Page 784…
We’re home again…
I had such a wonderful time at Philcon. The people I met were the absolute NICEST people! They treated me like royalty and it made me feel awkward the whole time…ha ha.
I’ve never been a guest of honor before. It was very surreal.
I hope to go again to Philcon.
You may notice that yesterday’s page has been upgraded. Yes…I told you I was a noodler when it comes to lighting.
I also reallized that with the newer render machines I can render full blown reflections. So now if you’ll notice Alexander’s armor and sword might seem a bit different. It’s because they’re actually reflecting the world around them. Not just a “trick” I used called reflection maps that simply made it LOOK like it was reflecting something…when it really wasn’t.
I hope you like the upgrade.
On the other computers it would have taken an extra day to render this. But it’s only an extra 20 minutes now per frame.
A pittance. It’s nothing.
🙂
STORE STUFF…
I am going to sit down and do my sketches this morning. We’re packing up the orders (the ones that do NOT include Felicity and/or Alexander) and getting those out to you this week.
Thank you for your patience.
A note. We are almost out of Kiwi figures. Seriously. That’s 1000 Kiwi figures. And we’re almost out. Yikes.
So if you planned on getting one…you may want to consider doing this before Christmas.
We still have about 100 paddingtons left. So I think we’ll make it to the end of the year. I’m not sure.
Thanks all. Hope you enjoy the Centaurs of Aethos. I’m so happy to hear you’re enjoying the Native American look and feel to these wonderous creatures. I’ve always felt they would be “earthy” people of the land…and therefore always pictured them as Native Americans.
Special thanks to Stefano for the village, Karen for the character designs, David Camarasa and Ivan Perez for character models, and Juan Carlos Prados Herrada for the rigging and morphs.
Every chapter is a new adventure for me and always finds new challenges. This one is no exception. I couldn’t do it without their help.
Thanks.
Scott
Ooh… I noticed the magic glowing visual aid in front of Alex in panel 3.
That’s an interesting feature of the armor.
I almost missed the “hourglass” outline Alexander made with his hands. Pretty indeed! XD
I LOVE the Centaur children, they are just too cute!
I missed the outline the first time, then as I read over Scott’s comments, I went back up to look at how shiny the armor was, and for a moment, thought the shape was part of the armor. Then I SAW it, and was like OHHH Duh!
Articulate much, Alex?
Those kids are too darn cute! The boy reminds me of my character, Amyas.
3rd panel of yesterday’s page looks a bit off. His armor just looks odd.
Open foot, insert mouth… wait, strike that, reverse it.
The hourglass aside, reflections can sometimes be too perfect. When you are present with the thing you are seeing, you kind of filter stuff like that out; when it’s frozen in an image, you can’t do that in the same way.
I don’t know what kind of diffuse/specular control your software has for surfaces, but you might want to make the reflection a little less specular than theory would suggest.
*agrees with njcommuter*
I like the reflections – but they’re a little too sharp and clear, a little blurring would likely help.
Great new addition to the effects!
BTW – When is book 2 hitting Barnes and Noble?
I have it on order and dropped by yesterday for the update, they said it was suposed to be out by now but they didnt have it in the warehouse yet … any info on this would be much appreciated
TedRx
LOL Alex likes those curvesss
The armor looks too bright and shiny to me. I think, it would look better if reflections were more fuzzy and dull. This level of shininess is just too unearthly. I generally enjoy the comic, I’m just giving feedback on your new redering technique sice you asked. Sometimes better is worse than good.
The new armor is really cool, still, you should lower just a 10% or 20% the brightness of the armor.
However, that kind of hyper-brighting could be nice for some given pages with full sun or in the middle of some epic battle, etc. You get the idea, I hope.
I don’t really like the Native American perspective of the centaurs. It is a very original idea indeed; still, they came from Greek mythology as far as we know. Maybe they could exist several races of centaurs in the comic, and some of them are “Native Americans”, those which are shown in today’s page.
Thanks all…
I’ll see about dropping the reflectiveness 10-20%.
🙂
I agree, the reflections in the armor are a bit too “crisp” almost like he’s a big walking mirror.
And I also missed the hourglass the first time I read through. Doh! It’s a good thing I always read the comments, so thanks Archivist and Sparcman! A definite open mouth and insert foot moment for Alex. lol!
Scott-
I like the way this little encounter is going so far – the interaction between Alex and the children is fun.
As for the reflection issue, I have to agree that it needs some more work. The hazy effect around Alex makes him look washed out, like an over-exposed photo. It might be more effective if you toned down the reflectivity a bit as suggested – and added some specular highlights instead. I’ve got several photos I’ll try e-mailing you that will do a better job of showing you what I’m trying to suggest than I can manage with just words.
I love how Alex truly is. 🙂
I love his way of describing his friends XD
I love the way this conversation is going, lol! Kids are kids everywhere.
As far as the shine is concerned, it’s hard for me to see any specifics because of my dial up connection. I think the effect is becoming distorted and only giving Alex’s armor a washed out look. Like I said though, I think it’s because my dial up can only load a portion of the image…
Let’s see…Elf queen, has purple hair. Fairy, magenta pigtails. Catgirl, injured. And ROCK GIANT. Seriously Alex, describing your group is pretty easy!
But I still love how he can’t think of how to. How many of my friends are really distinctive but I know them so well that it doesn’t even occur to me to say something like “OH yeah and she has a tattoo on her forehead.”
and his nap is over while talking, at least he’ll come back in the village.
Love the centaurs. But what´s up with the face, suddenly it´s so washed out and dark. One more keylight just for the face could do the trick, but it almost seems as if you changed the skin shader.
Love the reflections, but yeah, they could be dialed down a bit. And a stronger specularity on top of it.
As to Alex´s surpised expression, hmmm, he shouldn´t carry it for so many panels. I mean, he knows he is in wonderland and has seen stuff equally or more bizarr before.
And now stop reading and get back to work, I need my fix tomorrow 😉
Add to my Bookmarks 😉
all kids dream of it, but why do they stop going… could it be nicodemus??? damn, i want to LIVE in a fantasy world like this!!!! i’m frekin serious, this sounds geeky and lame but i’m serious, this kind of world is my ideal world
hahahahahah dorky guyness so funny
Open foot, insert mouth???
I decided to try describing some of my friends as a mental exercise and got ‘about this tall, white, with x color hair’ for all of them. I need to start spending time with more diverse people.