Hey Void Fam,

We just wrapped Week One of production on our 10-minute Unreal Engine + AI short film… and wow. Let’s just say: 88 mocap shots, 1 suit, 2 actors, and a broken glove later, we’re still standing (barely).

🎭 The Setup

The plan sounded simple enough:

• One week to capture all 88 shots.

• Two of us trading roles: Benny, the bouncer, party girl, bartender, Russian vampire(yes, really).

• One Rokoko mocap suit + iPhone to record it all.

Monday started strong. We strapped Jayson into the suit, tested the treadmill, and captured Scene One in just a couple hours. Smooth sailing.

Then Tuesday hit.

💀 Migraine City + Glove Failures

Real life got in the way mid-week, which meant we lost two full days. Suddenly, our “smooth sprint” turned into a two-day panic to knock out nearly all the shots before Friday.

By Thursday, Amber was fighting a migraine so bad it felt like her eyeballs were going to pop. We pushed through anyway—because deadlines don’t care about brain pain.

Then came the glove disaster. Mid-session, one Rococo smart glove gave out completely. Fingers stopped tracking. Our $1,000 piece of gear basically became a useless mitten. That meant half of our mocap ended up with characters flailing around with stiff mannequin hands.

🎬 The Grind

Despite all that, here’s what we pulled off:

• 63 mocap actions recorded (out of 88).

• Re-did Scene One for smoother walking.

• Experimented with walking mocap across the whole house (WiFi actually let us record room-to-room - CRAZY).

• Captured drunk party girl antics, shady drug dealer exchanges, and a whole roster of side characters.

Even with broken gear, we figured out ways to salvage shots—like deleting bad keyframes and hand-animating missing movements later in Unreal. It’s not ideal, but it’s keeping the project alive.

😵‍💫 The Feels

This week was rough. We’re exhausted, over budget, and our hands literally broke (well, the glove’s hands). But we also learned:

• We can improvise when tech fails.

• Even “bad” mocap is better than none.

• The show doesn’t stop, no matter how sad our little micro studio feels in the moment.

🚧 Next Steps

We’ve got to ship the glove back for repairs (goodbye, more money) and meanwhile, push forward with the scenes that don’t rely heavily on hands. Out of 88 shots, 63 in the can is still progress.

This isn’t the glamorous side of indie animation, but it’s the real side. And you’re here with us in the trenches. Thanks for keeping us moving forward.

Onward to Week Two.
🖤 Amber + Jayson