#spriteoverse

[csleko]

I mentioned I might want to try remaking the Bucket 'O Bolts model from scratch using a couple of neat plugins I've discovered. So...I did exactly that.

And I also made the junked version, and a 3D hologram map based on that 2D version I posted forever ago. I rearranged a few bits for the sake of adding a bit of horizontal variety and not just having everything stacked on top of everything else. White areas are the primarily crew-accessible areas, yellow areas are maintenance accessways that *can* be accessed by crew, but are mostly meant for repair bots to quickly reach important interior components. The blue parts are vital subsystems such as fuel tanks, shield generators, and life support modules.

I've been feeling more frequent urges to get back to work on Sprite-O-Verse, but got a lot of stuff going on right now, so it'll probably stay on hold a little while longer.

[sprite-o-verse]

Episode 41

Wow. Made it 40 episodes without reaching through the Fourth Wall to directly change something about the universe. But just you wait. Unless you’ve been following my main Tumblr, then you’ve probably already seen what I have planned.

[csleko]

The Bucket ‘o Bolts has reached the Blender system and received a minor cosmetic overhaul. 

By which I mean I exported the model from Maya and brought it into Blender just like I did for the Leko model and had to fix some screwy polys and textures.(There’s still some wonkiness, but it’s only visible from some very specific angles I’m unlikely to even use.)

[csleko]

Ah, my favorite part! Easter eggs for the background screens! The stuff that will rarely- if ever- be perfectly visible in any shot. The stuff I into which I can throw references to gods only know what and make them as obvious or obscure as I want.

[csleko]

Repairs proceeding on schedule. No, the floating repair bots don't need scaffolding, but it looked weird just sitting there and details like that help better convey the sense of scale I was going for.

These gigantic deep space freighters really aren't designed to land and launch from planetside, so Leko and the bots are going to have to get creative when it's finally time to start the wacky space adventures.

[csleko]

Damn, I’ve been on a Blender rampage today! 

Since the set took of all of half an hour to actually finish, I went ahead and totally redesigned the ship’s Main Control Program because that was always going to be an issue if “Operation: Do Sprite-O-Verse In Blender” was going to move forward. 

MC is still an eye in the middle of a greebly sphere, but I decided to ditch the “starship exterior” texture I originally used for his “body.” Now he fits in much better with the virtual environment. As an added bonus, he’s no longer the only character in the sprite comic who isn’t actually a sprite.(Mostly.)

And guess what? I can literally change the wireframe color with the click of a button, and I can even keep different eyes inside the sphere so I don’t have to fiddle with the UVs every time I want to change his expression or color. (That would be the more efficient way to do it, but this way is faster and poly count isn’t a concern anyway.)

“WHAT YOU SAY.”

[csleko]

Pretty much done with the bridge set, so I thought I’d take a break from playing with the little details and work on one of the other hundred sets I’m eventually going to need. 

The “inside the computer” set did not take long at all, but it was fun to actually get to use some of the effects and modifiers I’ve figured out recently. Like the wireframe, and glow that isn’t solely tied to the bloom settings so it can actually be different colors. 

[csleko]

So yeah. I’m a frickin’ genius.

Between the eyes looking in various directions, and indicating expressions, I was looking at mapping about 30 different sprites per character. 

OR...

I could draw the sprites without eyes, make a separate mesh for each eye that I can change as needed, and only have to map about 7 different sprites per character.

As an added advantage, I can do the glow for Leko’s eyes and not have to make  entire separate sheets for when they change color. Also I could do that thing where the characters are in the dark and only their eyes show up. 

[csleko]

Proof of concept for making Sprite-O-Verse episodes with Blender.

The actual comic making part of this process is WAAAAAAY faster than Photoshop! Like, yeah, I spent hours making the set and it’s still not totally done, but moving the characters and camera around, rendering out each panel, throwing it into Photoshop and slapping some speech bubbles on it? Like an hour? Maybe?

I’m seriously considering committing to this style change. Besides looking 1000x better in general, you might actually see more than 1-2 episodes a year from me!

[sprite-o-verse]

Episode 40

[csleko]

Still a few blank screens to fill in and some little details to tweak, but I am DAMN happy with how good this is coming out so far. 

It was looking so plain and empty even where I tried to add random panels and greebles, so I went looking for Star Wars screenshots and noting what kind of background elements they used to make the environments look more “techy” and less boring. 

One thing I noticed was a lot of lights and switches on gray/black panels with white outlines. So I made a couple of different sized versions of those and slapped them everywhere greebles weren’t doing it for me. The result? Lots of added detail and color for no extra polys.

Also I had to make an insanely massively gigantically huge starfield background because the one I was using kept getting blurry and weirdly stretched.

And look! I can take the back wall and ceiling off when I need shots from certain angles. 

[sprite-o-verse]

Episode 39

[csleko]

I’ve been wanting to make a model of this ship for like...ever. Like even before I rebooted Sprite-O-Verse and made the high res version. So I finally got bored/inspired enough to actually do it.

Might use it for my channel trailer idea along with that Leko model I posted before. We’ll see if I can summon up the motivation to see it through.

[sprite-o-verse]

Episode 38

[csleko]

Wasn't a terribly big fan of Blender's Cycles engine early on, but then I discovered that it was so slow and laggy because it wasn't making full use of my awesome, overpowered new graphics card. So now that I've updated my drivers and fixed some settings, Cycles is now delivering fantastic renders at pretty mind blowing speeds. I also found out you can turn on a setting to remove the noise from the final image, which was another thing I wasn't crazy about Cycles renders. I can see it making certain renders look really good, but in just as many cases I would rather keep that noise to a minimum.

ANYWAY. Since I have a brand new B.O.B. model, I thought I'd redo that "under repair" scene I posted a while back. I was planning to use that shot for Sprite-O-Verse, but it occurred to me that the desert-y scenery didn't really match up with the backgrounds I'd used in the comic. It was a more forested, mountainous area, so I adjusted the textures and made some better looking mountains for the background using a really neat tutorial I saw on reddit.

Mine didn't come out quite has good as the examples for some reason, but since they're in the background and blurred by depth of field, you can't really tell. I also really tried to push that depth and focal length to make the ship look big, but something still isn't quite working and I can't really put my finger on it. (I think the depth of field is still off, and it's unintentionally giving it a slight tilt shift look.)

In any case, it's a significant improvement over the first render, so I'll take that as a win.

[csleko]

If a Sprite-O-Verse character held a prop, would they hold it like this, as a 3D model either downloaded or made by hand?

Or like this, as a flat image mapped in the same way as the character sprites?

The answer is: It depends. I'll probably use them both depending on what looks best for a given scene.