• January 2025

    // laurelmojica // News No Responses

    Happy New Year!

    (Can I still say that near the end of January??)

    What’s new here?

    Well, we did take some time off over the holidays, but we’re in the middle of making another short. We hope to have it up in a week or so. It introduces our newest character, a waitress at the Dark Alley Diner. We’ll add her to the cast list above once we publish her short.

    Meescha has yet another character in the works for us.

    Giovanni is smoothing the way for us to upgrade to Unreal Engine 5.4.

    Jose is working on new scripts for complete episodes, as well as more shorts.

    Laurel is working on the short that is currently half-finished—getting all the characters assembled and synched, etc.

    We also have a new episode up for our podcast, and a second one recorded that we’ll post very soon. Also, our podcast is now available through Apple Podcasts, as well as Amazon Music, and Spotify.

    We’re still waiting for word on the Epic MegaGrant we applied for in October, but we’re working hard while we wait. We plan to submit a full episode to some film festivals that accept VR animations. It’s amazing how many do that now! We’ll keep you updated as that progresses, too.

  • November 2024

    // laurelmojica // News No Responses

    We’re pretty excited: we submitted our application to Epic MegaGrants!

    Now we wait…and continue working.

    We’ve spent some time cleaning up our project, and planning for next steps.

    • Giovanni is figuring out how we can add new episodes as DLCs.
    • Meescha is creating new characters and learning how to clean up animation in iClone.
    • Jose and I started recording a podcast. I’m just beginning to post the episodes here: Bacon Wrapped Avocado: Creativity Unwrapped You can also find them on Spotify, Amazon Music, Podcast Index, Fountain, and True Fans. I’ll be adding more episodes and listing it on more podcast servers soon.
    • We’re also scripting additional full episodes for Season One. We’ll let you know as we get more done and add shorts to our channel.

    One reason I haven’t posted recently has been that my MBA class this term has kept me busier than previously.  Part of it was a simulation that just ended. My team scored in the top 10% worldwide, so that was fun. Three more classes to go!

    I hope you’re enjoying your autumn. We are!

  • August 2024

    // laurelmojica // News No Responses

    Sorry about the radio silence!

    We’ve had a lot of good/bad/complicated stuff going on and I keep forgetting to make time to talk about it.

    Fun things: We have a couple of new videos up in the Corazon Shorts. We figured out how to make 360 3D animated videos for YouTube using a plug-in we like for Unreal Engine called Off World Live. Also, YouTube now accepts 360 3D videos in 8K, which makes a HUGE difference in how they look. You should check them out!

    Meescha has been creating some great assets (check out the posters in the Dark Alley Diner) and Giovanni figured out how to record a user entering information in the menus, so our demonstration video is getting more robust.

    We’re getting better at all of it as we keep going!

    Jose uses Rokoko for motion capture and I use Perception Neuron. Our last few sessions have gone well. Our whole pipeline is getting better. It still takes about three weeks to create a one minute video (from concept to publishing on YouTube), but we do have almost a dozen characters in them. It makes the stories more interesting to watch in 360 3D.

    I’ll do my best to get back to monthly updates. Until, next time!