I’ve always wanted superpowers!

I’ve been experimenting with HitFilm. It’s an awesome video editor that allows you to use awesome special effects in the program (2D & 3D) inside the program. It has way more tools than Final Cut and it has After Effects kinds of effects without having to work with two programs.

So I decided to try out this thing where I have a glowing light in my hands. I also wanted it to shine while looking like it’s behind my hands and in front of my face. I didn’t have any green screen so I knew it would be really hard to make this effect look decent without being super still. Also I didn’t learn how to animate masks until after I made it, haha. So I decided to use a photo so it would be easy for me to just concentrate on the special effect.

“These are hands?!”

I used a combination of duplicate layers, masks, color, and lighting effects aside from the orb. At first the effect worked as I wanted except my fingers from the lower layers were visible as the perspective became more exaggerated. So I decided to make the effect very subtle. It was okay but I wanted a really noticeable effect. Then I figured I should separate the hands in their own layers so I can animate them to cover the layers better. This is what I ended up with:

If you look around the channel, you can see the process I went through. :D

Putting in some work on my new kind of canvas.

Sometimes you just get a good idea. You never know where it’s gonna come from or when it’ll happen. You might be playing a new video game and the music will spark something. Maybe you’ll be chatting with a friend at Starbucks and a punch-line to a joke makes you think “Why DOESN’T that exist yet?” And then you think, “Somebody oughtta do it.” Why can’t that somebody be you? Maybe it’s not in line with your hobbies or career. But if it is, by all means you should go for it with all you’ve got! And it doesn’t have to be alone. If others around you see how fired up you are then they’d probably be happy to help and support you! Who knows? Maybe your positive, go-getter attitude will help them pursue an idea that drives them.

The reason why I talk about this is that I have been snowballing idea after idea and I’ve actually been taking all of it down using my phone, computer, notebook, whiteboard, whatever. And I’ve actually already started working on some ideas for a making T-Shirts. I’ve been doing a ton of research; being careful about how I approach this. I was able to chat with others about it. Now I’ve got my feet grounded and I am ready to do this! The ideas just keep coming and they’re starting to keep me up at night. If you see me and I’ll be burying my face into my computer or sketchbook all the time because I’ll either be doing homework or cranking out notes and sketches like a madman! I feel like I no longer have free time. But what I consider free time now (not doing anything) is wasted time because what I used to consider leisure has become my work! …but in a good way. So I present to you… my new canvas. Good day!

Rough sketch animation starting with Jelly King

Click on the picture!

Wrath of the Jelly King!

This a quick sketch of a drawing and an animation of the Poundcake Rangers running away from the Jelly King! The Poundcake Rangers is composed of me, Mam, Kchan, and Ally. More to come later~

I’m working on an action platformer!

So out of the blue I thought of a game that would be awesome to make using a cartoon character I made up a while back. It’d involve Chupi, my version of La Chupacabra. But instead of being the hero, it’ll actually be the antagonist.

For now the project is just in the concept phase and I’m thinking up things that I wanna include or change my mind about later. The only things I want to include that won’t change for sure are Chupi and the little chicken characters I made. I’m thinking that the hero or main character should be an avatar representative of anybody playing the game. This means it’ll be any race and any gender. I haven’t decided on if it’ll be a customizable character or a comprehensive collection of characters. As for the mechanics of the game, it’s going to give any nostalgic gamer the feel of a good ol’ action platformer. It’s going to be wacky, cartoony, and gory. The gore could be transformed to rainbow blood for an easy toggle for “gore mode”. I also want it to be fast and intuitive so that it doesn’t feel clunky or frustrating to control. I want to make it feel like one of my favorite games of all time: The Animaniacs for Sega Genesis! I love this game! It’s fast, challenging, and extremely fun! Eventually I’m hoping to maybe port this game or make an easy version of it for mobile platforms. First it’s going to be a flash game that plays on a browser because it’s free to publish that. It’d cost a lot of money to put it on all mobile platforms.

Looking at this picture gives a little hint about the main mechanics of the game but that could change down the line. I’d want to use fully animated sequences for sure though. It won’t be too hard if they’re short FMVs. And right now I’m using an online learning site called Lynda to help me with animation. I’m paying for a subscription and it’s really cheap compared to what I’d be paying for actual classes. So far I’ve learned a lot about animating in flash that’d definitely help me an a lot of other things. This site also contains learning material for a lot of other programs or platforms like HTML5 so I’ll definitely be milking my subscription for more than it’s worth =P. I’ve dug up a lot of material on Actionscript 3 and hopefully I’ll pull this off as a one-man dev team! That is unless somebody wants to help me! *wink*

I’m really excited about this idea and it’s also really fun just thinking up ideas and writing them down. I’m basically ready to take down ideas anywhere I go. You’ll be seeing more about this in the future. Whoohoo! Go Chupi!

I made my first music video!

So I took a little trip this summer to attend a wedding. While I was there I got to hang out with a few of my oldest childhood friends. It was an awesome experience and I wanted to make a little music video that sort of reflected my experience.

I haven’t made a music video like this before so I hope I achieved my goal which is: make a music video, haha! At first I tried using Windows Movie Maker but then my Netbook couldn’t handle splitting 1080p video clips a bunch of times. Eventually I had to download this freeware video editor called Mixpad Video Editor. It’s actually really awesome for freeware and it runs REALLY well on my Netbook. I had to use the video converter, also by Mixpad, to convert the 1080p video to regular 480 resolution video. (Windows Movie Maker couldn’t handle all the splitting I was doing even with the size change.) Finally I had to plug in my Netbook into an external monitor because the layout of the program couldn’t fit in my small screen resolution =[.

So I had a few hardships on the way but eventually got to cranking out what I wanted.

Please let me know what you think! =]

This zombie wants McDonald’s!

So last night Danny, Carmela, and I went out to CSU East Bay to shoot this little video. I don’t know how but somehow we convinced Danny to go to a McDonald’s drive-thru while still wearing the make-up! I know he wouldn’t have even thought of doing this in high school. Muahahaha =P.

Anyway, I had a fun time doing this shoot. There was dancing, cool/creepy music, and a scared custodian who locked the door frantically, haha. It was thought out but the make-up took longer than expected. We also couldn’t get liquid latex or fake blood but we made due with a very frugal budget. Good job Danny! Also, thanks for your help Carmela! The longest part of the project was probably trying to edit then publish this 1080p video from my netbook using Windows Movie Maker! sigh… (about the netbook that is. Movie Maker is pretty legit!) Well, in the end I got some video-making experience and a cheeseburger… All in a day’s work, haha.

Here’s some more pictures!

Here’s my first video edited through Final Cut Pro!

This was shot during another impromptu shoot while we were at tapioca express. We’ll soon do more Korean Drama videos now that we have a fancy camera. Look out for JoMamKchan!

I’ve pretty much only used Windows Movie Maker before and iMovie once. I’m so excited for learning how to use this and also hopefully I get to learn how to use After Effects and Motion. I achieved one of the things I’ve always wanted to do through video. Wo0t! After watching the video I’m sure you know what exactly that is.

I’m gonna be YouTube famous after THIS!

My high-speed camera has arrived! Bullet-time action shots?!

Whoohoo! I’m so excited! This camera is called the Casio Exilim ZR100. I mentioned it in a previous post when I mentioned researching for the right camera. After days and weeks of research, I’ve settled with this camera for the best budget (it was a little over $200) and functionality (It shoots up to 1080p and can film up to 1,000fps). Comparable cameras are easily at least twice as expensive, sometimes even have less advantages, and can even be a lot bulkier (EX-F20). I am so happy about this investment and my choice of of a digital camera. I have a feeling this will be a new beginning for videography and photography for me!

Anyway, this camera shoots really really good stills and is really good with low-light environments. I used it immediately after I got it and had no time to read any manuals. I will have to do that eventually but I was in a rush. So I went about testing the functions and just figuring out how this thing works. There are a looot of things going on in this camera… Here is a sample of real slow motion shot at 240fps:

As you can see, the video is super dark. This is because at 240fps there is very little light able to enter the lens when it’s shooting that fast. That being said, the higher framerate I go the more light I’m going to need to shoot quality footage. Another cool feature this camera has is to switch from 30fps (regular speed) to 240fps on the fly while you’re shooting a video!

Here’s a test of 1080p video!

This camera also takes really nice looking mugshots!

Also, take a look at this studio-like shot :3

Aside from these test videos, I also shot a lot of other video clips and photos. Soon you’ll be seeing another post on JoMamKchan! In case you missed it, Kristian, Mary Ann, and I shot a short video at a Walmart using my HD7. It was impromptu and turned out to be pretty cool!

Inspired to make more videos, I can’t wait to use this camera on a tripod for some better looking shots. And don’t forget about the super slow motion!