Miss Monkey

Arrived in post today. 🙂 Now we just need to decide which one of us gets to keep her.

 – Peter

[edit: Jussi]

If someone feels a bit puzzled regarding the monkey’s relevance to pretty much anything, it is a statue we won at Suzanne Awards (scroll down a few posts for more info about that one).

NotLDP has hit the web!

We are very concerned about keeping our promises, which is why we are sitting at school 5:30 pm on a friday night, compressing our asses off so that you guys could have something new and fun to watch this weekend. Who needs food and rest when you can get the eternal gratitude of that one lonely nerd camping in front of his (or hers, I’ve seen that happen) computer hitting refresh constantly in the hope of getting to be that first ever person to see this (yes, I am quite self-confident. Why do you ask?).

So: grumble before me in excitement and witness the miracle that is

THE FINAL VERSION OF NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD PIXELS!

For your viewing pleasures we’ve compressed three different-sized movies out of which the smallest is merely the necessary evil and should be avoided by all cost (yes, I’m talking about our friend YewwTube).

Here we go!

1024×576 (compressed with h264):
The biggest, the best (tho it might show some jittering on slower computers)

720×405 (h264):
The not-so-large-but-still-quite-a-chunk-and-still-really-watchable version

320×160 (pitiful):

Please! If you have any sense at all, you should wait that extra two minutes and download one of the proper videofiles and not touch that Tuubythingie. Otherwise I just might have to go agrolemming on your ankle!

Oh, and one more thing:

Our Website of No Real Content (except for those vids) is up and running too!
www.nightofthelivingdeadpixels.org

Whew! That’s probly about it for now. I think I’ve deserved a beer or two!

-jussi

One so-called brainfart

Funny thing.

I just realised now (after months and months of working with the project) that our animation should have been called Dawn of the Living Dead Pixels instead of ”Night” since none of the action happens during the night.

In the scarce words of Mr. Reeves: ”Whoa!”

j

NotLDP Animatricksissa la 27.10. klo 16!

Kuten otsikko kertoo.

Nyt on mahdollista nähdä animaatiomme lopullinen versio kankaalle heijastettuna ja vieläpä ilmaiseksi!

Tapahtumapaikkana toimii Bar Dubrovnik (Eerikinkatu 11). Coronan ovista sisään ja portaat alas, jos paikka ei ole entuudestaan tuttu.

Tuoppi käteen ja ihmettelemään!

[edit: lisätään tuohon vielä tuo promojulkka. Klikkaamalla aukeaa täysikokoinen (A3) versio]

 

-jussi

The Last Week

No kidding.

This is THE week we have to get the thing done.

First of all, it is good to have a deadline of a deadline since we could polish this thing to no end and wake up four years from now with a full-length hd-movie and full action-figures-with-your-burger campaign in our hands and we still wouldn’t be fully satisfied with the result. ”If we could re-render that one frame where that shadow passes over that blurry thing there way in the background…” you know…

The second thing for this week to be the last we’ll work on the animation is that we’re showing the finished (fingers and toes crossed on that) version at Animatricks festival in Helsinki this saturday. More info to follow on that subject.

Things are looking quite promising, tho. We have just rendered all the little fixes we had to do and tomorrow one brand new extra camera-angle will be finished and thrown into the mix. Teemu is almost finished with wrestling with his opponent, the sound, too. Poor guy had to put up with my never ending notes for numerous minor changes till the last minute but I promise I didn’t go too kubrick on his ass.

Peter had a boring weekend judging from the fact that he came up with a layout for our website (www.nightofthelivingdeadpixels.org – try to type that fast three times when drunk. nightodtheliciingdeadpixes… see?), which will open up around the same time we’ll premier the animation. So, later this week or early next week. Or if you’re lucky, Peter gets bored again and does it all on sunday.

Have a good one!

-jussi

So you found your way here

Hey y’all,

I just saw that our blog’s hits for this month just doubled thanks to the unexpected success at Suzanne Awards (yeah, we’re kinda bad in marketing ourselves. Guess it was the upbringing and humble conditions we fought our way up from. Not Peter tho, he was born into money).

This is a quick word to welcome you and to push you to read earlier posts to see what the whole thing is even about and what the three doofuses who busted their asses and then some for this project are like.

And most importantly: I am very sorry that we still haven’t totally finished the thingie and put it online, even tho the animation was more or less done around the last day of august. The post part of these things takes surprisingly long – especially when the burden is almost completely on one man’s shoulders, krrrhm. (And we’ve had craploads of schoolthings to do, too).

Sooner or later there will be the festival version (sans music) to be found somewhere at blender.org, but hopefully around the same time we will FINISH THE FIGHT.

ehm, sorry about that.

Still, we’re really proud of what we came up with during those ten summery weeks (or atleast the weather looked kinda nice through the dark windows of our computer lab) and reaaaally looking forward to having the complete package on our screens and on our hands once we burn it on dvd. Music and all included.

Not too long anymore now!

-jussi

———-

So if I’m so well off, how come I still dress like a bum hang out with you guys?

– Peter

————–

We’re just so cool? Yep, I too was surprised by the sudden spike on blog hits. It’s kinda funny to read this thing now from overseas, dreaming about the finished dvd but pretty much unable to do nothing about it. For the new-coming visitors, I also apologize that most of the early blog is in finnish, although in the later posts english has taken it’s fair share. Also, I think when we can actually lay down the final post with the finished piece, we probably will also include links to the blend-files, in case someone’s interested. Or what do you say guys?

(lots of ”also” in that one 😀 )

-jere

Even more good news just in!

So I was taking a short break in between my 12-hour-shift at work on Sunday and quickly browsing the net. Luckily I didn’t choke on my dry bread I was eating when I saw this announcement:

http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?t=101208

Our half-finished version of NOTLDP won the Best Short Film category at Suzanne Awards!!!

I cannot really put into words how happy I’m feeling right now so I’ll cut this short (not to mention that I gotta get back to the conveyor belt I’m working at). Suddenly this gloomy sunday ain’t that bad anymore!

-j

—————————————————–

In turn, I was drinking last night, and woke up to the beeping of my cellular. With a weary eye I glimpsed – message from Jussi.. and suddenly my hangover just stopped being a hangover. This is going to be a beautiful day!

-jere

———————————————

I’d actually spent all of Saturday night refreshing the Suzanne awards thread at blenderartists, and by Sunday morning I just couldn’t be bothered anymore, so Jussi actually spotted it before I did. Gah! 😛

But needless to say, I am, as I believe the British sometimes like to put it, proper chuffed as well! Thank you everyone!

– Peter

This just in!

Well actually I think it was announced like a week ago, but we had no idea (we’re a bit slow on following the news).

Our half-finished version of Night of the Living Dead Pixels is nominated to compete with four other shorts in Best Short Film category at Blender Conference Suzanne Awards!

All the nominees will be made available for download during the conference, in a couple of days that is, on the official page, and the winners will be announced on Saturday October 13th (pretty soon, eh). Mind you, I’ve seen a couple of the other nominees and they’re really good.

Too bad we had to send the version without music and one new camera-angle. Still, this is a good opportunity to get more viewers for the thing and atleast we included our address in the end credits so people have a change to see the final version too.

I’m hyped!

-jussi

I couldn’t come up with a proper title that would’ve summarized all the happy thoughts I’m having

Two days it took, but I managed to beat the deadline I set for myself.

The music is now done. It is mostly really simple, but suits the animation, fits very well with the already edited video and heightens it’s rhytm and mood. Yeah I know, sounds a bit pompous but I can’t help feeling marginally proud of myself every now and then. Plus: now that the music is done we are so much closer of having the thing finally done for good.

This is where the magic happened (the thing in the lower right corner was my dinner…) :

 

Things still to do:

– Teemu will still work on the sounds (not too much, but some little things and that) and mix the music to fit the whole soundscape.

– Me and Pete are in the middle of re-rendering some changes (most importantly one new camera angle). They should be done in a couple of days. Then it’s just a matter of throwing them into the edit.

– And then all we need is finalised end-credits and we’re ready to hit that sweet EXPORT button in Final Cut.

This is me being very very happy!

Oh, right! You probably wanted a peek of the nearly finished product? The music might be a little on the low side here, but you get the idea anyway. It is the same old fight scene – I don’t wanna spoil more scenes so that you guys have atleast some new stuff to see when the whole thing is done…

-jussi

Sound of ”Music”

So I got something done.

Blame the beers I had that day if you want to, but what was caught in the tape last saturday differs quite a lot from the plans I had for the soundtrack. Better or worse – I can’t really tell yet. I gotta do some minor dubs, mix it, see it with a big picture in perfect sync (I had to use our camcorder’s tiny tiny screen for preview purposes) but most importantly I gotta listen to it sober. I’m a bit doubtful about the chaos drums I came up with for the fightscene, but atleast it is quite intense in a weird way. Mind you, I mainly used Korg’s drum machine for the whole soundtrack, hehe.

All in all I left the recording room quite pleased with myself, and if things progress as planned, I might have some soundbites for your ears tomorrow or the day after.

Keep checking the blog for updates on the issue.

-j