A belated Happy New Year to everyone out there in Internet land. I have been continuing the production of The Cryonic Pharaoh despite a severe delay in obtaining hardware I ordered back in August. At less than $300, the Rokoko Headrig was steal when I bought it, but the delays in shipping have led me and fellow animators on Discord to lose our collective minds. I finally received my shipping notification today that it’s on its way from Denmark.

While I’ve been waiting, I’ve been trying to do things that don’t require full-body motion capture, such as numerous scenes of the main character video blogging into his diary and producing some sweet AI-aided voice alteration with the help of Altered Studio.

With nothing better to do, I also dove into the world of Unreal Engine visual effects by taking an Udemy course by Vince Petrelli. Below is a quick screen cap of what I’ve made. Lately, I’ve been learning how to do more complicated stuff such as making a realistic waterfall, which will be helpful in some third-act scenes:

I’m still hopeful the film will be completed this year. Once it’s in the can, I will still have many months of post production to do, but it will be an interesting journey.

In the meantime, I’m also collecting useful free assets to use in future projects. Epic Games, for instance, releases a few free things every month, and I have to pounce on them and add them to my collection before they start charging again. I’m especially interested in collecting beautiful environments that might be used as movie sets one day, such as the Ithris Cemetery by Rasmus Bagner.

I haven’t done much in the way of prose fiction writing for the past year—just haven’t been interested—although I do have a bevy of short stories and screenplays I’m considering self-publishing as a collection. Except for the 1-2 hours I spend at the start of each day on things like The Cryonic Pharaoh, a lot of my creative gas is spent building and launching websites for fire & EMS (17 sites in 2023) and leveling up my understanding of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. I’m now trying to get my shit together to take a brown belt exam in the fall, after over 11 years of training. My New Year’s resolution is to get myself in better shape for that through outside weight training and cardio.

Between movie production, BJJ, and general life, I expect the year go to by quickly. I’m glad to have these long-term goals to shape my day and a family that supports me.

Vote Blue!