Kaptörka Prod.

" I don't want to go there. It's the last place I'd want to end up. But that's where I always end up anyway."

The premiere of my new 3D animation based on the cult in-game series Address Unknown, which you may remember from Max Payne 1 & 2, will take place on the 3rd July at 1:00 PM (GMT-5). Here's the link: https://youtu.be/hG04K7t1BBE

This is a visualization of the pilot episode from the first game. I can’t show all the details yet, otherwise it would be no so interesting to watch — but I promise there will be the Pink Flamingo, the Evil Double, and even a little bit of the asylum 😅 and a variation of Red Room of course.

The animation contains many references to the original, but some of the material had to be adapted, since this is no longer a radio play presented through a few static slides, but a full video sequence. Because of that, some of the narrator’s lines were cut. The things they described are now shown visually, so commenting on those ominous moments would have felt redundant. There may also be some minor sound design issues, because separating the original audio track can be quite difficult at times. I’m not a sound design expert, but preserving the original voice acting was more important to me.

The model of John (Sam Lake from 2000's) I made by myself using the new version of HeadShot3 from Character Creator 5 and one of his retro photos from that era. But anyway even with this instrument you should tweak all morphs and set the adequate textures and it takes a lot of time. Hope it worth it.

I hope you’ll enjoy the pilot episode. And I'll get the motivation to continue shooting the rest of the series together with my modeler in the future (there are more 6 episodes).

Guys, I know I haven’t posted anything for a long time, but starting sometime around last summer, several things happened in my life that traumatized me very deeply (no it's not fckin “immigrant melancholy'', i’m glad I live in a new place. It’s just life: if something goes well for you, you have to give something up in return. And apparently, in my case, that something is my mental state).

I tried to turn a blind eye to it and act the way I used to, but it gradually piled up, and now I’m feel like every day I wake up and keep repeating to myself that I have to live, otherwise I will never be able to move the part of the family— whom I left and who’s slowly dying among that savages — to a safe place. 

Besides, if something happens to me, with my current status, my body will be deported back to that savage place, the last thing I would want is to have anything to do with it. Hah. So I just trying to exist and do my part-time job contracts, and watching on mountains.

I think I need help, but you know my nature: instead of looking and paying for an English-speaking specialist, I prefer to spend my savings on expensive 3D production software and disappear into it in the evenings in loneliness with a glass of whiskey.

And honestly, during this time I’ve lost interest in many things, videogames in particular. I can hardly force myself to play them, even though I need to, at least for the context. It really scares me. I’ve been a geek my whole life, and I don’t want to become someone else.

At the moment, the only thing I’m fully maintaining is my YouTube blog, so that I have some kind of goal. Besides, it generally involves one-way interaction, since right now I can’t properly communicate with people — for their own good (I could hurt them not even realizing it).

During this time, I’ve made several works following my so-called tutorials. Maybe I’ll start posting them later. And thank you for waiting patiently and not going away. I will definitely crawl out of this shit. Someday.

Just wanna ask you not to reply to this post por favor, and not to DM me (only in case if you need consulting about 3D models and ripped stuff). I’m not looking for attention or support and definitely don’t want anyone to pity me, or any other bullshit like that. I’m simply informing you, so you can understand why I appear so seldom now.

☕️🎄 Hola! Brought some Christmas Case(y). Many thanks to Hikko_Vitonen for the model of these mesmerizing light bulbs. The concept was inspired by this reel, but done in a more... 'glamorous'?... style.

As for the technical details: yes, the steam looks like shit, but unfortunately I can’t afford to run full simulation cycle just for static shots right now. You have no idea how much time it takes just to check the lighting and spot defects in real time in render mode on my laptop — especially to catch all the shadow-related nastiness Cycles likes to produce.

I could’ve done all of this much faster in the new EEVEE, but sadly that engine doesn’t support realistic glass materials like the ones you see on these bulbs, nor the special light mask add-ons. So it is what it is.

Anyway, I wish you a Merry Christmas — to never fall into chaos, but only observe it while sipping your coffee.

I'm making Shorts and just decided to save that moment in gifs. I wrote about it loooong time ago.

Made myself a gift and ordered a large Casey cuadro (120 x 50 sm). It was fun to walk with this stuff on the streets 🤣 Unfortunately there's almost no geeks in my ciudad, it would be really fun if someone made a photo from the side. That looked really crazy...

Anyway, I've got a piece from the Dark Place in my studio now. I hope adhesive cover is okay and it will not fall in the night, and scare me and vecinos, lol, cause it's really massive....

I'm 38 now, but I still feel like a part-time zoomer, lol. I'm not asking for reposts — it just feels a bit awkward for me to ask for things, cause I always rely only on myself. But I'd be really happy if you keep me in mind and decide to check out my channels and socials (whatever you like): X / YouTube / TikTok / Inst / DeviantArt / TG (in the last one I keep unpublished backstages).

More “food” is coming soon.

Today marks exactly one year since the release of my first machinima, A Final Request for Pizza, about an off-screen episode that really could have existed in the original Death Stranding. Despite some graphical flaws, the lack of proper rendering, and those clunky 2000s-style animations, I’m proud of this project because it was my first serious work in this direction and I put a piece of my soul into it. I’m grateful to everyone who watched it.

Right now I’m working on a new short film—not for DS this time. And in terms of emotional tone and potential off-screen scenes, I want to capture the same vibe I had in that first pizza film. At the moment I’m still creating and reconstructing the original location, but the concept and the story for Short Movie are already fully planned out. I think I could release it closer to spring, or even earlier, I hope.

Hola, tested a new lighting addon. I think it's the last SamxHiggs artworks for this year, but you can always watch footages in my Shorts on YT. Have fun😛

Hola, the experiments with Blender 5.0 EEVEE still continue.

I used to work with this engine very rarely, because earlier it was best suited for rendering stylized characters. But 5.0 seems to have changed my mind. During the workflow I ran into some issues related to lighting and materials — especially hair — but all of that is fixable if you dig into it.

I wanted to test EEVEE in Blender 5.0 and Kurtis model is ideal for that engine. I used that scene but with a different concept.

🖤☕ Hola, brought some eronoir… I guess. Hope 2K won’t get downgraded…

And here's a cut version, just to better see reflections and a bit Glare and other compositing stuff. 🙌

I spent the whole day combining footages but now I can finally delete 100+GB of the production stuff. But now you can see the whole recreation process with the bunch of examples and demonstration. Summary: It's fckn hard🤡, and even now I know how make it easier, but Making of the current machinima is Making of the current machinima...