Pig-Fish

Game of Ponies

2012-01-23T20:45:00.000-08:00

This is our new project, and yes, it's exactly what it sounds like.

Friendship Cores

2011-12-21T03:55:00.000-08:00

Now that exams are over, we can finally get back to the show. We're currently making the friendship core episode. Regardless of whether it'll be episode 6 or 7, we want to get this one done.

All the dialogue has been edited, and we've got the scenes set up. All that's left is to animate and render the episode. This will be much longer than the previous episodes, I believe the final run-time will be approximately 7-8 minutes, and I want to approach this episode slightly differently than the others, making it have more of a movie format than an episode format.

It's A Party Down Here

2011-11-28T01:12:00.000-08:00

How did we even get here?

I haven't made an update in an eternity, but it's not like people read this blog anyways, so whatever. First things first; it's official that Matt and Pat of "Two Best Friends Play" fame will be making an appearance on the show. If you haven't heard of them, seriously go watch their stuff. They aren't just hilarious, they're incredibly kind, and it's great to have them on the show.

Speaking of which, me and Andrew (one of the co-writers) went back and revised parts of the show. There are three of us writing the show, and we basically do it episode by episode. We've had a general idea of where the show is heading, but we never nailed down the little details. Andrew and I think we've got a good finalized story arc now, and some really good guests planned for the future. After we've run our ideas by the other writer, hopefully we'll have a more flushed out and complete series planned. For this reason we're going to have to put off Matt and Pat until episode 7, just so we can have a more cohesive narrative. I know that the viewers who are big fans of Matt and Pat might be a little disappointed, but understand that we're trying to make a good overall show, and sometimes things like this are somewhat necessary.

Now a lot of people are wondering about the soundtrack, and if we'll ever release all the songs. I talked to Andrew (the music composer) and he's planning to make full versions of the music from the show, and release those. This will only happen after the show is finished however, so again, it's not coming out anytime soon.

Well that's it, no other news really. Episode 6 will take some time because we're being a little bit more ambitious with this one, also we're just buried under university work. Hopefully we can get some work done over the Christmas holidays, but to be honest I'd rather have my face in a beer than in my monitor. For the people in school/college/university, trudge on my brothers! Only one month left of this misery.

Cheers.

Actually that reminds me, I've seen some fan-groups for the show, it's great to see that people enjoy our stuff, but I just wanted to clarify that we're not the ones making those pages whether it be on facebook or the steam forums. So if you see any news about the show on those pages, it's not us posting it.

We'll Be Right Back After the Break

2011-09-08T18:07:00.000-07:00

With the summer over it's time to go back to university for another year of studying, nail-biting and excessive drinking. This obviously means we won't have much time to work on The Underground, and episodes will be very rare; at most one episode per month and a half (if at all). While we do have the entire season written out, we still make the show episode by episode.

Trouble backstage.

So far we've written out a 12 episode season of the show with a two part finale, so there's still a long way to go before we're done. I do have bits of later episodes finished, but nothing major. These screenshots show scenes from unfinished episodes. These are, however, very early mock-ups, so many of these scenes are likely to change.

Mainframe's chamber door opens.

As season 1 ends, more is revealed about the underground, and the mainframe. It's hard to talk about the show's plot without writing too many spoilers, so let's just leave it at that.

Inside the mainframe's chamber.

Malfunctioning.

We've received more support than we ever thought possible. Having our show posted on Machinima's network is fantastic. It's allowed us to expose The Underground to thousands and thousands of viewers. So thank you to all the people who have supported the show. And a big thank you to those who have provided voices. We'll try to get back into making it as soon as we can, but for now the underground sleeps...

The interview core sleeps, waiting for his next guest.

Goodnight folks!

Enter the Ego Core

2011-08-25T19:08:00.000-07:00

After all the delays, episode 5 is ~~almost~~ finished.We've actually gone through a few re-writes of episodes 5-7, so many of the images and videos posted before won't be appearing in this episode.

"Jonathan" the Ego Core

Delays and More Delays

2011-08-10T06:04:00.000-07:00

Episode 5 of The Underground has been the most tedious yet, we're trying to really expand the story with this one, which calls for some very tricky scenes. A lot of people have been wondering where it is, since it's already a week behind. We've had many setbacks with episode 5, ranging from rendering times to Anthony's voice actor getting his tonsils removed. It's not clear when this episode will be released, it's even possible it won't be out for another week.

Party bot peeks into the studio.

I've always tried to take The Underground seriously in terms of directing; I'm constantly storyboarding the scenes and trying to create a mood with the composition and camera angles. Unfortunately, many of the scenes I want sometimes don't work out. The Underground is made using only one computer (mine), and the rendering times can become very long. A (now cut) 30 second scene in episode 5 would have taken over two weeks of non-stop rendering to complete, and so I'm forced to find ways to cheat some scenes, or just straight up replace them. It's heartbreaking when I can't use a shot because of my computer's limitations.

Refilling the cup.

Episode 5 will be very different from the other episodes. For starters we hope to show how the cores get to The Underground, and more takes place in the interview room than just an interview. Rest assured episode 5 will be done, but I don't want to half-ass this one. It has a lot of great scenes that I want to perfect. Please be patient, I think the result will be well worth the wait. These screenshots will have to suffice for the time being.

What a mess.

The Underground - Poster

2011-07-20T00:17:00.000-07:00

I needed a break from animating, so I cooked up a poster for the show.

Core Eye Designs - The Underground

2011-07-19T06:08:00.000-07:00

This is a look at some of the cores that appear later on in the series. These core eye designs were made by my friend Andrew, who co-writes and scores The Underground. (The only core eyes designed by me are the Interview and Fanboy cores).

Core eyes in the series.

It's important for the eye to convey the character of the core very quickly, and I think these do it very well.

The Underground: Making of an Episode

2011-07-11T08:35:00.000-07:00

Some people out there have asked me how The Underground is made, (out of the 10 who actually visit this blog I think 2 of them asked). Well wonder no more. Making an episode of The Underground is actually pretty simple, however, it is very time consuming. Between modelling, texturing, animating, rendering and compositing it can take up to a week of work. The show is animated and rendered in 3d Studio Max, and the rendered layers are composited in After Effects. After Effects is also used for editing the completed episode.

There are three main elements to the scene: the first is the background. The background plate is rendered with the cores invisible to the camera. This means that the cores don't appear in the scene, but their shadows are still there.

The background image.

The next element is the cores. The cores are animated to match the dialogue, and then rendered. This is accomplished by making everything except the cores invisible to the camera.

The cores.

The reason the cores and background are rendered separately is because the background can take up to 15 minutes to render, but the cores only take 20 seconds. If I rendered each frame with the background, it would take a very, very long time. It is for this reason that camera movement is used sparingly, and the core's arms cannot move, since the core's shadows won't match their movement.

The last element to be rendered is the eye. Each core eye is rendered separately. The cores' textures are changed to black, so that when a core blinks, the eye is obscured by the lid.

Core eyes.

Now that the main elements have been rendered, they are all composited together in After Effects. The cores are rendered as .tga (targa) sequences, so the empty space is transparent. For the eye layers, the blending option is set to 'screen' this removes the black from the layer, and only the eye is visible. In addition to those three elements, smoke from the Action Essentials 2 pack is added as steam for the mug, and a vignette is added.

The finished shot.

This same process is done for all three camera angles used in the show. Some of the other scenes are more complex, but are still done in the same manner, rendering each layer separately.

The Underground - New Machinima Series

2011-06-25T23:31:00.000-07:00

That's right folks, somehow all the stars aligned, and I was contacted by Machinima to become a director for them. When I saw the message on Youtube I damn near had a cardiac arrest. After accepting in the most polite way possible, I promptly got my coat, and proceeded to go out drinking. The next morning I got to pitching my idea for a show called "The Underground".

The Underground talk-show set.

I had this idea floating around about a week or so before I was contacted. I pitched it to my friends as "A talk show for defective equipment in the portal 2 universe". Needless to say their reaction to it involved questions like "Why?", "Are you retarded?" and "How have you not suffocated on your stupidity by now?". Later, however, their minds were changed after we went out for chicken wings. Is there nothing chicken wings can't do?

'Paranoia Core' voiced by Jenn T.

Her blog is here; give it a read: [Link]

But yes, that's the premise for the show; defective equipment is diverted from the incinerator room and thrown into a talk show. After writing the first episode we realized that it was way too long; and it was cut up into 4 episodes. So far, the Promo and Episode 1 are finished. I heard that they get posted on July 3rd, so I'm pretty excited for that.

'Interview Core' voiced by Andrew W.

I'm a little bit unhappy with the writing of Episode 1, since the original (uncut) Episode 1 was meant to explain the entire premise of the show, instead the explanation is now stretched over two episodes, and might feel a bit unnatural. I just don't want people turned off the series after a fairly exposition heavy first episode. Oh well, fingers crossed I suppose.