Bible Animations

This week:
   Wow, this week was stunning! GOD enabled me to get so much work done, I am just floored!! Three tutorials (two full and one tip video) and a model for the Exodus project!! Progress is progress! :D

 - The technical stuff for the serpents
   Rigging
Rigging the snake and rod certainly gave some interesting results! The biggest issue was that the snake got full of kings as I tried to lay it flat for the rod (for effective morphing, the shapes have to at least be close to one another for the quickest results, but you can still get great results with more complex shapes). I believe the biggest problem for the snake came in with the line of faces down the spine. Thankfully, I don't have to unwrap and re-texture, but I certainly do have to revamp the face a bit (to look more fierce) and re-rig it without those faces and see if the kink isn't solved.
   Any improvement beyond that weird kink in the neck will be wonderful, hahaha.

   Eating of the rods
Now here is something tricky and yet not. The Bible specifically says: "For they cast down every man his rod, and they became serpents: but Aaron's rod swallowed up their rods." Exodus 7:12, KJV. That means that I have a few visual options here. One I am seeing atm is that as they get swallowed they need to turn back into rods and then as Aaron picks his up by the tail (as previously instructed) his will turn back into his rod.
I don't feel that that is how GOD wants this done though. Because of the fact that Aaron's rod swallowed theirs, it still needs to be moving. It can't swallow them if it's not moving.
   I was walking outside yesterday, talking to GOD about this very issue and I believe HE already gave me the solution; the build modifier. The Build modifier allows you to literally remove parts of a mesh at a defined rate. This allows, in 3D software, Aaron's rod to eat their rods without getting weird reactions from Freestyle. My idea was to simply use transparency, but Freestyle ignores that and just uses geometry, so that was a flat out failure from the word go, hahaha.

   Our ministry head gave me some interesting information yesterday. I wanted to find information about what the magicians' rod's might have looked like. I could not find anything other than some really really old hieroglyphics that showed people with what can best be described as canes without the shepherd's hook. He suggested I look up Jannes and Jambres. Now those two names literally did not ring any bells for me. In fact, they sounded quite Spanish from the spelling and I was like: "I don't think the magicians were Spanish..." then he shared this reference:
"Now as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses, so do these also resist the truth: men of corrupt minds, reprobate concerning the faith." 2 Timothy 3:8, KJV.
When he showed me that, I was still not clear on what he meant and he explained that according to Jewish tradition and many other extra biblical sources, they were the head magicians of Egypt at the time Moses stood against Pharaoh - which is pretty much the only thing most of the sources I could find agree on. Some of the sources claim they were responsible for the golden calf, some say they drowned in the red sea along with pharaoh's army, some that they were the servants of Balaam and I believe there was something else too, but I have a few issues with some of these things:
- If they were indeed the chief magicians and if they were responsible for all those things (even just some), I really do believe that GOD would have made a very strong point to name them as an example, because they caused so much drama - just like Jezebel for example.
- Extra biblical sources are not scripture, but it does not make them false - just not 100% accurate.
- My script is scripture, so I can't go adding dialogue and names that are not there,

This leads to a few options:
- Adding the general magicians and make two magicians distinct to show they have a higher role among the Egyptians - no extra dialogue or name tags, since it wasn't mentioned. It's always wise men, sorcerers or magicians.
- Keep the general magicians and just ignore it, since it was obviously not counted as worthy information by GOD to name them.
- Do a special flash back to the general magicians when doing 2 Timothy's video. Or to the two head magicians (whichever approach is followed)

Final conclusions:
   - GOD is in control of this project and HE will show me what is the right course of action for this project.
   - Thankfully, there is no rush, because I still have a ton of work to do on the snake and recording, so I can rest in GOD's timing concerning this.
   - Personally, I believe making two of the magicians unique should suffice both contexts, without adding to scripture, but again, I have to follow whatever GOD shows me to do.

For more on Jannes and Jambres, you can start out with these links:
 - Biblical Training: Jannes and Jambres
 - Got Questions: Who were Jannes and Jambres