Omega (Web Series)

First official poster (2013)

## Links

https://jtmovie.newgrounds.com/movies

*This article is about Omega the Web Series (2016). For the original attempt at the show, see Omega (2010 Series)*

**Omega** is an animated Web television series developed by an independent animator, JTmovie. The show is primarily set in the distant future where some humans are born with superpowers. The series focuses on Devin Hawkins, a college student who gains an ancient mysterious power that can change the world.

The series is action, and sci-fi based. Some elements of fantasy play a role in flashbacks dealing with the origins of the power of Omega.

## Plot Overview

The show is set in the distant future, a demilitarized world where a small percentage of the population are born with super powers. The series follows the main protagonist, Devin Hawkins, a college athlete not born with any abilities. Barely managing a passing grade in his other classes, his professor recommends he go to the city's library. Upon his visit, he discovers an ominous cult performing an ancient ritual. A mystical book is summoned, and transfers to Devin the power an ancient sorcerer, Omega. He quickly learns that power comes at a price, and there are those from the future, and the past, willing to take it from him at all cost.

## Production

The series is developed using various adobe programs, primarily Animate CC [2]. with various animation techniques. Adobe Premiere Pro [3] is used for final edits and sound design. The series writing, animation, and major voice work is entirely done by JTmovie. Each episode takes around 2-3 years to produce. The production has recently expanded to more voice over talent and a small sound design team.

*Pre-Production:*
The show is scripted using the program Celtx [4] and storyboarded via sketches on pre-printed templates. Current episodes range from 500 to 900 storyboards. In Animate CC, the characters are all pre-drawn and designed with all their head rotations.

*Production:*
JTmovie uses various animation techniques to create the series. Primarily the show uses frame-by-frame, tweening, and rotoscoping [5], documented in his tutorial "How to Rotoscope | Adobe Flash Tutorial" [6]. Video references for entire episodes are shot based on the storyboards, and edited for each scene (roughly 10 scenes per episode). The edited references are then imported into Animate CC, and drawn over meticulously within the style of the designs. Many of these video references add up to 1000 to 2000 frames per scene. He uses a Surface Pro 3 tablet for drawing animations [7]. Episodes have had frames ranging from 800 to 12,000 per episode. After full bodies are drawn, they are then colored using the color codes of the character. Next, the pre-drawn heads of the characters are copy and pasted into the appropriate angle for the character animation. Finally, all the frames are shaded by hand.
For Episode 4 the character animations will use a character rigging system where all heads and bodies are pre-drawn, importing them in a proper position on each frame.

*Post-Production:*
Once all the primarily character animations are finished, the animations are put into graphics to be used for composition. Each scene is put together moving all the animations into position to match the timing and composition of the storyboards. Character mouths are then animated using pre-made mouth frames synching up with recorded dialogue from the voice actors. Once the composition is done, the episode is visually finished without backgrounds. Using various techniques, and 3D modeling, backgrounds are designed for each scene and placed appropriately. The background process itself can take 10 days straight, and is one of the quickest stages of the production. Once the scenes are finished, each are exported as SWF's and converted into MP4's using the flash-to-video converter, Swivel [8]. The MP4's are imported into Adobe Premiere Pro and edited. Lastly, sound and music is added for the finalized episode.

## Characters

### Main Characters

* **Devin** (Voiced by JTmovie [9]) is an average guy who lives in the distant future. He's an avid fan of the future sport "Powerball" and wishes to be a star player despite having no powers. After stumbling upon a cult ritual in a library, Devin inherits the ancient power of Omega.
* **Alex** the main antagonist of the series.
* **Isabel** (Voiced by SailorSilverStar [10]) the girlfriend of Devin and serves as his moral compass.
* **Valon** the anti-villain of the series, and one of the leaders of the mysterious cult known as "The Order". His quest is to use the Omega symbol to reshape the world back to its natural roots.
* **Max** the main supporting character and comic relief of the series.
* **Omega** the mysterious ancient sorcerer and creator behind the Omega symbol. We see his journey through flashbacks of the past and how he changed humanities course in the future.

### Season 1 Characters

* **Motion** (Voiced by KingCrowleyVA [11]) illegal weapons trader and meta-human. One of the first villains Devin faces in the series. His weapon technology and connection to the "Big 5" ties into the story arc of the season.
* **Madlock**

## Episodes

As of 2022, three episodes have been produced with a fourth one on the way.

*See:* List of Omega Episodes

## Background

JTmovie began working on the idea of the series back in late 2007. He was influenced by various animated TV shows growing up as a child [12]. Before animation, he had dabbled with other movie creator games and software's like the video game, "The Movies" (2005) [13]. The drawing above (made in late 2007) was conceptually a super hero and villain with the Omega, and Alpha symbols accordingly. Not much else was thought of at the time other than them being sworn enemies.

The animation that first inspired him to animate was a short titled *"Wolf Vs. Jack"* by Dom Fera [14]. This led him to learning of at home animation software's, like Adobe Flash 8, and he set out to create his own animated TV show. The first couple weeks were a struggle using the program, and overtime gave up on the attempt. A year or so later, he took a brief animation course in High School that expanded his understanding of the program. He began to expand through self teaching and YouTube tutorials from Jazza Studios [15]. While he knew at the time he couldn't animate by drawing frame-by-frame, he could draw each character into parts to build up character models. With this, he designed three characters with specific body parts placed into graphics in Flash 8. Each had a head, torso, shoulder, forearms, legs and feet. This allowed him to move each character on the timeline to mimic an animated sequence. Similar to the TV show "South Park".

After testing all of this, he came up with the 10 minute animation titled "Omega: Doomsday"[16] using the various characters he had in mind for the series. It was a simple story about three heroes stopping a bomb from destroying the city. Although aware of his limitations, the excitement making the episode was overwhelming to him. The entire production took roughly two weeks, as he worked on it everyday after school. This quick production time and joy turned his focus into making more episodes for a full series. Many of the older episodes were published on Newgrounds.com [17].

While the excitement persisted, the rush to finish more episodes and experiment with animation drained for the course of the next few months. Between February and August of 2010, over six animations for the series were made. Each had different animation techniques implemented, with more time devoted to the next episode that followed. JTmovie began to struggle during this time as he wanted more out of his series. He rebooted the look and feel of the show a couple of times. His first two major reboots took half a year[18] and a year [19] respectively to produce. These were the longest at the time, and implemented the first frame-by-frame drawn animations he had done. While some of it was promising, the overall look to the show didn't feel right.

In mid-2013, he put away all his old production files and committed to starting the series from scratch. The story would be rewritten from the start with a pilot episode, and basic ground rules for the series. The character designs and look was made from the ground up, drawing heavy inspiration from the DC Comics animated TV show, Young Justice (2010). Two episodes were planned during this production, that would follow the origins of Omega, and Devin Hawkins discovering his power. Character sheets were made, with various character rotations. Shading was finally implemented properly, and line weight was all considered. The overall consistent look was very important, emphasizing it has to look like a real animated TV show.

Overtime the production changed, cutting down to just one episode, as a test with 5 key scenes to showcase what the show could be. Each scene took longer than expected as this was the first time he'd worked in such heavy detail and animation. Backgrounds were made in a way he never had done before, making them fit in with perspective and the look of the show. One such scene featured a future city, flying cars, and endless heights of skyscrapers. The complexity of the first episode took a tole on the timeframe he hoped for. After over 2 years of work, and 850 frames, Omega: Episode 1 premiered in February of 2016. The episode was 7 minutes long and received a lot of intrigue from the Newgrounds community.

JTmovie was proud of the result, but hated the long timeframe it took to create the episode and wanted more. A week later he began working on both Episodes 2 & 3 at the same time. Episode 2 ended up being 14 minutes, and Episode 3, 18 minutes. Learning from the previous mistakes of the first episode, he was able to produce these 2 episodes back to back within the same time frame, quadrupling production speed. The two episodes received positive feedback and noticed the heavy uptick in animation quality. The sound design still being a major blind spot in the series however.

As of 2022, no 4th episode of the series has been produced, but statements made by the creator state that he is working on it. The production for this episode is the largest its ever been, with scenes having more frames than entire episodes previously.

## Inspirations

The show is heavily influenced by a wide array of movies, TV shows, and pop culture that JTmovie grew up on. Examples include: The Matrix (1999), Batman Beyond (1999), Static Shock (2000), Smallville (2001), Avatar the Last Airbender (2005), Young Justice (2010), and The Legend of Korra (2012). These characters and stories would inspire him to create and write his own worlds. Over the years a multitude of ideas stemmed from this that were built on top of each other. As the years went by, corrections were made as ideas were updated, and others tossed. This love of live action and animated action series came to fruition between the years 2007-2010, as JTmovie realized he wanted to make his very own animated TV series.

## Reception

The series has received mostly positive feedback from viewers [20]. The main positives being the work put into the show, the backgrounds, and story. Some have noted Max and Alex as their favorite characters. Many of the criticisms are of the character movements, faces, and sound design. Most, if not all, are well constructive criticisms that have greatly helped improve the animation production and quality. JTmovie has always taken these critiques and applies them for the following episodes.

The first three episodes (Episode 1, Episode 2, Episode 3) of the series have all received first place daily awards on Newgrounds [21].

## Trivia

* The original idea of the show stems all the way back to 2007. Many of the characters that appear in the show were created years before that.
* The show takes place in the distant future at the height of humanities progress. This can be considered the "end of history". "Omega" is often used to denote the last, the end.
* The future setting was inspired by Batman Beyond, but so is the idea of Terry being a legacy character to Batman. Much in the same way, Devin is a legacy character with respect to Omega.
* The exact year in the past and future is intentionally left ambiguous in the show. This keeps the content fresh without having to guess where humans will be in a specific year.
* Episode 1 & Episode 2 were featured on the Hyun's Dojo Community Youtube Channel [22][23].