November 30th, 2008 by Konstantin
Tags: events
OK, it’s time to officially proclaim Morevna Project wiki opened. It is a place where we store and develop the most of concept documentation.
And remember, we still need your help! There is a taskboard on the main page of the wiki - if you’re looking how to help Morevna Project it is a good place to start.
—> Go to Morevna Project Wiki.
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November 30th, 2008 by Konstantin
Tags: layouts
We finally managed to finish post-processing for soldiers characters layout done for us by Ground Zero Studio Complex.
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November 27th, 2008 by Konstantin
Tags: synfig, tutorials, workflow
Synfig has no feature to manipulate camera view. Me and Genete arranged a workaround to have a camera fake using logarithm convert type and the zoom layer.
Download
Here’s the latest version of camera widget: camera-view-0.3.sifz.
License: Public Domain.
You could find instructions on it’s usage below.
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November 21st, 2008 by Konstantin
Tags: workflow
Today let me make a journey into the past and tell about how our collaboration workflow look like before we have switched to git.
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November 1st, 2008 by Konstantin
Tags: events, git, workflow
BTW, we have set up a git repository for the project. It is currently in private mode, but if someone wants to get access, feel free to contact us.
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October 31st, 2008 by Konstantin
Tags: concept
Just found amazing resource dedicated to slavic paganism. Honestly, for me, grown in Russia, this reading was full of discoveries. Just two quotes:
Koshchei. Koshchei the Deathless for his supposed invulnerability; noted for being the abductor of beautiful princesses. He is a powerful wizard or demigod who gains immortality by keeping his fiery soul hidden. He kidnaps Marena (Mara, Marya Morevna), the Russian goddess of death. He tells her the location of his soul, which she tells the story’s hero (usually a son or husband: Dazhdbog, Prince Ivan, Prince Astrach, etc.). Koshchie is the son of Vij, lord of the Underground, and travels on a war-horse or as a whirlwind.
Marena, Mara, Marya, Morevna. Russian winter- and death- goddess. In one myth, she is a sorceress and enchantress who turned the sun-god Dazhbog into an ox. She refused to change him back until his father Perun agreed that they should marry. However, she later left him for Koshchei, son of the Underworld lord Vij. They conspired to kill Dazhbog, who was searching for her. She drugged him, and Koshchei threw him down a well. Finally, she nailed him to a mountain in the Caucasus, but the goddess Zhiva rescued him. Dazhbog finally had his revenge.
Despite this unsavory tale, Marena survived into Christian times as St. Mary, the consort of St. Ivan, who is Dazhbog.
And surprise! Something I wrote in screenplay is really have much in common with some concepts explained there, while I really thought what I devised it by myself! If you are someone who wants to dig deeper into Story, than that page is for you. Happy Halloween. 
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October 31st, 2008 by Konstantin
Tags: blender
Yesterday, stumbled upon nasty bug in blender 2.48(a). Explode modifier behaves really differently comparing to 2.47. This is the simple example file:

You can see what the parts of exploded object detached not only from object itself, but also from nearest area (which is 1,5-2 times larger than the object). The things become even worse when spin and rotation applied to particles.
It took me some time to figure out the cause of the problem - SubSurf modifier. It was applied before particles modifier, but if we swap their order things will return in place.

Another way to fix the problem - is just to apply SubSurf modifier to mesh. Anyway, in blender 2.47 Explode worked with SubSurf irrespective to their order. A bug? Or bug fix?
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October 29th, 2008 by Konstantin
Tags: concept
Finally managed to incorporate latest changes into demo storyboard paper.
We left numbers of the existing scenes untouched and as result numbering across the storyboard became a little inconsistent. It is handy to refer to shots by numbers - each shot in separate directory with corresponding number. So we decided what it’s better to have inconsistent numbers somewhere, rather than mess up with directory renaming (which also involves fixing Makefiles). At the end we have much more important things to do, aren’t we?
Download: English, Russian.
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