Episode 3 will be named “Origins” and is coming along nicely. The script is complete, the storyboard is done, narration is in the can, the animatic is also finished including music and sound effects, and I’m currently working on final background artwork, and have started to animate the first two scenes.
There still is lots of work to do, though. I still need to create two human rigs, both speaking roles, so they’ll need to be fully animatable, not some throw away quick and dirty sock puppet, and there are at least 5 types of aliens to be designed, and rigged (no speaking roles, so I can keep that to the bare minimum). And there are 25 scenes (107 shots) to be animated…


Hardware
My main machine is still the 2019 MacBook Pro 16”, but I’m really getting fed up with intel Macs now that the Apple Silicon Macs are out. Intel energy efficiency has always been quite horrible, but it’s just so obvious now, having your fans running at full speed most of the time. I’ve also been checking clock speeds and it seems that as soon the intel processor has to do any significant amount of work it starts getting too hot and throttles the CPU – what a piece of crap. I really can’t wait to get myself an Apple Silicon Mac. For now I’m running a few benchmark tests with my son’s M1 Pro just to see how well it’ll do. Personally I probably won’t be buying anything below M1 Max (or actually by the time I’m in the market again for a new machine more likely an M2 or M3 Max…).
Also it’s obvious now that Apple will never fix all the eGPU issues that are pestering my current laptop, so I just want to get off of intel (finally – back to efficiency just like the good old PPC/G3 days).
Software
On the animation/video software front there haven’t been any huge upgrades, but the last two updates to Moho (the software I’m using to create Phungus & Mowld) added a few new features and more importantly: stability! At long last it won’t crash anymore on undo, and seems pretty much rock solid now. Bliss!
Platforms
Pzaz TV
Somehow I got an invite to be part of Pzaz TV, a new indie streaming platform. My Pixelblast section is already up and running, featuring episode 1 and 2 of Phungus & Mowld. If you’re a starving student, you can now watch Phungus & Mowld there for free (ad supported). However, I still highly encourage you to purchase the episodes directly from me (Pixelblast), buy them on Vimeo, Gumroad, because streaming and ad supported streaming usually pays peanuts – on Amazon Prime after two years, I’m finally making several dollars per month (before it was only cents), with last month’s payout being a whopping 12 bucks!
Trickfilm.com
And there’s yet another video platform I got invited to be part of their launch line-up: Trickfilm.com. They haven’t officially launched yet, but my page and videos are ready to go. Trickfilm is a platform for animators to sell their videos and merchandise along with it. They seem to be really nice chaps and I hope it’ll be a huge success once they are open to the public.
Puzzle Theory
This oddly named platform invited me to join them and I’ve already established a page there. Their idea is to have one single hub where all the updates and behind the scenes info, videos – all the stuff posted all over the web and social media comes together. So fans can follow it all in one place: on Puzzle Theory. So, if you want to have one touchpoint to see all important updates on Phungus & Mowld production, look no further and follow Pixelblast on Puzzle Theory.
Vlog
If you haven’t noticed, there are two new vlog episodes out, and one more in the making (about how I organize my production using Notion).
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