22 October 2017

The Witness - game review


I finally finished the Witness on Steam (It was recently released for IOS as well.)
Overall the game is impressive in both its design and extensive world footprint. A puzzle game set on an island, it brings Myst to mind immediately, but veers off in a very different direction. The biggest change is there isn't a story of any kind to follow, so there really isn't anything to spoil as it's just puzzle solving and exploration. The puzzles are pretty much all of one kind, tracing paths on screens to activate more screens and to open doors. There is a surprising amount of variety I didn't expect in puzzles with such limited parameters.

The looks of the game is very much like an illustration and the scenery is beautifully done and includes lots of little fun extras, like rock formations that make characters from certain angles and it even using your shadow in fun ways here and there. There a re a few little hidden alcoves that serve no purpose other than to show you a cool little part of the mysterious island.

If you are looking for meaning... or a solution to what happened on the island - forget it, it's not coming and it obviously wasn't meant to be explained. This is a pure explore and solve experience with not consequences and I appreciated that.

Game play was fairly smooth on my iMac and while, like all these puzzle games, there are a few parts that will drive you crazy (even with cheating) there was nothing as frustrating as the maze puzzle in Obduction to worry about.

So, overall, fun to look at, a good diverting game!

12 October 2017

New Science animation - Back Pain


The latest science video fro Body of Evidence and Dr. Christopher Labos. They seem to have gone from simple cut out animations to al out fully 3D character animations somehow. Teddy is the Doctor's sidekick of sorts for the podcast and now he has presence in the short films!

14th Another Hole in the Head film festival



The 14th Another Hole in the Head film festival will be held in San Fransisco October 25th - November 8. My two recent films, Staley Fleming's Hallucination and The Oval Portrait will be shown, but so far no times have been published. If you are in the San Fran area... please go and gush over my work and make sure everyone sees you!

Dates and places for the shows!  Click to see where and when.

Staley Fleming's Hallucination

The Oval Portrait

Watch this post for updates!

03 October 2017

Teddy - new 3D cartoon character


Teddy will be added to the science series I occasionally animate for Doctor Christopher Labos at "The Body of Evidence" podcast. He will join the doctor character and a slew of others I've made but haven't put in projects yet. The shorts are only about 1 ½ - 2 minutes long but have quite a bit of movement in them. While Teddy is a bit different from the rest, being a toy bear and fuzzy we are hoping he will fit right in and become the doctor's main companion in the coming animations. The series started out using limited 2D animations of illustrations but we never seemed able to get artists to stay long enough to get more than one short done with them... if even that! So last time out I decided to use my 3d skills, and make a cast of characters I could reuse and animate in a limited but consistent way.

Technically speaking, he is better modelled than most of my earlier efforts at cartoon characters and done from scratch. This images him is his neutral pose as he isn't rigged for movement yet. My next personal film with Mike Luce involves a very cartoon-y character so I am hoping this is a sign that it will go even better as it will be much, much more complicated to pull off.

UPDATE:
ready to start animating!