Archive for January, 2010

Well this week has been much of the usual cramming of model building, positioning, animating, texturing, mouth syncing; whenever there’s been a free moment.

Part 8 is looking good so far, I’m very happy with it, there have been some really demanding renders, we’re talking 2 hours plus for a 150 frame shot which works out to only 6 seconds long at 24 fps, so you get an idea how there are times when you can do nothing except wait for the computer to get your shot complete for you.

Today I reached 25% completion of Part 8, so one quarter completed, which is a mini-milestone for me

Luckily no crashes this week – thank god

A big thanks to WCNews for the coverage on my last roundup post – thanks guys you are a real godsend for tiny little websites like mine.

It is my hope that I am able to get Part 8 out by mid to late February, as you can imagine I am spending every single spare second working on it, with the slight exception of playing Crysis which I am proud to say I completed last week – my god that was an awesome game!

So once more a big thanks to the supporters and fans, you guys rock!

Lew

In 2299 the Asimov was assigned to Project Hades and ordered behind enemy lines for a top-secret mission to chart what was thought to be a newly-discovered black hole in the Reinager System.

The details surrounding Project Hades are still highly classified and very few people know its intentions.

A distress call was received from Ensign Sarah Keller – the chief communications officer on board soon after the ship entered the system, and the ship was not heard from again.

It is presently listed as Missing in Action, with no known surivors. However soon after the Asimov went missing, Grand Duke Zariz IV ordered Major-General Howell of AFSOR to recruit a top man to track down and information and/or survivors of the Asimov – that man was Major Caine.

Go to U.S.S. Asimov Page

In 2299 Wexler found himself attached to a secret mission into the Reinager system, while there with two BOS platoons as the official BOS presence during the operation, Wexler’s real mission would be monitoring the progress of survivor and info retrieval from the U.S.S. Asimov (SDX-6152).

Wexler is man whose loyalty to the Union far exceeds reason and logic, his unstable mental state makes him a very dangerous individual and while he is respected by his peers for his accomplishments, he is few on friends… but this is the way Wexler likes it – no attachments.

Go to Arnold Wexler’s Character Page

This article is the first in what will be a series I’ll do every Saturday, recapping work done in the last week, audience responses, and other stuff that maybe time to time unrelated.

Well this week was really busy! First off last week Part 7 got put up and I took a few days off animating to put my feet up. So as soon as Monday struck this week I was back into it. And so far it’s going pretty well, currently scene 19 is being animated and I’m about a minute in to the entire part.

Scene 19 concerns the dropships launching and how dangerous the launch process can be.

One exciting (if you can call it that) thing that happened was in fact just this morning when I had put together a shot and upon saving was told by my animating program that the file was corrupted – oh my god I said! This two hours of work putting this shot together is now down the tube – so after visiting a few forums to see if there was any light at the end of this tunnel I was soon to discover that in fact this program has a secret autosave folder, for this very problem, and praise the lord I found my shot still very up to date and ready to go. God bless backup files.

Some of you may have noticed that Frontier now has a facebook page with modest number of fans, I’m really amazed it had any at all – and I thank all of you who are fans for you support, because without I’d probably not bother doing this, so thank you again all who are onboard there it means a lot to see you took the time to become a fan.

PS. Sean I know you’re not on facebook, but a thank you to you too, you have been the most ardent fan since the very beginning and it’s always good to see you in the comments boxes here on the site.

A big welcome also to Hazend who runs battlestarcentral.com – he has been really supportive to this project and that means heaps! His site features an epic fan saga of Battlestar Galactica novels, they are incredible and I highly suggest you go have a look see!

So to wrap it up, this week is going well I put Part 8 at about 12% complete – may seem like a low number but you’d be amazed how quickly it grows.

Thank you again to everyone and I’ll check it again next week

Lew

In 2299, after being ordered back to Earth the Hornblower received 288 troops from Baker and Dog Companies of the 309th Infantry Assault Regiment, 5th Infantry Division under the temporary command of Brigadier-General Rummel, and also one Special Operations Squad from the B.O.S. led by Captain Wexler. Among the troops from Baker Company were 2nd Lieutenant Ender, Platoon Sergeant Stewart, Staff Sergeant Ogilvy, Corporal Ross, Private First Class Paskiwycz, Privates Groenan and Lopez and Private Recruits Devers, Keller and Anderson.

After taking on their human cargo the Hornblower and Patton rendezvoused with the remainder of the Reinager Invasion Group in orbit of Fiersis in the Granedee System. From their the group entered the Reinager system and the Hornblower along with the other ‘Monty’ Destroyers commenced their landing craft operations.

Go to U.S.S. Hornblower Ship Page

In 2298 Ender’s platoon was ordered to charge a pirate land base, while this base was strategically unimportant, and later was discovered abandoned with only the automated defence-guns remaining online, Ender’s platoon was still ordered in.

Ender knowing all these facts flatly refused the order and the base was instead hammered into dust by the Air Force.

Ender was demoted back to 2^nd Lieutenant.

A years later Ender found himself and his men being prepared for the invasion of Toyr’diablo, with his depleted numbers his platoon took on some replacements – namely Privates Devers, Keller and Anderson. Due to his heroism during the Hoyle invasion, Ender put Paskiwycz in charge as their on-the-job trainer.

Ender has the utmost respect from his men who see him as a capable, compassionate and intelligent commander who knows the needs of his soldiers. Ender keeps cool under fire with his voice never even showing a hint of panic.

Go to Miles Ender’s Character Page

Well after a few nudges in this direction I have decided to open up a Frontier – Prelude to Darkness facebook page, so fell free to follow us on facebook, and tell your friends! Go right here!