

Actual production is on hold by request of e-on who wants to get Vue5 out the door and into my hot little hands first.

Mid Oct at the latest.

jje

Ariah81 · Posted: Mon Sep 27, 2004 4:24 am Post subject:

Maybe You'd be soooo nice and let us see the new character design?...
Pretty please...
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battle not with monsters
lest ye become a monster
and if you gaze into the abyss
the abyss gazes into you

Friedrich Nietzche

PANdaRUS · Posted: Tue Sep 28, 2004 10:34 am Post subject:

Cool. You mean you've REALLY been asked by e-on to hold production!? WOW!

I'm lucky if someone asks me to make sense of my story line!

Speaking of which - I don't know if ya gots the message before but I'm trying that wittle thingy and hopefully I can make it work. No clue if'n ya'll like it...but no harm in trying. I found something that may work so I'm using that as the basis to go by.

I can't wait until I can afford to get the morphs I need for V3's and M3's faces (oh and SP3's too) so I can start making them look like the characters for my upgrade. Sigh...the joys of being poor.
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jje · Posted: Tue Sep 28, 2004 11:16 am Post subject: Re: HCK:OMR Update

I'm waiting on ya.

Props is another phase that comes after the script is printed for the first time and blue penciled.
It goes something like, re-paginate, shot breakdown, (props, sets, wardrobe) & storyboards.
I found if I break things down into descrete tasks by the time I can't stand doing "X" anymore it's time to move to "Y".

jje · Posted: Thu Sep 30, 2004 10:11 am Post subject:

Orf!
Apparently my copy is being shipped. I'm not only a happy bunny but shocked and amazed too.

Should I make it official that HCK:OMR is being done in V5?
Ummmm maybe wait till I see the CD boot.

PANdaRUS · Posted: Tue Oct 05, 2004 12:33 pm Post subject: Re: HCK:OMR Update

Outta curiousity - how'd you manage that?? Did you show them your quality work? Beg them repeatedly? Blackmail them? DO tell haha...oh and I'm still ah working.

Is this gonna be sorta "security cam" or hand held? Just curious. (need to know before I go in one direction or the other)

jje · Posted: Wed Oct 06, 2004 11:28 am Post subject:

Re Cam:
There is a female reporter and her cameraman on board the train. So I'd say its shoulder mount but also fits on a tripod.

Don't worry about wires. My phones don't have them why should cameras.

It also records onto disk rather than tape.

Now you may ask how does this technology fit into this 1930ish deco universe. The answer's simple: My world. My rules.
:-D

Y'all are lucky I don't say everything runs on steam. Heh.
Look at my Zeppelin pic in the gallery here. What's powering that beast?

I think they transmit the pictures back to the DuMont Network by magnetic induction in the rails.
(DuMont??? Have I totally taken leave of my senses?)

Re:Vue
Knee pads
Seriously, the deal is I write a review for them and post it around. 3DC will have first shot and I've offered to re-write it for some other fori but no takers so far (hear that Diane?).
As these things go I'm a fairly decent writer.
Also I think they owe me something for writing the spotlight that they have yet to upload. I was hoping for PRO but got shot down. Maybe PRO 5 right after I appear on Oprah.

Then again some quarters have been lobbying me hard to jump to C4D. To which I say "send me the box". But I'm not a big enough cha-cha for something like that yet.

I just figured what the power source for my world is - swag!

PANdaRUS · Posted: Mon Oct 11, 2004 12:34 pm Post subject: Re: HCK:OMR Update

Hey, ok here's a few 'shots' of a beta (which could be closer to final and/or far from it depending on what you respond with haha)

Keep in mind I'm not thin skinned so if it sucks just let me know. HCK is your baby and we wouldn't want something like a sucky camera degrading it haha...so by all means you let me know if you don't like it.

Ok I was trying to keep it detail simple because I figured the details could be in detailed texturing/bumps.

I figure if it sucks as a hand held it could make a decent security camera if turned upside down and the handle is used as the wall mount lol.

If you actually do like it and would prefer to run it through UVmapper and texture it yourself, I can send you the model and let you do that too.

Anyhoo - let me know...

jje · Posted: Tue Oct 12, 2004 11:53 pm Post subject:

On the contrary, very utilitarian. I like.

But will I nit-pick? - youbetcha.
I always thought about something hanging behind the shoulder. Like a drippy Ikegami. A drippy Ikey if you will.
Handgrip is too far back. CoG would make this a bear to hold up for long

It looks like it would map easily. I envision deep golds and severe streamlining via bumps. So Lens, eyepiece and grip all separate objects.

The lens hood is too soft or
From some angles it looks like a fish-eye bulbous sort of thing. That could be emphasized. It would really go along with the "go ahead figure how this works" attitude. Like deep down in the barrel of the "lens" there is an eerie pulsating blue glow.

Feel free to add art deco gingerbread anyplace you like.
Simple streamlined, overlapping geometrics repeated. Like the Chrysler bldg. or the Empire State.

PANdaRUS · Posted: Wed Oct 13, 2004 12:45 pm Post subject:

Arrgh I used to have an office with the Empire State building across the avenue as my view - figures now that I need to just stare at it and get ideas it's no longer so!

Ok I sorta think I know from your review what you mean haha...back to the drawing board!

(do you think there's anything I can salvage here? or should I just scrap it and start again?)

Maybe I can rework this one? The problem I'm having is the meshsmoothing. It's not working out the way I'd hoped. I want some parts to be well rounded but others (like the lens) more ...well lens like. Ok lemmie see what I can muster up with this puppy haha..
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www.federation-21.com
The Online 3D Comic Adventure
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jje · Posted: Fri Oct 15, 2004 10:07 am Post subject:

BTW whatcha using to model?

Did you save any transitional models before smoothing?

Compare to pictures of Ickys. I guess it could be stretched.
Or rebuilt as a series of interlocked boxed.

I had an aunt who owned a hole on the wall bar just down the street from the ES Bldg. I've got these vivid memories burned into my pre-teen mind. Now, many years later I swear a lot of them seem to be reappearing in my artwork.

Years later when I actually lived in NYC the magic I remembered had all gone away. Only to be replaced by a different magic.

PANdaRUS · Posted: Mon Oct 18, 2004 7:04 am Post subject: Re: HCK:OMR Update

LOL...yea there's all sorts of magic in NYC. Some good but alotta bad too.

Well I'm using 3DStudio Max 4.2 to model it. It's made from a box. I can tone down the mesh smoothing / take it off and let you see it in it's default boxed look. (I'm at work now and it might be late tonight though - given the foolery over at Fenway park and all haha...sigh...I love baseball!) :wink:

Ratteler · Forum Member Joined: Jun 10, 2002 Posts: 548 Location: NYC

Yeah. Like the ability to magically keep me unemployed for more than 3 years.

New York City has been dying a slow death for a looooong time. I first realized it about 6 to 8 years ago when I was from 14th street to Bleeker on Friday night about midnight.

When I was in my early 20's I couldn't walk that route in a straight line because there were too many people out. That night... if there was 15 people out there were a lot. It was desolate. All night deli's I used to get beers at were now closed, and the place was lifeless.

Basically if you don't play pool, you have no business in the city after midnight. You get further punished by mass transit at that hour. What is normally an hour ride home becomes a 3-4 hour ride after 1am because they only run trains "every 20 Min" (My ass.) and you have to switch at least 3 times.

I give former Mayor Rudy Guiliani credit for his actions during 9-11, but his other 8 years of "service" basically built the coffin 9-11 all but nailed shut.

Ratteler · Forum Member Joined: Jun 10, 2002 Posts: 548 Location: NYC

JJE. Getting back on subject, is your novel set in the 30's or is it a 21st Century that evolved from the 30''s?

I mean 1930's FILM camera's needed trucks to move. 1940's television camera's still required a huge pedistal.

If this is some kind of alternat reality, maybe stuff like Telsa based boadcast power and high energy wireless transmission could be used. It might not be a disk based based system, but the Cameraman might have to walk around with a Tesla Coil on his back. that looked like something out of Ghostbusters, and everything would be recorded back at the TV station.

Your site doesn't really give details of what's different about the world you've created.

jje · Posted: Tue Oct 19, 2004 9:50 am Post subject: Re: HCK:OMR Update

>Your site doesn't really give details of what's different about the world you've created.

Yea, ain't I cute ? (Kelly line - note the wise-ass 30's dialog)

It goes much deeper than that. Take a look at the newspaper PDFs that come with HCK1. Ain't no dates there either.

Its set in a mirror of now. Of course, NOWs reflected in the mirror may be closer than they appear. And when I ask the girls they just look at me with coy expressions.

I like the feeling of "time was" meshing with "time now" so I'm intentionally obtuse. What you may not have noticed is how critical time is.

In HCK1 its all about how the present hasn't followed from the past. What Kelly thought was going to happen, never did. Add to that, the arbitrary time limit set on Kelly by Benet. My beginning exercises on the motif "time pressing in on all sides".

In HCK2 (which a grand total of 6 people have a copy of and only 4 have been able to get through) time is one of the MacGuffins. An object from the past is the impetus for all the running around. Story-wise I play off things happening at the same time in different places; two story arcs, Kelly is in NOLA, Nicky is stuck in the bayou. I do the same trick in each arc. It's possible to go through the novel watching the sun rise and set.
In HCK3 (which a grand total of nobody has seen and which I should be working on as I write this) the action is set on a 2 day train ride from NOLA to D.C. Time is a co-conspirator in the murder (obtuse enough?).
HCK4 (for which alls I got is a big pile of notes) will do something weird as well. Kelly will realize she is the only one who can correct mistakes her father made when raising her. Plus I got this really nifty dream sequence that happens in both act 1 and act 5 (same dream).

Shades of William Gibson's "alternate presents".
•Phones don't have wires (truth be told I just didn't want to draw'em)
•Zeppelins fly but with alternate power sources.
•Same with trains. And there's an East cost Zephyr called The Atlantic.
•There's been a war. HCK-pere was instrumental in some sort of Air America dealie.
•There's something bad happening to ethnic minorities in Europe.
•TV is brand new but the equipment is very small. Note to Pan - don't forget that camera uses disk not tape.
•You can broadcast live from a moving train. I think the signal is going through the rails.
•The DuMont Network is #1 in the country.
•Spaghetti-Os are on the verge of being invented. (yea that's a side plot point)
•I'm doing everything in my power to keep Nazis from showing up... and vampires... and guys/gals in tights and capes.
•No computers! Maybe someday but PIs being able to Google has really hurt a lot of mystery writers. ref Sue Grafton's alphabet series. Set in "today" there's nary a laptop or PDA.
• Art Deco Rulz!
•Hat Check Kelly is dead - that much is certain.

Time is just one of the motifs I intentionally built into all the books. That I don't mention "when" is a pointer to other things about time "now" moving the story forward. The tip of one thematic iceberg. There's thematic things racing all over. That's why I stopped doing HCK as a serial. Up to the last minute of HCK2 I was running back and forth in the story dropping clews, symbols and thematic elements. Makes for one damn confusing novel let me tell you. Poor readers. Those that expect comic book don't get past page 10. Those that expect traditional graphic novel are ready to wring my neck by page 70.

Gotta get back to work.