Illaestra - A Flash Animation Series by Chris Rombach

SECOND PREVIEW - NEW GRAPHICS USING MASK LAYERS

What should have happened at least five years ago has finally come to pass - I figured out mask layers in flash! One thing about them that threw me off - after spending the last year at Uni using After Effects mask layers - was the fact that they are nothing like AFX masking. Instead of drawing an outline of what you want to mask, you actually have to fill in a solid drawing over things you want masked. Anyway, here's some poorly coded animated loops that flicker every 10 seconds. No, I'm still no closer to figuring out why it does that.

SNEAK PREVIEW - FIRST ANIMATED GRAPHICS FROM ILLAESTRA PROLOGUE

In a world exclusive that almost nobody is likely to care about, I will show this (spoiler free) sneak preview of the new flash animation. This episode will be a mostly dialogue free prologue to demonstrate the situation on the Gigaforge Space Station which was shown on previous posts. There's not really that much to explain, other than that these scenes show corridors in the lower levels where a cryotechnician discovers what has happened to other crew members. NOTE: There is something wrong with the looping that I can't seem to fix, so I made it last 10 seconds to make it less jarring.

In the run up to the release of the new Illaestra prologue episode, I will start by uploading the newest official desktop background. As of yet I am still working on the various backgrounds, starting with CGI modelling and ending with flash drawings on top. I think there will be about four or five main backgrounds (The Gigaforge exterior, as seen in the wallpaper, the close-up view of the spaceship docking bay, and the rest are interior shots such as the cryochamber) and the rest of the work will involve ambient and character animations made as and when they are needed. I don't like giving out release dates, but I will give a tentative August 2012 as a rough guide. If I don't finish it before October, I won't have another chance to make this for another year, if not longer.

Welcome to ELEMENT ONE-ONE-ONE PRODUCTIONS!

This is my official website. It's been a year since my debut flash animation The Forever Woman and a lot of things have changed. I will eventually make an ident for Element 111 Productions to put at the start of any future animations (in case you're wondering, element 111 used to be called "unununium" which is the best name ever, and this commemorates the loss after it was renamed). I have also started making a webcomic on deviantart which is an autobiographical account of how and why I decided to get into this. After all, I spent the best part of my life thinking I would be a good scientist, even going so far as getting A level Physics and Chemistry (and trying out the first year of degree Chemistry, which is about the time I started using Flash for the first time). http://tsninjapirate.deviantart.com/

The Forever Woman is now on NEWGROUNDS.

The link is here: http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/539993

An Update on The Forever Woman and its newgrounds release

While the original release was at best mediocre - getting about 500 views and a score of 2.56 (out of 5) - the status of it is somewhat better now. It has since got about 1300 views and a score of 2.62. Also, someone put it on their favourites. This goes to show that there is someone out there who likes it more than I do. At any rate, I can be glad that my first release was what you would call a "complete package" containing all the required elements of a comprehensive flash release, including preloader, music, voice acting, sound effects (all timed as well as I could), original characters and story, ending in full credits and a replay button. These are all the things I need to make good animation, I just need to work on the animation side of it. More on that later.