Smell that?

RSS just happens to mean 'smell' in the shadow tongue. Now it's fixed! Big thanks to Vector for pinpointing the RSS problem for me, and Mr. Man whose link to feedburner.com was very helpful.

Go right ahead and subscribe to the Woodenblog now and each update will come to you directly without the need to come here and check! Just think, when I announce the release of Waterlollies, the news will come direct to your feed reader immediately.

You can subscribe by clicking on the RSS icon (). Firefox users will see this icon in the address bar at the top of this window. I still don't know much about RSS so please feel free to make suggestions or corrections in the comments on this post.

Having signed up with feedburner.com I can now post this cool headline animator anywhere I can post HTML.

↑ Grab this Headline Animator

Click the bit that says "Grab this Headline Animator' if you'd like to display my headline animator on your site. I'd be very grateful and it's just like linking to biteycastle.com, only taking it a little bit further :D

Waterlollies - word of the year.
Parts A and B are now fully complete. Music, sound, actionscript, everything! Not far to go now. After sensing a little negativity re: the wait for Waterlollies, I started a poll on the Brackenwood forum. I was slightly surprised, but very relieved at the (almost unanimous) result. Click here to see.

ToonBoom rocks!
It took me about a week to get into using ToonBoom Digital Pro, but omgwtfbbqbusinesscard! Bernard Derriman and I are working together on a freelance project for television. Using ToonBoom I'm gobsmacked daily by what the program can do. I only wish I could show some of it here, but perhaps soon I'll do a short Brackenwood test and post it on the WoodenBlog.

Again, I will probably never abandon Flash because I'll be maintaining Bitey Castle and making web shorts for years to come. I've got a list of ideas here for the next 30 shorts project :)

One to watch
Aside from being Brackenwood's official number 1 fan, Nathan Viney is a talented writer of randomness and oddity. In twenty years time, they'll be showing the following video on those "before they were famous" TV shows:
The Daily Crumb, 7 days: Cat Vomit, Have a laugh and Sports report

Thanks for reading, watching, subscribing to and supporting me.
Until next time when, who knows? It may be the big announcement.
Love from Phillips!

Where TFIWL?

This week I walk into the room, looking around at your expecting faces. I'm reading your thoughts "It's the 20th! I've been looking forward to this day all my life!"

A tear wells up in my nose and I decide that this is the hardest thing I've ever had to do. I sniff as the tear begins to fall, but too late.. it falls out of my nose and cascades over my lips. Embarrassed and thinking fast, I try to hide it by bringing my coffee mug quickly up to my mouth. The edge of the mug cracks into my front teeth and scalding hot coffee splashes all over my nose and chin. I scream and blisters immediately begin to form.

You all look very surprised. Wasn't September 20th supposed to be the happiest day in history? Blinking through even more tears, I regret to announce that due to unforeseen circumcisions, Christmas is cancelled this year. Waterlollies is coming soon, but no Christmas (conditions apply, see your religion for details).

Like I said in my previous post, with the movie now being in the hands of other people, it's kinda difficult for me to give a finish date. However, the good news is that the scripting is done. Now the music is all that's left and progress is moving fast.

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Flash Forward Winners announced!

You beautiful people! 30 shorts took out People's Choice, which stunned me when I heard. You need a LOT of votes to take out that award, so thankyou everyone who took the time to vote for me. At the link above, you'll notice that Bernard Derriman won the Animation category, which earns his first orange rubber arrow (pff.. me? I got FIVE!!)

I animated an acceptance speech for the awards ceremony :P


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Brackenwood.net

Where'd it go? Well, here's a conversation I had on the subject recently:

Chluaid says: http://www.brackenwood.net/

The Daily Crumb says: :O:O:O
The Daily Crumb says: that either means...... you've deleted it, theres technical error or you're uploading a new design
The Daily Crumb says: which one might it be :O

Chluaid says: it's been stolen. I tried logging in to my control panel and it failed, so I emailed the host and he said that I had changed the password, removed the site and reassigned the nameservers.
Chluaid says: When I told him that I didn't do any of that, he said that I must have given out my password. I asked if it was possible that I was hacked and he gave me this crap about how secure their system is, and how dare I suggest otherwise
Chluaid says: so I got a mate of mine who is a legal guy to write them a letter. They received the letter today and they had their lawyers look over it. They'll get back to me on Monday

The Daily Crumb says: fak
The Daily Crumb says: :(

Chluaid says: Basically the letter states that my Brackenwood property is worth USD 4.5m and if the domain was stolen and irretrievable, they'll be liable
Chluaid says: Whoever stole it has now got it shielded so you can't lookup the whois database for their info. I'll bet it's a spam domain capitalising on Brackenwood popularity
Chluaid says: oh by the way, everything I've just said is a lie. I've reassigned the domain to Yahoo so I can set up the Brackenwood store next week :)

The Daily Crumb says: .................
The Daily Crumb says: ill get you for that
The Daily Crumb says: |-(

heheh.. I wish my Brackenwood property was worth USD 4.5m. I'd sell out, quick as ya like! Any buyers?
Anyway, there you have it, the Brackenwood store is coming in a matter of weeks :D
I'll announce more in the next post but it's an overhaul far beyond anything I'm capable of.. this one's being handled by professionals, so you'll see a good-sized range of Brackenwood items very soon.

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ToonBoom Digital Pro

For me, learning to use ToonBoom Digital Pro has been a slightly bumpy road, but only because I've been working in Flash for 7 years. The documentation, tutorials and support are all very good, but if you're a Flash user, my advice is: try not to think in Flash terms.. it'll just confuse you if you try to translate your Flash knowledge to ToonBoom.

Anyway, it's a hefty, robust, powerful TANK of an animation program though and I'm foreseeing some awesome opportunities for Brackenwood. Already I'm getting some great results on this project I'm working on with Bernard Derriman.

Don't worry, I'm not about to abandon Flash.. after all, my audience is 100% internet and I'd be an idiot to alienate them. With ToonBoom though, I'm widening my scope and hopefully preparing for something big in Brackenwood's future.

done!

Guess what! No need for a Waterlollies graph this week because I've finished all of the animation. The final scene was difficult, time-consuming and complicated.. but heaps of fun (you'll see why sooner or later).

When the music is finished I'll announce the release here and on the forum. There's also a little matter of the actionscripted effects that are still being worked on, but I anticipate it to be finished before the music. I hope to release on or before September 20, but as it's now in the hands of other people, I can't say for sure.

The movie is generously sponsored by Newgrounds so I'll also be submitting it there a day or two after it's live on biteycastle.com.

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Next project!
Bernard Derriman and I are working together on a freelance job (for television) using ToonBoom Digital Pro - the latest and most awesomest version of ToonBoom Solo. Bernard has been using Solo for a few months now and will be helping me learn the ropes, trying to get me up to speed quickly enough to be useful on this project. Who knows..? Maybe the next Brackenwood will be my first non-Flash movie :O

More Brackenwood
I have a few ideas for my next Brackenwood project, which will break away from the "random scenario" pattern of stories and focus more on the bigger Brackenwood picture. Bitey had to come from somewhere right? Why is Brackenwood so sparsely populated? Where did everyone go so suddenly and without warning? Why has Bitey grown up wild and completely alone?

These questions will be answered if I'm forced to continue making internet episodes. I say "forced" because ideally the Brackenwood feature film is next on the agenda. Therefore (and it's a sad, yet exciting thought) it's possible that there won't be another web episode of Brackenwood.

If that worries you, I hope you take comfort knowing that a Brackenwood feature film is what I've been leading up to all these years and will be better, more complete and more satisfying than all the internet episodes put together.

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Launch It! Challenge
Today was probably the first Sunday in months that actually felt like a Sunday to me. As a nice break from animation, I made a video showing how to make a small slingshot with piano-wire. It's my entry into the Launch It! Challenge on instructables.com so drop by and take a look at my instructable. Don't hurt yourself!

Here's the video.. the audio is by French band 'The Hush Puppies'. I bought their CD after hearing them play live at Annecy, France in 2006.



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Speaking of slingshots
I've posted a human slingshot in the past, but when you watch my YouTube how-to video, this other video comes up in the 'Related' column. The term "crazy bastards" comes to mind.







Seeya!

Waterlollies Eclipsed

As most Australians saw, there was a total lunar eclipse recently and I took a few hours away from Waterlollies in order to set up my telescope. We made a night of it and we were joined by some friendly neighbours who brought vodka.

With binoculars, telescopes and cameras we saw plenty of the moon that night and I managed to get some amazing shots simply by aligning my camera lens to the telescope's eyepiece. By fantastic coincidence, my digital camera's lens fits quite neatly into the telescope's eyepiece. Here are my favs from about 75 shots.

Note: as seen through a refractor telescope, the moon appears upside-down in these shots.

High-power lens: The earth's shadow creeps in from top left.


Low-power lens: Taken about 10 min after the above shot.


Towards the end of the eclipse as the light starts to reappear. Increased the exposure (+1.3) here in order to see detail in the darkness.


My favourite. Same shot as above but decreased exposure (-1.0). I have this one as my desktop wallpaper.


I took this photo from the window of my home-made spaceship, shortly after lift-off.

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Waterlollies progress

oO0oh.. contractions are very close together now. The biggest and most difficult scenes are finished. Part C has 85 scenes and there are 13 to go. Here's the graph:





As you can see, storyboard is complete and we're days from finishing..

HOWEVER..!

.. don't organise your Waterlollies party just yet. Nathan McCree is working on Part B music right now. Here's what his to-do list looks like:

• Part B music
• Part B sound effects
• Part C music
• Part C sound effects

I still think we'll be good for a September release, but I'm thinking it'll be around September 2oth. Don't quote me, I'll keep you updated.

Flash Forward People's Choice
Thanks everyone who voted for 30 shorts. People's choice voting closed on August 30 so now we sit tight and wait for September 19-21. The Flash Forward Film Festival ("FFFF!") night is held at the end of the conference and the winners of the individual categories are announced.

To stay up to date on the conference itself, keep an eye on the Flash Forward site over the coming weeks.

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By next update, I'll be finished Waterlollies and music/audio should be in its final stages. Talk to ye then!

-Phillips