Sleepless Episode 1

It's finally finished. Sci-Fi did a great job on this after working so damn hard on it. The animation and character design are more unique than a traditional anime or manga styling, and really fits the mood of the movie.

I voiced the character Sin and will be reprising the role in episode two when it is finally released.

Go watch, vote, and review!

Sleepless Episode 1

Well, I'm extending a hand out there to people who would like to try their hands at helping with a transition between scenes. For the love of all that is good on NG, I want to stay away from the static screen/Robot Chicken transition because it's so over used.

Now, I'm not asking for anyone to make one for me. I'm good enough to make one myself. The issue I'm having is coming up with a good bump. The two I came up with were pathetic, sadly, and so I'm looking outside for assistance. If you do make one then you will get full credit for it, but I'm more interested in the ideas. Of course, you'll get full credit for the transition idea.

For those of you who need to know, the project is a standard 550x400 and is running at 24fps. The title of the project has the word "Holy" in it, though there's nothing religious about it.

What have I tried? I tried a Quick Swipe and a Dash/Zip (ala Phoenix Wrong and Dragonball Z), but neither worked well enough for this.

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With that said, the project itself is going well. I'm something like 18 scenes into it with a running time around 2.5 minutes. Each skit is quick and not drawn out. Two of them were animated previously for The ALL Sprites Collab, but weren't placed because of file trouble, and two others were up for ideas in The ALL Sprites Collab, but were turned down.

I'm not using jokes other people have used before, so don't expect to see stupid shit like Mario catching on fire after using a fire-flower or Sonic running into a wall at full speed. No, I'm using things myself and Wyldfyre1 have brain stormed on. I even made sure the jokes weren't used previously in sprite animations. There is only one I noticed someone else did, but in a different manner, so I'm keeping it. Three ideas I came up with were already used (such as someone doing the moonwalk to Thriller against a Castlevania backdrop), so I just dropped the ideas all together.

When will I be done? I don't know...depends on when I feel it's long enough with good enough jokes strung together. Every time I think that I've come up with all the ones I will use and begin to do the last scene, I think of one, two, or three more and start putting them into effect.

Oh, one scene in particular that you'll see was inspired by inGenius (go listen to his music and drop some props) and will be used in the Game Ranger 4. I didn't animate it in as epic of manner as it will be in GR4, but if you can figure out which one it is, you're ahead of the game.

What are you all doing here still reading this..? Get some ideas tossed my way and get some credit in this!

All Sprites Collab

Well, after quite a few issues, a long time in the making, and the kindness of Tom Fulp for a file size increase, the collab is ready!

You're looking at are awesome skits by a lot of sprite artists. A lot, and I mean a lot, of effort went into getting this collab ready for your hungry eyes. Sprites from all games of all styles were allowed, hence the name.

Who's involved?

Segaplaya
Flashman16
GameboyPlayer
Greenfrost6
HyperGumba
SegaSeductress
Sprite-Harvester
Sunrie
Wyldfyre1
Spiko
BigJimmy08
Elelite1
Hellosmartguy
MartinSMcFly
Funbie
Necofearer
DougApproved
DeathOne4Ever
Gunstar-X

Yeah, there's some freaking talent right there, so you know it's going to be good! Go vote, please review, and as always, enjoy!

All Sprites Collab

Well, we are working on the script for the Game Ranger 4. The bad news is we're looking at maybe up to two months to finish it. Why? Well, for one thing, quality assurance, and two, there's going to be a minimum of 18 characters who need lines written. A few trusted people have given us ideas on things for the next episode, so we will be using the good suggestions. Also, we'll probably be extending an offer of allowed help to a few trusted others as well with the script, just to make sure things stay fresh.

Yeah, you read that right. We'll be needing at least 13 additional voice actors, all of whom will be playing large parts in this episode. Each character will have around fifteen lines a piece.

What I'm aiming for here is a ten minute episode of just the main scenes. Now, if we feel that the movie would just be too drawn out doing that, obviously it will be cut shorter. We may even get the movie and point across doing it in five minutes total run time...I don't know yet!

So, where's Ron going and who's he meeting? It's a secret right now. I will say that there won't be much mixing and matching of sprites from different gaming worlds in the fourth episode, however, since it's going to be a self contained world, with Ron just happening to have to go there to put things right. Of course, knowing Ron, "putting things right" means gimping his way through it and getting lucky.

Once the script has been finalized and we feel satisfied with it, there will be an open audition! At this time, besides Ron, Magus, and three other characters, there is no person in mind for the other mains. We do know what we'd like them to sound like, though. So don't be afraid to throw us your auditions when the time comes.

Finalized for the Game Ranger 4 is the ability to choose to watch an intro sequence or go straight to the scene selection, the intro sequence, the scene selection screen, and the entire first scene (not animated or acted yet).

Outside of that, the All Sprite Collab will be up and running here on July 16h, 2009, so be looking out for that. I did the preloader and four scenes. There are a lot of great sprite artists involved in this project, so make sure you review and vote. I'm looking forward to reading all the reviews.

Lastly, my personal sprite mash-up is underway and going well. I've changed the preloader to something new since I used the other preloader for Game Ranger 3. I'll be working on that as I work on the script for Game Ranger 4. If you'd like to see what I have so far, you can see it here:

Sunrie's Sprite Mash-Up Thus Far

Remember, it's still heavily under progress and I make constant changes every day!

I want to thank everyone involved with this project and the community for receiving the Game Ranger 3 so well!

We got a Daily 4th Place out of this animation and it's driving me even more to make sure Game Ranger 4 comes out hitting hard.

In the face of haters and down voters, true talent has shown it's way through, and I want to thank you all.

If you haven't watched the animation yet, please go do so, and remember to leave a review! I do my best to respond to 100% of the ones left for me. I'm not a jerk, I don't have a huge ego, so don't worry about giving suggestions for improvements or anything.

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Honestly...I'm STILL in shock. I knew it would be well received, but an award? That's always nice! I was having Internet problems (everyone around me using QWest was down!) and couldn't view the results after a certain point. I decided to check if the 'Net was working by using me Wii, and when I connected, I instantly got on NG.

To my extreme surprise, I saw the award. I literally dropped the Wiimote and started jumping up and down. My brother, who was visiting, was freaking out asking me what was going on. I let him know, and continued to celebrate. I have no idea how close I was to having a heart attack, but it made me dizzy from excitement!

Captain R: The Game Ranger 3 (The Army of Evil K)

Yes, that's right, the project is finally at an end. After many-a-setback on the project, I've managed to successfully complete the entire movie and have it ready for upload. Just to let everyone know, I worked on it starting Monday at 12:15pm until Tuesday 4:35am in order to get it done.

Now...where do I begin? First, let me thank everyone who participated in helping to get this project finished. Each person from the voice actors to the BBS forum posters who helped me with problems I was having. The community has been very supportive and I am extremely grateful. Those who helped me in the BBS have a "Special Thanks" in the credits.

This project started it's life nearly three years ago when we were still working on Game Ranger 2 and Game Ranger EX. Between life and Flash issues, the project chugged along very slowly. The end result is much better than Game Ranger 2 and Game Ranger EX for sure. Game Ranger 4 is going to be even higher quality, as I've decided to break down and just use the "advanced sprite techniques" in the animation. I've avoided using them in order to produce a specific type of work in the series, but things must change, and so they will.

How about a run down on how this was originally planned and how it ended with Game Ranger 3 being what it is? Well, it actually starts around the time Wyldfyr1, Maximus2142 and I were planning Game Ranger 2. It is absolutely vital for me to start here, because it will make sense how we came to our conclusions.

The original plan for Game Ranger 2 was to have Ron end up in the Castlevania: Symphony of the Night world with Richter filling you in on his back story as he walked through the level. Near the end of his story, he was going to be interrupted by Ron and they would battle it out. Ron would end up being the winner and as Richter died, he would tell Ron to "Seek out the sages!" During the production of that version of Game Ranger 2 (yes, I started in on it and had up until Ron interrupted Richter) Wyldfyre1 and I started talking about what would then be the Game Ranger 3. We talked about Ron running through a side scrolling level and fighting a giant duck from Duck Hunt and being saved by Zero. Ron wold tell him that he was finding and seeking out the sages, but be informed that he was only, in fact, wasting time.

Well...we scraped that idea! The other idea we had for the would be Game Ranger 3 would to have him end up in Sonic's world. Sonic would be a mute, because of an injury so Tails would be talking to Ron. Ron would have to defeat Sonic in a foot race through an Emerald Hill Zone style level. Along the way, we would reveal Tails to be completely gay on Ron, and other Sonic characters would be putting up booby traps in order to stop Ron from winning the race.

Guess what? Yeah, we scrapped that idea, too! Why? Well, we started talking about having Sonic and Knuckles fighting against Broly's army and Ron ended up coming to help. Now, remember, Game Ranger 2 at this point was still not finished, either. Around this time, our voice actor for Richter (Larry Bolman, not Musical-Pants) dropped out on us, so we couldn't re-record the needed lines. What do we do? We decide to change Game Ranger 2 into the Game Ranger 3 idea, only we changed Knuckles to Shadow.

We discussed what changes we needed and began our brain storming. I showed Don how I could make a cool thunder cloud effect, and the idea struck that we should parody Kingdom Hearts for the opening. From there, the consensus would be that Ron wound up at the End of Time with Janus telling him where to go and what to do. It was at this point we decided to scrap the idea for a trilogy and just go for as long as we thought was necessary to tell a good story to keep it going.

Obviously we decided to have Sonic and Shadow as heroes who end up finding Ron. I don't remember exactly who's idea it was to have Ron raped by fairies in that cave, but that's what happened!

As Game Ranger 2 was being made, we weren't really sure who we were going to have as an enemy aside from Broly. I had planned on using Richter, but we scrapped that idea in place of the name "Evil K". Mind you, neither Wyldfyre1, Maximus2142, nor I had any plans on who "Evil K" was going to be. At the time, it was just a name we threw in there. I think it was around the time I was getting ready to place in the voice over talking about the next episode when both Wyldfyre1 and I went, "AHA! I know!!!"

Around this time I began the remake of the original Game Ranger and named it Captain R: Game Ranger EX to show that it was the enhanced version. It scored just as well as the original and received even higher praise. This gave me the motivation for GR3 even more.

Brain storming on Game Ranger 3 continued. The plan was to have Ron wake up as he was being dragged behind Sonic and Shadow as they raced through the Emerald Hill Zone type level. Along the way he they would run into enemies here and there while telling Ron what is going on in that world, all the while Ron would be slammed into cliffs, spun around loops, and the like. Well, people felt the pacing of Game Ranger 2 was a little too slow, so we decided we had to really kick it up a notch...BAM!!!

So, we decided to have Ron be filled in on the situation and then pick up the pace in action and dialogue after the first scene ended. Yes, the first scene is a little slow, but it fills you in on much needed information and back story that would be confusing otherwise.

In addition to the increased pacing, there were characters with radically different voice styles we needed done. What to do...what to do... Well, we held open auditions for characters. To our amazement, we had 36 auditions for four characters! We found the actors we wanted and it was all gravy from there...mostly.

Several times I just wanted to give up because of issues in all areas: life, flash, computer, etc. The animation was taking so long to finish that I honestly thought a few times that I was going to end up saying the project would never be finished, but I didn't. No, I kept going, taking some breaks away from it to cool down and work on other projects, like Appalling Justice and pieces for the All Sprites Collab. When I got stuck so close to the end after not knowing how to proceed with the fight between Shadow and Ken, Wyldfyre1 was able to help me get those wheels cranking again. From that point on, I was a fucking 900 ton locomotive on the project, pushing ahead and forgoing sleep, personal relationships outside of instant messaging programs, cell phone calls, and social interactions.

Well, as I stated, I worked from Monday, July 6th, 2009, 12:15pm until Tuesday, July 7th, 2009, 4:35am in order to finish up because I was so close. I was afraid it was going to take me another full day in order to complete the project, but I refused to sleep until it was 100% done. Wyldfyre1 stayed up with me through IM's while I finished this up.

As an artist, I'm always, always going to find flaw with my work. That's just who I am. I don't know if it's a personality trait of mine or that's just how people who do these kinds of things are. Even after finishing last night and going, "DONE!" I went back this morning and made some changes. I know...I need to stop making work for myself. The thing is, even though it was stated as a joke, the saying, "When using the preloader, change the Tankman to anything else to show how creative and talented you are. Use Chuck Norris and make the barrell a giant penis. It really doesn't matter. 90% of all Newgrounds users are going to vote only zero or five, and that's based solely on the preloader."

So, I went back and changed the preloader into something different. I used the preloader from my sprite mash-up animation that I'm working on and added the necessary logos. I'll change the other preloader later. I had also forgotten to make the icon, which I just did and love.

After it's all said and done, I'm very happy with how everything turned out. The new preloader does add an extra "something" to it, the audio sync is spot on, the voice acting is top notch, and the action sequences are light years beyond what was done in previous Game Ranger animations. Just, please, don't be expecting Super Mario Bros Z type fights, as that was never the intention.

Head on over to the animation and enjoy. Please don't forget to vote and review!

**Yes...another update...sue me**

YAY!!! Thanks to Wyldfyre1 helping me get over my mental block with the fight scene, it's going to be finished soon now! Really, the only thing which was keeping me from finishing the animation was what to do next on the battle sequence. Well, now that is out of the way, it's continuing forward. At a rapid pace.

Animations take so long to just do moments of actual watching time. I'm finding myself spending 25 minutes to do the sprite work for 3 seconds of actual animation. That's the nature of the beast though, right?

The VCam is the biggest help in all of this, too. Not only has it helped me create better camera work, since I no longer have to manually manipulate what is on the stage, but I can now make better work in the future.

There will be quite a few "Special Thanks" additions to the credits going out to other people who have assisted when I asked for help in the BBS.

I discovered a few action scrip commands for producing some nice effects which I am now using, too, so things look very nice. The biggest one is the action script for making a trail effect. Thanks to that, I no longer have to put a bunch of movie clips of varying transparency in the timeline.

I'm sure you're wondering about the fight...well, the place I was having an issue was with the fight between Shadow and Ken. I knew how I wanted it to end, but I had no idea how I wanted it to play out. After I did the initial moves I was going, "...fuck...now what?!" Well, now I know what and I'm finishing up the fight, which allows me to move onto the the quick bit of Evil K vs Sonic which ends up with Evil K fighting Shadow, which leads into Evil K going after Ron. And, guess what? That's pretty much the end of what I need to do! As I said, the fighting isn't going to be massive like SFvsMK or Exiles, so don't be expecting Super Mario Bros Z in the Game Ranger. However, with that being said, I'm sure everyone is going to thoroughly enjoy the action sequences.

The audio problems I was having before are no longer any kind of issue as well, which is fucking awesome. I found some really good sound effects to use as well. There's a total of four DBZ sound effects, so don't trip. Most of the music is pulled straight from the Audio Portal as well! There are just too many good songs on Newgrounds which aren't being used in place of commercial music. Also, there are a tone of great songs not currently used in an animation. Just because an animation got the front page and uses a song, doesn't mean you should rush out and use the same song in your animation.

Outside of Captain R: The Game Ranger 3 (Army of Evil K) I'm working on a sprite mash-up. I don't mean the All Sprites Collab, I mean my own. I'm not revealing the title just yet, however. I really think that between the All Sprites Collab and my next sprite feature I will prove that Captain R is done in a certain way on purpose. What I mean is I don't use a lot of "advanced" sprite techniques in the Captain R series and I do it on purpose. With my sprite mash-up, I do use them quite a bit, so it has a totally different feel. Oh, and the jokes aren't your typical, so don't think you'll be seeing Mario slam his face on a flag pole or anything like that. The one scene in which I do a little "typical", I end in a completely different manner. You'll know the scene I'm talking about when you see it.

Well, that's what I can think of for now...I don't think I'll make another post until Captain R: The Game Ranger 3 (Army of Evil K) is completed, which will be soon. No preview images.

I'm not in charge of The Sprites Collab (unofficial name), I just wanted to give a nice update on what's going on with it.

There's a great list of people involved with this:
segaplaya
segaseductress
sunrie
sprite-harvester
gameboyplayer
darkthekid
mortis5000
therb8
greenfrost6
wyldfyre1

I've never taken part in a collab on Newgrounds as of yet, and so it's been an interesting process. Watch the work come together from everyone else has been thoroughly enjoyable and exciting. It's fun to see someone's rough copy get posted in the forums and then see it after they've added all the extras, such as sound effects and music.

I'm doing four parts (all different games) and Wyldfyre1 is doing two (both of which are Final Fantasy 6 related). All of our parts have been completed and it's been a lot of fun.

With the new way of doing things, I've been able to produce the animations in a much faster amount of time that I originally thought was possible. Of course the 18FPS and 10 to 30 second running time is helpful in producing faster results, too!

Did I say 18FPS? Yes I did, and it's working just fine for this. While I'm used to working at least 24FPS, the transition hasn't given me any kind of problems. I'm not dealing with mouth movements with these, so that helps immensely.

The wost part of all of this? Well, the part I have with Barney and listening to that song I used over and over and over... Okay, so I didn't listen to it THAT many times, but still...eesh.

Here's some screen shots of the collab parts produced by myself and Wyldfyre1:

Kirby Scene by Sunrie (HiRes)

Barney Scene by Sunrie (HiRes)

Link Scene by Sunrie (HiRes)

Mario Kart Scene by Sunrie (HiRes)

Celes Scene by Wyldfyre1 (HiRes)

Chocobo Scene by Wyldfyre1 (HiRes)

Okay, I know I said the last time that was going to be the last update...too bad!

Well, the good news everything is coming along GREAT (for the most part...I still hate that nothing was made to work with Vista...fuck you software developers!!!)! The VCam has allowed me to do some things in the battle sequence I wouldn't have been able to produce otherwise.

Speaking of the battle sequence, I'm down to doing some small polishing up and then it's release time. The comments I've received from people who have watched it so far have given me the following comments about it:

"Oh, that's fucked up!"
"I bet that hurt like hell."
"...you're mildly disturbed, aren't you?"
"Hahah! That JUST HAPPENED!"
"Damn dude!!!"

This is by far the best Game Ranger to date. The next installment will be even rounded out and smoother than this one will be. Depending on how things go and the ideas we get, it may be even longer.

How long is this one? Well, as of now, without the fight completely finished it's 6.77 minutes long. The best news is that it doesn't feel like it's that long. I've watched some animations brag about the length, but it feels like you've sat there the entire time.

Between the action and the story, this Game Ranger is destined to hit some favorites. I think in the end I'll prove that the Game Ranger is animated and presented in a certain way on purpose.

Speaking of animating a certain way...not only am I working on the Sprites Collab, but my next project is going to be a heavily stylized fight which will show off everything that I've learned up until this point. It's going to be a fast and hard brawl utilizing between five and seven different opponents one after another, and others at the same time. Don't worry, it's not Street Fighter or anything like that. It's going to be nothing seen on NG before, from what I can tell.

Here's a nice little screenshot of the GR3:

Yep, and it's a lot of fun. I'm doing three different scenes for it and Wyldfyre1 is doing one as well with my help.

There's still room for other animators, so get involved!!!! The Complete Sprite Collab

Game Ranger 3 is almost finished!

BTW, below is a screenshot from one of my items for the collab. So, what's going on? You don't actually know? That's the point, haha. You know me and secrecy on projects!