Delta Patrol: Blooper #17

Delta Patrol production is still on stand by, but the bloopers aren't!

Prehistoric Insanity in cooperation with eTrilobite have created a fill-in strip for the Burgess Shale themed webcomic Walcott's Quarry.

Delta Patrol: Blooper #16

The only bad part of having lots of exciting projects on the go is that some of them get less attention then others. At moment sadly the easiest to put on the backburner is Delta Patrol.

Rather than pretend that our old goal of a release this year is going to achievable, we here at the Prehistoric Insanity executive are officially announcing that we are bumping back the completion till late 2010.

With both the key producers of this film being back in the same place in February of next year (the first time they'll together since filming this film!) they will no doubt make a huge impact on post production at this point in time.

Despite this unfortunate (but necessary) set back, we will continuing to post bloopers (and hopefully more regularly).

Delta Patrol: Blooper #15

Delta production has slowed down a bit lately, but it has not been forgotten (unlike the blooper uploads).

Hopefully resuming as a regular feature here again, we give you more Delta bloopers!

Art of the Unspecified Time Interval: #28

Cambrian Reef by Craig Dylke

A reef made of various Cambrian era sponges all found in the Burgess Shale.

This is Craig's modern attempt at his old Cambrian Forest.

It is also going to be part of his art submissions for ART Evolved's September show. Be sure to get your entry in today!

He has also produced a test animation. Quite possibly a sample of things to come here at Prehistoric Insanity.

Delta Patrol: Setting the Scene

With completion of the ROUGH CUT, Craig now has the long and "fun" process of special effects creation to look forward to. Or not as the case may be.

Though it all seems straight forward, creating special effects can be quite a deceptively complex and complicated process.

One of the first big challenges Craig faces is creating the setting of the movie... SPACE

In 3D terms space is in some ways easy. In all 3D programs you just start with an empty void as your workspace. A perfect simulation of Space. However of course you have to add some things to that or it'd seem too empty.

A generic star field is easy enough with a JPEG working as a backdrop. Yet in our movie the action all happens in a planetary system. The Delta system. Meaning Craig now has a location to build. Even if it is not a location of the scale we normally think of as one!

This was his first stab at it in 2006. Wanting something a little more visual interesting then just a planet floating in space, Craig opted for a nice blue nebula as an additional backdrop element. He's theory being that it will help contrast the spaceships once their added (a trick he picked up from his teen favourite Babylon 5).

However this still seemed pretty bland and pedestrian to him (and us!) so he went back to the drawing board. Or as they call it in Carrara the building floor.

For his second go, Craig added a second ring around the planet to spice it up. It also gives him a better setting for a very key action sequence where some spaceships battle it out in the asteroids that make up those rings.

To help liven up the nebula Craig added a sharp contrasting pink to the cloud effect. Giving the setting a much more lively and engaging look. Plus with some spaceships (the old abandoned design for the heroes vessels) you can see how the nebula helps bring them out of the background.

However with the lose of that particular 2006, Craig was forced to reinvent the wheel a little bit this week when re approaching the scene.

He also wanted the rings to be a little more dynamic, and so reoriented the planet to the camera. The problem being the bigger ring disappeared all together.

So with minor tweaking he has corrected the problem!

Now for the "bigger" problem of space. Due to the cloud effects used to create the nebula it takes a lot of time to render. However for the purposes of animation this is a real time waster as it doesn't move. In fact being so big and far away conceptually neither it nor the planet need to be actual models any of the scenes.

Craig's solution is to figure out how to make a proper "background" which will encompass the modelling space. Backgrounds can be thought of as a jpeg wallpaper that is plastered all around the imaginary spherical boundary of the modelling space. In theory if Craig can figure out the dimensions of this imaginary boundary he can set up the Delta system as a essentially constant, yet non existent element of his scenes.

He has a lot of R and D to do to get there. However he has done some building on the environment which is promising.

Integrating the Asteroids he previewed last year he has come up with a nearly finally quality sample shot. Though he tells us he wants to slow the asteroids down a titch.

Delta Patrol: Things are Shaping Up

With Delta Patrol having been filmed just about 3 years ago, it is a sad fact that some things have been have been misplaced and lost surrounding it. Especially since one of the key editors has moved across the world in the meantime.

One of the causalities has been the first run at the special effects. Such as this lovely start on the smugglers ship.

In his move, Craig misplaced the majority of the models he started in 2006. However the good news is since then he has gotten a whole lot better as 3D design and modelling.

This week he began attempting to rebuild this vessel, and got this far. Not a bad rebuild if you ask us (not that you would :P) considering he did this all from scratch.

Yet Craig had a brainstorm. This was a pretty small for the bad guy's mother ship. It seemed fitting they should get a larger ship to fulfill their big bad position...

Taking the parts he rebuilt (and a few new ones) Craig retooled them into this 3 times large vessel.

It losses some of the simplicity of the old design, but makes up for it in size and mystery.



Craig's motivation for the change was also for his desire for nearly every ship and space construct to having moving parts in them. This is partially out of respect for the video game the movie was named after. All the ships in it had moving parts to make them more exciting in the 8bit game days. It also will hopefully set Delta Patrol visually apart from other amateur (and even professional) sci-fi effects.

Let us know what you think.

Delta Patrol: Choose Your Own Blooper

Who says one can't have fun while editing together a movie?


Well Craig does actually, and after two straight days of hearing nothing but "rolling and action" at the beginning of every take he has gone a little mad...

Nothing but good news is the result of this though!

Not only does it mean the ENTIRE movie is now ready for Craig to edit (as it is now just the takes themselves for him to go through, without their pre-filming intros), but out of the mania it has enduced in him, we now get a fun byproduct of editing.

In the course of editing the many "cockpit" scenes of the film, Craig discovered this gem of PIP's own Peter Bond that just screamed for some modifications.

Rather then keep the fun of choosing what should accompany this scene, Craig has decided to showcase his candidates and let us the people make the final call!

Delta Patrol: Blooper #14

It is hard to believe just how long it has been since any real work was done on Delta Patrol!

In our creative teams' defense the hiatus has lead to several other fantastic projects. ART Evolved and the current Dinosaur invasion of Traumador being the main time thieves.

However given Craig's recent unhappiness with the new Star Trek, he has been re inspired by the sci-fi genre, and full fledged production has begun again! He figures its about time Hollywood be shown that one can made an equally mediocre sci-fi film for 1 millionth the budget.

To, somewhat, make up for their absence for so long here is a super long blooper for you to enjoy.

Modelling a 3D Prehistoric Creature

We shiftly approach the 2nd ART Evolved Time Capsule palaeo-art carnival, and as of such most online prehistoric artists are pouring over on their creations this week.

Our own resident 3D artist Craig is no exception.

Despite it having no use or purpose for it in any of PIP's productions, Craig has spent the better part of a week creating this Gorgonopsid and fashioning a scene for it worthy of Charles Knight (Craig's words not ours!).

He tells us the final product was finalized last night, and he is not entirely unhappy with the result. Meaning it must be alright, as Craig is our resident overly self-critical perfectionist (to check out his rocky quest with this critter check out his posts on it here, here, and here).

Craig for the first time ever has documented every step in the creation of one of his prehistoric beast, giving you some insight into how complicated making such things can be.

Craig has assured us this is merely the first such sequence he'll be making. According to him the Gorgonopsid's head was rather "simple" compared to a Dinosaurs due to the lack of any skull openings.

He plans on documenting his next Dinosaur construction for you soon to show the difference!

Traumador: Huge Event

Traumador the Tyrannosaur may not know it yet, but his Canada adventure is about to get a whole lot more thrilling in the next week!

Be sure not to miss out on the huge Dinosaur packed escapade that is coming this way...

To see how this new generation of Traumador effects are being made be sure to check out PIPs own digital creator Craig's posts here, there, and here.

Classic Traumador

This week we brushed off a classic piece of Prehistoric Insanity history. One of Traumador the Tyrannosaur's education programs from his pre-internet days.

As part of a summer camp program in which the campers sorted micro fossils for actual scientific research, a introduction was needed to both educate the kids on what these fossils were, and at the same time how they were collected.

Traumador (or as he was known back then Trogador) was a perfect fit for the bill. This 15 minute presentation was created over a single weekend (as the summer camp's prep schedule was quite fast paced) as a power point.

We here at Prehistoric Insanity have taken the liberty of reformatting this into a proper video slideshow, with a few updated slides (mostly just CG shots from Traumador's current blog), but otherwise left this authentic piece of Traumador's past intact.

Enjoy!

ART Evolved the Launch!

Greetings friends!



Hopefully you're here to check out the first ever ART Evolved palaeo-art gallery. Though we're glad you came by to do so, as this was where we were advertising it going up, we here at PIP have a slight confession to make.

It was a ruse... though only after a fashion.

When we announced this Palaeo-Art initiative months ago, enough Palaeo-Artists of the blogging sphere were so into the project that an entire new blog ended up being born out of the excitement.

Since this new blog was born out of the energy created by the ART Evolved Gallery we thought what could be a better home for this gallery than this brand new site...
We also figured since the gallery had such a cool name, why not give it to the site as well.

So we here at Prehistoric Insanity are proud to present to the world the brand new Palaeo-Art focused blog...

ART Evolved: Life's Time Capsule

Here you will not only find the Ceratopsian Gallery, but you'll also find in the coming weeks, months, hopefully years articles and posts about nothing but Palaeo-Art.

Though we here at Prehistoric Insanity are hosting and maintaining this site, it is by no means a project restricted to our own ranks. Far from it. This blog is proud to present a roster of over a dozen contributors, some very well known to the palaeontology blogging sphere, others making their debut to it here for the very first time!

So be sure to head on over and check it out, and to expect some cool stuff to occur over there!

Something Big is Coming...

Just a friendly reminder to everyone that March. 1st steadily approaches, and we'd love for more entries into the first ever ART Evolved gallery. So get your horned dinosaur related art to us as soon as you can...

For everyone who has made their submission (and they are starting to roll in!) thank you very much!!!

Take it from those few of us lucky enough to get a sneak peak, it is definitely going to be awesome!

Despite the fact the ART Evolved gallery has been a project some 3 months in the making, there has been an even bigger project Prehistoric Insanity spearheaded back then, that has now grown to involve some of the most talented people in the palaeo-blogging sphere. We are pleased and excited to announce the dividends of this colossal effort are about to hit the web to coincide with the launch of the ART Evolved gallery.

We're not saying anything more about it at the moment, but be sure to check back here on March. 1st and you'll be able to witness the dawn of a new era in the palaeo-blogging sphere!

Art of the Unspecified Time Interval: #27

The 'Evolution' of Charles Darwin
by Peter Bond - 2009

This portrait of Darwin was painted in acrylics to celebrate his 200th birthday anniversary and the 150th anniversary of the publishing of his important work - The Origin of the Species. You can see the creation of this tribute to Charles Darwin here.

Speaking of art, don't forget to create YOUR art piece for the upcoming ART Evolved carnival!