My first Machinima happened in a form of TV commercial about Serious Ernest and Obey Electricity! - Tales for Kids About Electricity that was broadcasted on Latvian television in 2004. Game engine Unreal Tournament 2004 by Epic Games and some touch of inspiration was used to make all this happen. So began my journey into machinima world, which later resulted in a film The Ship that got four international awards in 2008.
"Nopietnais Ernests - pasakas bērniem par elektrību jeb Klausi Elektrību!" ko izdeva Latvenergo. Kad mākslinieks Kristaps Ģelzis, kas toreiz strādāja reklāmas aģentūrā man piedāvāja veidot šo reklāmu man uz reiz bija skaidrs ka tā būs Machinima! Pirms tam es neko tādu nebiju taisījis, tikai interesējies. Jā, un termiņi, kā jūs varbūt nojaušat bija īsi!
First sketch!
First version of Serious Ernest character. Character model should be kept low polygon to be valid for machinima filming, at least in far 2004 :) Also someone from client side decided that character looks too angular or even primitive and I had to make some changes for Ernest model to "taste" different. Later this Ernest design was used also in print media.
Second incarnation of Serious Ernest, v2.0
Game world standing still and waiting for filming - scene set up, scripting and realtime capturing in Unreal Tournamnet 2004. Some battles with Unreal bots in the meantime...
Instructions to animator Dagnis Krusts, Maya and Unreal scripter Antons Kenga, Unreal Engine 2004.
