Logray Studios is an American independent film studio and video game producer. The first projects I ever published online were a pair of Super Mario animations, made using Scratch block code. That was all the way back in 2019. Now, I've expanded into the world of video games, YouTube videos, movies and more! Even though the quality of my projects has changed dramatically over the years, I still live by the same core values I've had ever since I first started making things online:
I specialize in building upon the works of others; taking a thing that somebody else made that I think can be improved, then improving it
(giving credit when it's due, of course). My content is 100% family-friendly*, with no blasphemy, swearing or dirty humor! Come
join my awesome community! I look forward to hearing from you!
Also, please keep in mind that
this site is still a work in progress. Improvements are soon to come. :)
* Content ranges from G to TV-PG.
Logray Studios has faced some challenges recently. The trouble began when the Scratch
Team removed my animation criticizing the Barbie movie for insinuating that we lived in a patriarchal
society. Some random Scratcher didn’t like it, so Scratch moderators immediately took it down, saying that I
had tried to share a link to a potentially dangerous site. Frustrated by this decision, I chose to leave
Scratch and transfer all my projects to a new platform hosted on my own domain. I called it "Logray
Ultimate." Moving nearly 7 gigabytes of files was a massive task, so I had to cancel all upcoming project
release dates to focus on the transition. Most of the year since has been dedicated to redesigning my site
and working on my YouTube video, *Clean Memes I Found Starving in the Gutters.* While the video was
well-received, it wasn’t quite the amount of content I’d initially promised my fans.
Going into the new year, I’ll be announcing the release dates for my projects a lot later than I did
before, to better match expectations. The next major Logray projects confirmed for release include "Mario
and the Amythest Labyrinth" and "Behind the Scenes of Portal Stories: Prologue" for YouTube. There will also
be "Super Mario World Tour 5," exclusive to Logray Ultimate. Logray Ultimate itself will also be getting a
facelift.
Honestly, I couldn’t have kept going without your patience and support – thank you for
sticking with me. Here’s to a fresh start in 2025!
The Reading Your Comments series is a certified classic among Logray fans, and ever since the first episode came out in 2020, it's been the dream of many to have their comment featured in the next installment. While I am proud to announce that RYC 11 has been confirmed for release, I must warn you that the wait is far from over.
Part of Logray Studios' plan for 2025 is to try and focus on a single project at a time, in order to increase efficiency. Admittedly, this new system has been hard for me to adjust to so far, since I hate letting dust collect on any of my possessions, but I'm trying my best.
This is relevant because there are a few projects that I'd like to get out of the way before I make any more significant progress on RYC. These projects include Super Mario World Tour 5 and the Portal Stories Prologue: Behind the Scenes video. These are both massive projects, and I want to get them off my plate as quickly as possible. I have no idea when that'll happen, but until it does, RYC 11 is unlikely to be released.
On the plus side, since I no longer release projects on Scratch, the amount of mail I've been getting there has gone down substantially, which means there's less risk of me falling behind! I always try to look on the bright side of things. ;)
Up until now, most of Logray Studios' platformers have been "fixed-screen" platformers; that is, instead of the world moving horizontally or vertically as the player progresses, each level is static, making it possible for the player to touch the edges of the screen. Logray platformers have been built this way since the beginning, but it is unlikely that this trend will continue for much longer.
Set to release later this decade, Jeff's Quests will be my first-ever "scrolling" platformer, or at least the first one that is connected to the overall "Petra" timeline (the same timeline that contains such platformers as Alone and Cubey's World). Jeff's Quests is an unofficial remastering of the iconic platformers made by Scratch user @jacko1234567, and features vastly improved graphics and gameplay mechanics.
I won't be saying anything about the release date of this game for a while, but I think it's safe to say that it should come out within the next five years. In the meantime, you can try out a free demo version of it on Logray Ultimate!
This may come as a shock to some of you, but ever since they were added in 2020, I've
been quite repulsed by the idea of making my own YouTube Shorts. This was for a number of reasons, but to
sum it up...I just didn't think Shorts were that good. There was no way to rewind them or skip ahead, and it
looked like, if you made your own, you couldn't add a thumbnail, which felt like a huge downside to me. I also
didn't like how hard YouTube was pushing for Shorts to be used to promote LGBTQ+ content. As a reminder, I'm
not against the LGBTQ+ community and I'm not saying that they should be stripped of all their rights, I
simply believe that their ideology is not something that should be celebrated as much as it is. Watching Game Theory's video on why Shorts were going to ultimately kill
the platform made me even less interested in making my own. I thought my mind would never change.
Fastforward to today: YouTube Shorts have recieved a lot of updates since they were first added, and
now, they're much easier for me to watch. I also feel like there's been less of YouTube using them to promote
LGBTQ+ content, but maybe that's just me. I can't describe what exactly went through my head the other day, when
I changed my mind, but something just said to me, "Yeah, maybe it's time." So that's why I'm doing Shorts now.
As of the writing of this article, I've already put out two Shorts on my Logray Lyfe channel, and I'm
planning to upload more on my main channel as well. Shorts uploaded to the main channel will focus on things specifically
related to Logray Studios, while Shorts uploaded to Logray Lyfe will be more random. I hope you enjoy!
After weeks of careful planning and exchanging design ideas, LEGO has finally given me permission to tell you about my upcoming LEGO BrickHeadz set! Set #40823 is based on my OC (should be pretty obvious), and stands at just over 3" tall, so it fits in perfectly alongside other BrickHeadz models!
I've been working with the LEGO Group on this for a while now, and I can't wait to see what you think of it! Available in stores worldwide this August! Stay tuned for updates!
Recently, I made a YouTube Short in which I asked Grok (made by xAI) to turn still images of the Logray mascot into videos. The results varied from “absolute cinema” to “unhinged nightmare fuel.” While this short WAS made primarily for entertainment purposes, I also made it out of curiosity, to see how good AI video generation had gotten since I had last checked. And it’s getting REALLY good.
I’m a firm advocate for generative AI, as long as it’s used ethically; for me, there’s a stark difference between quality AI-generated content and “AI slop.” Quality AI content means the human user genuinely cares about what is being created, so they always do quality checks on what the AI outputs and applies corrections where necessary. The user’s goal is to make a positive impact on whoever views the content, and they never try to hide the fact that AI is being used. People who make AI slop, on the other hand, let the machine assume total control and never run quality checks. Zero human effort is contributed, and the operation is motivated by laziness, deception and greed. Or the desire to ship Judy and Nick from Zootopia.
Recently, I’ve been thinking a lot about how I might use generative AI in the coming years. As AI grows more and more advanced and more and more people use it, will I be forced to put all of my reliance on it to keep up with the competition? Or will strict legislation be passed that bans the use of generative AI entirely? I don’t find either prospect appealing, personally. To parody a quote from P.T. Barnum, “AI is a terrible master, but an excellent servant.” But who knows what’s going to change in the next five years?
I’ve already used AI plenty of times in my Logray projects, usually to generate voice lines, or to generate a background image in a scene that lasts for such a small amount of time that the quality doesn’t really matter and it’s not worth the time to create it myself. But the potential that Sora 2, Aurora and similar AIs have has been making me rethink a lot of things. The potential this technology has is incredible, and it’s accelerating at a rate that I never would have thought possible.
This has really made me look at the future differently; originally, my plan was to continue relying on PenguinMod for small animation projects, then eventually switching (at least partially) to Blender for bigger projects like the Lion Guard movies, preferably with a team of other animators by my side. AI would continue to be used for generating artificial voice lines. At the moment, this is still my general plan, but I want to make it clear that I’m not ruling out potentially using AI video generation and alteration in my future projects. It’s not guaranteed, but I still don’t want anybody getting shocked and/or horrified if I ever ask Sora to generate a video of my mascot doing a backflip if I don’t feel doing it myself.
My promise to you is that for as long as possible (preferably indefinitely), I will remain in control of whatever comes out of Logray Studios. Everything that AI helps me with will have to get the Logray seal of approval before you guys see it. If a video uses AI, it will be properly disclosed. I still hope to one day hire a dedicated team to help me make videos, games and podcast episodes, and no matter what happens, I still want to learn as much as I can about Blender and develop a thorough understanding of how to code in a programming language other than Scratch. Even if those skills become obsolete by 2035, it’ll still be nice to know. Learning is fun! :)
TL;DR, I’m going to plan on sticking with traditional animating methods for now, but I’m not closing any doors. If I find a way to do something faster using AI without losing any quality, I’m probably gonna do that. But I’m not going to be lowering my standards to compensate. Is AI going to take all our jobs one day? Maybe. Do I sometimes wish that we could go back to the old days? Absolutely. But if this is the world we’re going to live in now, I’m gonna try and make the most of it. Hopefully, I can find the perfect balance between content generated by man and machine. I firmly believe that God has seen all of this coming, and even if I didn’t, I’d still think everything is going to be okay in the end. This’ll just be another adventure for Logray Studios. And I’m excited to see how it plays out!