05/17/07 Pretty good, pretty good. Pretty neat, pretty neat. |
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It's been an interesting six months. My mind stopped working once biocursion was done - at least
when it came to one topic: fractals. Not just animation, but fractals in general. For a little
over a month now, I've been slowly sliding back into the drivers seat of this project. The
sales have been slow but steady and steadily increasing. Web traffic has been growing by a
gig of uploads a month. Not too shabby considering there really isn't much on this site. Yet.
Plans. More content is coming up in the next two months. The e-commerce page will get a slight facelift - not so much in how it looks but it will be less confusing and easier to use. The gallery will increase by about 35 more images, most will be posted at web page resolution (whatever that means) as well as screen and print (not all of them, but most. At least two more animations will be posted as well. In the works is a re-rendered version of a segment taken from biocursion - the new version will be 720p. About a thousand frames have been rendered, at it does look good. If I do say so myself. An all new animation is also being rendered, but will take at least the rest of the year to render - if not longer. It is a typical zoomer animation, but at 720p - this one is taking longer because of the quality settings and depth. A third animation is "only" 640x480 - but is an experiment with high frame rates. This one is almost a minute and a half long, but will play at 60 frames a second. That's all for now. Thank you for visiting. |
11/22/06 Pre-Release is over. Bottom line - the price has dropped. |
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The pre-release price was $30 - including shipping. The new price is
$19.50, and for a short time this price covers shipping. By Dec 14th, this
site will be updated and offer biocursion for the same cost, but shipping and
tax (if applicable) will be added. Shipping biocursion is normally done
via USPS at $2 a pop. If you are purchasing from Washington state, the
most you'll be paying will be about $23.00. Click on the mysterious blue "shop" link on the left side of this page to buy your copy. If you are interested in a PAL or high-compatibility version - please email Customer Service first. |
11/19/06 Status and some blithering. |
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I am done with biocursion. There are a few updates to the web site - but,
other than that; the books are closed. It's great to have this project
completed with dvds shipping out the door. Thank you, for all of those who
bought a pre-release copy. This gave me a good sample of how things would
go for this film. Now - to market this... Nothing to say on that topic for now, more to come soon. The final updates to this site will be made in two phases. The first will be by the middle of next month when the e-commerce page is completed and polished up a bit. The final price will be around $20. The second phase includes adding 16-20 new images for the gallery and two more animation clips. These animations are not part of biocursion - they are best described as a test with "high definition" video. The first animation will be video resolution - 720x480. The rendering took about three months - and completed about a month ago. The second animation will be rendered in full 720p resolution - it is several months away from completion. Maybe I'll post one or two animation of existing clips on this site with full video resolution versions. The quarter video resolution is very lacking in detail. |
11/09/06 Win in the Fractal Forums competition and get a free copy of biocursion. Or three. |
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An exciting co-venture between Fractal Forums
(Cambridge, UK) and Pixel Maven Productions (Seattle, USA) We are giving away 3 copies of Pixel Maven Production's Biocursion DVD, a 120 minute compilation of fractal animations with specially commissioned soundtracks, as prizes in competitions on Fractal Forums. The competitions are open to Fractal Forums users to generate imagery and animations in the following categories:
The competitions run concurrently until the END OF NOVEMBER so get your skates on and enter! Main competition URL: http://www.fractalforums.com/index.php?board=81.0 |
07/10/06 pre-release |
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A bug was discovered with the menu system and the end of the main feature. The one minute track of music used for all the menu screens does not loop. To make things worse, once the track is done - the DVD executes a STOP. Now good. At the end of the presentation, when it's over instead of going to the root menu - the DVD STOPS. Both of these issues have been resolved. Sales: biocursion is being sold as a "pre-release" for $30.00 including shipping, handling and tax. Only checks are being accepted. When the e-commerce is set up the price will drop to around $25. Release date: a release date will be posted in the final stages of getting the e-commerce page up and running. |
08/20/06 release plans. not to mention letting you know what "pre-release is supposed to mean". |
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Things have finally calmed down to the point where biocursion will be 100% complete and pixel maven will be moving to the next project. sales have been good - considering no advertising has been made and a very confusing "shop" page. no 'release date' will be published this time, but it's fairly imminent. Here is the list of 'things to do":
The current version of biocursion is burned to a +R dual layer DVD. Older DVD players may have issues with the "+" writable DVD media. The "high compatible" version has the exact video, except burned to two single layer DVD-R discs. pixel maven productions is currently focusing on mastering the PAL encoded version. Questions regarding price and why is there a pre-release available? The pre-release was set up to make things basically easy for us - there is no inventory of biocursion copies, they are produced per order. The $30 is a flat fee - the DVD, taxes, handling and shipping are all included. Soon, the price will drop to at least $25. Does anybody else like my e. e. cummingsesque lack of capitol letters? |
07/10/06 pre-release |
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A bug was discovered with the menu system and the end of the main feature. The one minute track of music used for all the menu screens does not loop. To make things worse, once the track is done - the DVD executes a STOP. Now good. At the end of the presentation, when it's over instead of going to the root menu - the DVD STOPS. Both of these issues have been resolved. Sales: biocursion is being sold as a "pre-release" for $30.00 including shipping, handling and tax. Only checks are being accepted. When the e-commerce is set up the price will drop to around $25. Release date: a release date will be posted in the final stages of getting the e-commerce page up and running. |
05/31/06 biocursion is done. Really. It is. |
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The final version, 3.1, of biocursion was finally completed yesterday. Completed meaning: the DVD case and disk art is done. The menu system is done - complete with a chapter index. The main presentation exists as a fully transcoded (NTSC only - PAL is coming soon) DVD image file. This image file is 7.4 GB, so, yes, biocursion is dual layer. Minor changes were made to the soundtrack, which delayed the completion for about a week. That's all folks - it's done. The last step, of course, is getting a release date posted and the e-commerce site up and running. biocursion will be available not only at biocursion.com - but several other locations. These other vendors will be announced prior to becoming available on the respective sites. Currently, all sales will be on-line. For those of you who have been following this project over the years, and do not want to wait until the e-commerce is up and running - you may contact me directly. At this point I am accepting checks, which must clear before shipment - please send an email to present your request. I am not posting a price yet; this has not been finalized. The retail price tag will be between $25 and $35. |
04/29/06 biocursion test screening |
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The final draft of biocursion had been screened last Thursday night. The feedback was overall positive. There were a couple of glitches - one I knew about and the other was revealed during the screening. The 'surprise' was an error in the way the chapters were set up in Encore. At the end of one of the chapters, the presentation reverted back to the root menu instead of continuing to the next chapter. This has been corrected. The other issue was a soundtrack synchronization problem - this has also been taken care of. One animation did not go well with the music - the animation was liked and the music was liked. The pairing of the two pieces of media were found to be less than ideal. This is being considered - there is a small library of unused music which may work better with the animation. The absolute best feedback was how the two hours did not feel like two hours. A fear I've had was that biocursion is boring. So far, so good. Those who'd never watched an animated fractal were entertained. This was actually the first time I watched biocursion in it's entirety, and it did go by pretty fast. This was because we were all conversing - something not thought about before. biocursion will be an excellent DVD to play while talking to friends. The host of the screening recommended pitching biocursion as a backdrop item for parties. This wasn't a new suggestion, but the screening really underscored this option. All is super. Something else to note: the version screened was a single layer DVD - it looked great with the exception of one or two animations which have a LOT of movement. Generally, the image looked good enough where the quality was not an issue. Plans to release biocursion on a dual-layer DVD is still the plan. And the release date is...?? I will never post a release date that we can not keep. This means the ecommerce aspect of this web site will be complete before posting another release date, being the last step to this project. The DVD is currently complete. There are active plans to add more DVD content, but all of this is optional and considered bonus material. ETA: 2-6 weeks. |
03/28/06 Problem Resolved |
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After several very minor production issues, the "final" draft DVD was created. And watched. And a glitch was found - it wasn't really a glitch. It was horrific. I reversed one of the animations, the last fractal animation, and forgot to worry about the field order. After pulling out old back-ups to trace the issue, it became apparent the problem was a setting (or a lack of using a setting) in Premiere. And, I tried to blame it on the contributor's codec! This has been fixed - while this entry is being written the seventh video segment (seven out of seven) of biocursion was re-created with the corrected animation. Looks good. The menus are pretty much done. The chapter selection menus need to be formatted a bit - the icons need centering. Other than that, it's done. While the menu system is being completed, test DVDs will be created to verify compatibility with older DVD players. So far, it's going very well. The release date has been passed again, but don't worry. Release is imminent. |
03/05/06 Immediate Plans |
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Quick update here, some thinking aloud of my plans once biocursion is ready for prime time. Once I get to the point where the duplication process has been finalized - and 20 copies are sitting on my desk - the site will be updated, saying the video has been released. The price still has not been decided, but will be between $30 and $35. If they sell at a decent rate, and projections indicate at least 500 more will be sold - biocursion will be replicated, not duplicated. What's the difference? The first method means using a standard DVD-R drive and burning to writable media. The latter - pressing the discs like the pros do. Having a master created costs a few grand, so I am hoping it will not take long to get to this stage. |
02/28/06 New Release Date |
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A two hour and one minute cut of biocursion is complete. The only step left to complete this is the DVD authoring. I have hit some
snags with compatibility. The drafts I make work fine on everybody's DVD player except for one - mine. It's about four years old. The issue is a fraction of a second
delay every so often. Maybe three or four a minute - and they do not repeat. Until this has been resolved, biocursion will not be released. Maybe the player needs to be cleaned - I don't know.
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12/31/05 End of Year Update |
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Not much new to say here. The only pending work is one new piece of music, and one other
is needing a minor reworking. Other than that - it is pretty much complete except for the editing. One of the contributor's
name needs to be composited into the the opening animation - everything is rendered at least.
I will be able to post a new release date soon - within the next month.
Realistically, biocursion should be complete and ready for
sale by March 1. One of the hold-up recently was an issue of quality and storage space. With 72GB boot drive and a 300 GB data drive,
the only way to fit everything on the hard drive was to compress the animations into MPEG2 @ 15 Mbps. Even at this high bit-rate, the quality
was being compromised during the transcoding stage. It was basically a generational loss was happening at an unacceptable rate.
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11/18/05 second draft complete |
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Almost nine minutes of Jock Cooper animation has been cut into the current draft. About 15 minutes of music is pending - this will be ready soon. This cut of biocursion is 117 minutes. I have yet to produce a "final" draft on a dual-layer DVD. All test have been on a single layer. |
11/08/05 Video editing complete |
I just finished the first draft of biocursion - all of he video is there. The music is not complete - but everything available has been added to the cut. The current running time (including about 1.5 minutes of ending credits) is 109 minutes. Jock Cooper's animation has not been added yet, which will push biocursion right at the two hour mark. That is a lot longer than originally planned. At least the extra wait resulted in twice the amount of fractal animation. The sun was shining today (a good thing for Seattle), and seemed like a really good day to apply for a business license. The only thing keeping me from the license is if somebody else is already using the DBA name. When the license has been mailed to the door - I'll let you know what the name is. biocursion is already almost a year late - the original release date was 12/15/04! After my son started existing, that date had been pushed out what seemed at the time to be more than adequate - nine months. Hmmm.. Once the final cut is done, another (and final) release date will be posted. To hold things up until then, more material will be added to the site. The gallery will be expanded by about 1/3, and will include a handful of print resolution (8 to 10 mega pixel) images and at least one more fractal animation. I don't want to post too much final animation the site.. Not much to talk about for now. Besides the obvious (adding the remainder of the music), there's not too much left to do. Making sure the back-ups are sound, site is being updated and packaging design are on our short list of "things to do". |
09/29/05 Um.. The trailer said something about September 14th. This web site said something about September 15th. Did I miss something? |
"Um.." is right! I'm an animator not a production-maven. As stated before, all the animation is done. Opening credits, all the fractal animation, closing sequence, end credits... The hold-up at this point is the music. I waited too long in getting the music requests going. Currently, about 2/3 of the soundtrack is complete. The download page has been updated with new versions of the trailer and the two clips. Music has been added to the fractal animations, but composed and performed by Daniel Applegate. I'm sure you'd rather just know when this thing will be ready - and released. No more promised, but once the music comes in - it's literally a simple drag-and-drop function in Premiere. I am taking off two weeks in November - time planned earlier in the year. During this time I will aim to get biocursion completed. |
07/26/05 biocursion is being professionally hosted |
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Did you notice how !@$$!@ SLOW this site was before? It was completely ridiculous - sometimes the page wouldn't do anything. biocurion.som is not being hosted at bluehost.com and the difference in amazing. For fun, biocursion.net is still pointing to my ISP webspace. (which is Comcast) It served it's purpose. The Bluehost arrangement has me hooked up with 4 glorious gigabytes and 100 GB transfer. Good thing I got the new animations uploaded at the end of the month! |
07/15/05 |
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Post-production. All fractal animations are complete and rendered. The only animation needing completion is the opening and closing Lightwave animations. There's a light at the end of the tunnel! I bought two applications for editing and mastering: I've used Premiere in the past - version 6. It hasn't changed too much, but seems to be much easier to use. Pricey, but worth it. Encore is great for mastering absolutely professional DVDs - menus, alternative camera angles, audio, etc. A friend of mine suggested an alternative soundtrack. There isn't time to obtain enough music at this time for this, but what I will be doing is offer an alternative soundtrack that will basically be the same music - in a different order. Seeing the same animation with different music has proved to be very effective in achieving a seemingly totally different tone overall. A 25 minute test DVD has been produced - looks good to see this on the TV with music. No surprises. The MPEG-2 codec included with Encore isn't the best, but still impressed me. |
04/03/05 |
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Possible additional contributor. A second animator may be contributing to biocursion! Jock Cooper of Fractal-Recursions.com fame. Although biocursion is already at an hour and forty minutes, his work would be a huge addition to the project. He's a really cool guy. Check out his web-site for some absolutely premium animations. www.fractal-recursions.com |
06/24/05 - discussion board back up |
06/20/05 - News page change |
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The news link (this page) was too
complicated and contained more information than needed. The journal and
project links have been removed. The journal and relevant project entries
will be inserted into |
06/18/05 - discussion board is down. |
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The discussion board is currently down. The webmaster will be looking into this soon. Will keep you posted. |
04/05/05 |
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Lloyd Garrick (aka Jack Of TradeZ), who runs the Ultimate Fractal Video Project website has contributed |
02/01/05 - a low-res segment has been posted |
01/30/05 - Updated teaser; Twice the bit rate, and twice the size. |
02/17/04 |
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About thirty minutes of unrendered footage has been approved. Of that - about ten minutes has been rendered for final video output. The remaining twenty minutes will be rendered as time allows - or will wait until phase III, which is intended to be just for rendering. Speaking of rendering.. My main PC is a dual 733 with a half gig of RAM. Pretty impressive four years ago, when it was new - but is completely showing it's age now. I'm like Homer Simpson when visiting Dell.com - mmmmmm... P4 Extreeeeeeme... *shudder and drool*. Mark is working on putting the final touches on a few more zooms. By the end of the weekend, about 20 minutes of biocursion will be complete. I am working on the introduction animation. By now you have noticed the new image on the homepage. That is the new boxlady. It's pretty strange revisiting an old animation and recreating it - part of me wants to re-do the old animation and part of me wants to do something all new. It's time to talk a little about more details of biocursion. There's not a lot to tell because neither Mark or myself want to reveal too much. We hate going to the theater and watching trailers that show all the plot points, best action sequences, characters, etc. Somebody had watched the trailer and was reminded of the old Mind's Eye videos Bam. That's pretty much it. Eye candy. There will be a vague storyline with the boxlady, but the scenes including her will be less than ten minutes. Between scenes of the boxlady will be several fractal animations. A slideshow of zooms, pretty much. |
01/05/04 - teaser trailer available for viewing |
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The trailer has been pushed out two times. The current release date is
now 01/15/04. Another musician has crossed the event horizon of |
01/04/04 |
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The trailer has been pushed out two times. The current release date is now 01/15/04. Another musician has crossed the event horizon of biocursion. His name is Dan Applegate, and will be providing music for the final work as well as the divx version of the teaser trailer. This site has joined two fractal web rings: The WebRing and The Fractal Phase II is in full production. Ramping-up period ended on 01/02/04. |
12/28/03 |
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For the first time since the project started, over a year ago, things actually feel like they are moving along. Seeing the first completed animation was huge to us - the original duration was about two and a half minutes. The only change that is being made is tacking on more 'footage' - and round it up to either three or four minutes. I decided to put myself back into Phase I until the trailer is complete. There are a few things left to do before charging on to the LightWave work. And, January 1st is the deadline for that - after that point, I will be in phase II. Mark has a deadline as well - although in Phase II, he is testing and trying out new techniques for his animations. After the first of January he will only work on the animations in queue. No more testing. Anything discovere after the first will go into the next project (yes, there will be at least one more biocursion project). I just noticed that the first update on this page was exactly a year ago.. It's hard to believe that much time has gone by already and that animations are just now starting to roll out the door. We've got music and a storyboard. Planning - that was the last 12 months, at least most of it. Boxlady's head was modeled and "Neato" was rendered and ready to go. The next 12 months are going to be much more involved - with much more output. The final touches to the video, web site and marketing are going to be filling It can be really hard to articulate an animation over the phone. An animation called "pogo" that Mark was working on wasn't looking the way I could see it in my mind. So what I am doing is taking what he has already done and re-work it. So far, the look that is needed is coming out. Segments of this animation and segments of "neato" will be used in the trailer. The next update will talk more about the trailer. |
10/28/03 |
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We are moving slowly towards getting out of Phase I very soon. We both have a couple times to clear up
first. I've got to get a working understanding Mark will be testing some ideas we came up with for ChaosPro. Nothing exciting - but it will feel good to finally be able to get the logistics out of the way. Next weekend I will be traveling to the east coast to meet up with Mark. We haven't seen each other for about three and a half years. LightWave 7.5 has been received and installed. Minor issue with the licens key - an RMA has been issued to fix the problem. |
05/15/03 |
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Being a grown-up can really bite. The only aspect that is really bothering me right now is the lack of free time. Here is what's been going on: Eric: My fiancé and I bought our first home just a month ago - the first home. I don't think anything else needs to be said about this - most of my free time for a while will go to the house. Mark: he is doing really well with the process of setting up the animations. Soon he will be up to full speed and completing a zoom every 2-3 weeks. The new model for the boxlady is in progress. When the head is completed - the image on the homepage of this site will be re-rendered and updated. The boxlady is the first human model I have made before. Music: A friend of mine, Scott Wade, is interested in composing and recording a musical score for biocursion. He has made me two sample tracks - they are really good, and when they are polished up a bit, the mp3 will be made available here for downloading. |
03/2/03 |
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Today we begin phase two. After a long meeting yesterday, the decision was made to exit phase one and begin working on the animations: phase two. The only addition to this phase (not yet added to the "shopping list") is maintaining this site. The only additions that will be published here will be a gallery of still images and some animations. The still images will not be limited to mandelbrots, but also still from CGI segments. A single license of UltraFractal has been purchased for Mark. Although this application does not directly support animation, it easily has the best output of any mandelbrot generator. |
02/25/03 |
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The slow movement towards phase two was an understatement. But, in a matter of a month, biocursion will be out of phase one. The most realistic goals were conceived during the first phone meeting - two years. It is going to be done in less than two years, but the ultra-ambitious goals of late summer were not realistic. To outline the past four months just go to the 'project', 'phase 1' link. We have stuck to the plans for the most part. The software that will be used has been narrowed down to the following:
Speaking of the software - I'm very impressed with the current version of The image on the main page of this site was taken from the opening of the original biocursion. That character is being remodeled for the current project. Nothing too fancy. Just before phase two begins, I'll put up another status update. In case of delays. |