Production Blog 2: Chasing A Dream

The second scene that I worked on is the chase scene. This is a lead on from the previous scene but it's a different part of the same section of the facility. I decided that two of four scenes would take place within' the facility before a final showdown in the last scene. These scenes would be the cornerstone of a big finale by showing two incidents of people being screwed by their circumstances and causing them to die. Something Mr. Freeman was lucky to not because of a little help from an unknown benefactor but this second scene became important due the lead up after this scene which would be a tram that has two people on it trying to escape the facility. The next scene is important for that regard but I needed to set up the scene in a way so that the tram would be obvious and visible so that it's not an random prop.

Work on this scene was much easier compared to my first animated escapade in SFM. It was easily done in the pipeline because I figured out the ins and outs of character movement within' SFM. It was complicated but it was what I needed to understand or else I wouldn't be able to animate harder and more difficult scenes if I wanted to do them. And there is more difficult scenes to animate because the final scene of the film will have multiple elements of animation and tons of models on screen at one time which is why I feel every scene up to that point will help me get at a skill level where I might actually be able to pull off how difficult the scene could and will be. This chase scene was just a stepping stone of making movement look good and just seeing if I could make a basic lead up to somewhere where the tram can be visible.

The nameless scientist sees that his way onto the tram is impeded.

Now the movement from point A to point B is easy and was easy for me. As I stated, the process of understanding movement in the 3D world by use of keyframes became understandable. I managed to grasp what needed to be done in order to properly assess what amount of distance would need to be done for animation to work. That's why after the second major animated scene I learned that I should use as much space for each shot then cut it when I feel it works for what I want it to do. Obviously I made one mistake this time around with this entire sequence but that's better than the last scene which i'll have to go back and fix to be less of a major mistake. It's good though because I managed to learn the exact limitations of what I can and can't do. Limitations which might have killed me had I not managed to endure the high learning curve of SFM. A high learning curve is good though because once you get over the hump then you're fine to do what you couldn't manage to do before. That's something I don't hate either because my efficiency has gotten much better and I can animate more scenes in a shorter amount of time.

There's not too much I can really say about this scene without much spoilers. I've neglected many elements but i'd prefer to leave it that way till I get every scene done, sound mixed in SFM with effects, rendered, and shipped into Premiere for final editing. The first trailer will be out sometime within' the next month or two. I'm sure of that. There's no doubt about it. The next scene to be discussed with little spoilers is the third which sets up the final act in a way which will become the most complicated and complex scene I have to animate.

Stay tuned for more production blogs.

Lambda Incident is a Source Filmmaker film slated for a 2015 release. All stills and preview footage is a work in progress and as such nothing is final. San Danne Studios is using Valve Source Filmmaker, a free released animation and video editing program, and the assets of Black Mesa: Source to create the film. All copyright of Half Life belongs to Valve Software and has been made with respect to the user agreement stated by both Valve Software and the Black Mesa: Source team.