Rodney

I just did a more thorough... even frame by frame... review of this one and you've got some great detail throughout that very subtly works to enhance the whole show. Nice. From the little details in the background, to textures in just the right places, subtle blurring and on and on and on. I feel I need to mention the tank treads and their individual colors too. That may be obvious to most people but it really sells the fact that those treads are moving as well at the camera angle itself (and cropping) that allows for those treads to continue to move (and be seen moving) as the story progresses. How many of these subtle master strokes were intentional and how many were happy accidents??? That's what I'd love to know! For instance, the sliver of tank tread down at the very bottom of the screen getting smaller and smaller and (basically) disappearing just in time for our attention to fully move to the big tank. I love the 'hand off' that you accomplish from story element to story element. It's that premise of having things continuously perform an action until something causes a change in action/motivation that you've really nailed with this one. Part of what helped me enjoy the detail of reviewing at a closer level was trying to explore what I thought might be room for improvement in color correction (I'm trying to learn more about color correction these days!). The two areas that seemed to suggest themselves were to apply a color LUT that pushed the contrast a little more (in my test I used a film_1963 LUT) as well as an application of Vignette that darkened the outer edges of the shot while keeping the focal center of the frame lighter. This color correction seemed to automatically enhance the focus as new objects were introduced as well as generally enhancing the characters skin color against similar colors elsewhere in the scene. Examples of the bigger enhancements included when the big tank is first revealed, the colors popped a little more. Another example: the red buttons that Larry pulls up into view and then pushes (they seemed to read just a little brighter/better). Of course a lot of color correction is just 'eye of the beholder' stuff and the primary shift appears to have been a slight move more from yellow to red and the Larry element itself probably suggests the yellow hue you have now works just as well. At any rate, I'm glad I did the test because it makes me appreciate all the detail you put into the scene even more! Keep up the great work William!

Great stuff! Makes me want to drive around in a tiny tank. (But not get shot/crushed by a bigger tank)

I didn't realize what was going on with their campaign but apparently Indigogo has a feature 'in demand' that allows campaigns to continue on past the deadline of the campaign. What does that mean? I guess it means that folks can still contribute and receive rewards related to the campaign. Interesting. It sounds like the folks behind Indigogo themselves had a hand in getting Don and Gary over to their platform. Much to learn about those crowd sourcing thingies.

For those that don't have a good grasp of the background of Don Bluth and how he has impacted animation this video gives a lot of background. It's of an interview/visit Don had with AnimationNation about two years ago. xhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYExFX3X19g Set aside some time if you want to view this. It runs about 1 hour 30 minutes. Get some great tips on drawing, work ethic, lighting, composition, color/music scales, business and more. One of my favorite quotes: "Stay in preproduction as long as you can."

Hand drawn features are a hard sell these days but someone backing Don Bluth stands to be involved in a 'new renaissance' of hand drawn animation... not unlike when Don spurred something similar back when he departed Disney in 1979. I recall that timeframe (somewhat after the fact as Don was being interviewed about his projects) as a suggestion that other people besides those at Disney could produce animated films. And of course I distinctly recall when the Dragon's Lair video game hit the arcades. I wanted to play it to see the animation but didn't waste a lot of my money because I couldn't get past the first few stages!!! It wasn't too long after that the Disney started hitting their stride again and with 'The Little Mermaid' they were back in the biz again. The 10 years between Don departing Disney and the release of TLM were inspirational years for me as I was bound and determined to get into comics and animation. I didn't know enough about animation and information was sparse in those days so my focus was on comics and I collected almost everything I could get my hands on (mostly Marvel... I was heavily inspired by John Byrne's style of of illustration. I even taught a few classes at the local extension center to kids; the first was 'Basic Cartooning' and the second 'Beginning Animation'. Ah, those were the days. (I had no clue back then what I was doing either) But... the point... The biggest win (in a para-perfect world) would be if Disney convinced Don Bluth to rejoin the fold and fully backed him on some feature films. This would heal all wounds, turn back the clock and set everything up for the next golden age of animation. This is not likely to happen because A ) Disney wouldn't likely do it B ) Don wouldn't likely do it either. But Bob Iger... if'n you are listening, it'd be a wise decision. Not lucrative like buying IP of Pixar, Marvel or Lucas but from a historical view it'd be worth a reasonable investment. The underlying issue (as far as I can guess) would be intellectual property rights. Disney requires them to be signed over to them... Don has spent most of his career producing films that he doesn't have any rights to leverage. The exception to this appears to be... Dragon's Lair. Okay, enough blather from me. I'm not a big Dragon's Lair fan but I'm a very big animation fan and given a good script/story I might even become of DL fan. As such I hope Don and Gary can get some serious backing for a new round of classically drawn animation. If I calculate right, Don will be 78 this year. This is the prime time to get Don fully back into the spotlight of animation. I think the pitch reel is up to 4 or 5 minutes *of animation* now (by hitting the various stretch goals that added additional work to the reel) They've already got an impressive list of talent joining in just for the pitch and/or that have committed to join a feature film production. Some of those include: John Pomeroy - He was with Don and Gary when they departed Disney in 79. He's was back at Disney in '95 and moved mostly to story artist as feature films moved to CG. John has also been working with Tom and Tony Bancroft (and others) teaching animation through 'Taught by a Pro' - most of their video lessons are around $10 each. Kathleen Quaife - well known effects animator - you should check out her website - lots of great examples there. Michael Cedeno - I am embarrassed to say I don't know much about Michael's work... I'll try to remedy that! He's been in the biz for over 25 years and teaches animation at Otis College of Art and Design Dominic Carola - owner/animator of Premise Entertainment - has found a excellent way to pair with the major studios and yet keep a freelance/small biz approach in animation Vera Pacheco - left Disney with Don, Gary and John back in '79 and has been animating on many of the major animated features since Sandro Cluezo - I was a little surprised to see Sandro listed as he's been busy of late creating a new short (and rumor has it... animated feature) 'Klaus'. If my memory serves correctly Sandro left South America for Ireland as a teenager with the goal of working for Don and Gary and after traveling to Ireland... made that goal a reality. James Lopez - another surprise listing - He's an independent filmmaker who lately has been deeply involved with the crowdfunded 'Hullabaloo' Carmen Oliver - yet another talent that left with the crew back in '79? I need to find out more about Carmen and her craft as well... Character Color Stylist! Christopher Stone - Score Composer - created the original Dragon's Lair score! (with apologies to anyone I left out!) WIth the number of talented 2D animators out there there shouldn't be a lack of artists available to produce a Dragon's Lair film.

Looks like they moved over the half-million mark just prior to the campaign end. $518,781 raised. It'll be interesting to see where they go with the project from here. Don and Gary have been involved in a lot of videos related to this campaign. Here's one with 'the rotoscopers' that is well worth watching to get some background and insight: xhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMnRKij0PTU Don gets into 'the heart' of the matter about 3/4 of the way into the video.

I figure I should post an update as this thing is now into it's last day of funding, has hit all of the stretch goals thus far and looks to easily hit the next one as well. They are almost funded at 1/2 million dollars which is pretty impressive considering all things (such as the initial kickstarter not getting off to a great start at the very beginning). 5337 people contributing....20 hours left as of this post... $442,206 raised... I can't see them adding another stretch goal with so few hours remaining but it could happen and might be well worth watching in case they drop something well worth the last minute submission. Also, keep in mind that many of the stretch goals apply to the $5 level. Linkage

Yes, but the issue at that point is that we can't adjust any of those distances individually (via Sweeper). With Sweepers setting it's an all or nothing approach. Resampling the spline allows for the creation of same distances with the option to tweak any of those sections as needed for final placement of copies/extrusions by Sweeper. With the basic shape (and placement of sections) preplanned and then created via Sweeper additional adjustment of the CPs can refine the mesh further although we were dealing with a lot fewer CPs. This can be especially useful in areas where we know we will need additional deformation. Both approaches will work but the resampling of the spline allows for greater refinement of the initial results (as produced Sweeper). It can only produce what we tell it to. In the case of a rope think in terms of squash and stretch between certain lengths of the rope and that's a primary advantage of the resampling approach. And... besides all that... I'm plugging the ResampleSpline wizard because it's good practice to create patches that are roughly the same size throughout a model as that will be useful in other cases besides this one. The ResampleSpline plugin helps us do that.

...and they both have a neat 'coals on the fire' look. (More as stills than animated of course)

Nicely done! It looks like you've already got the feel for use of Sweeper plugin. I'm impressed. It doesn't look like you needed it but I should have mentioned that after creating the path it can be advantageous to use the ResampleSpline plugin to get a path with Control Points evenly spaced. This helps also if telling Sweeper to create a repeated shape/extrusion at each CP. As I say... doesn't look like you needed that.

I know you are after a material here but just in case it's an option... You could model the rope using the Sweeper plugin. Then you can basically create any path and have the rope follow that pattern (to include real knots etc.)

I have been thinking of reasons why I liked Digicel Flipbook and why I still on occasion still think it would be useful. As for why I don't still have it installed... a bit of a long story... I once purchased the lite version and after moving to another computer needed to contact the folks at Digicel to get the authorization code to get the program working again. Long story short, I never got that code. But the value to me was (and remains) that of being a tool to aid in establishment of timing. Jason Ryan (and others) get through the initial stage of blocking (pose to pose or straight ahead) very quickly and then simply adjust their timing. THIS above and beyond the other useful features of the program is where the value resides and some of this can translate well directly into workflow in A:M (for those that wish to forego the act of drawing). I've downloaded and installed Pencil2D several times and am glad to see it is still being developed (with 20 branches even). I must confess that I haven't used it much for a variety of reasons, the primary one being that I never got it shoehorned into my workflow. Looks like its time to take a look at Pencil2D again. Edit: In reinstalling Pencil2D several things come flooding back to mind on what I had previously hoped to use in the software. The primary one (exporting an xsheet) isn't yet implemented. Another would be the ease of grabbing a set of keyframes and adjusting them in time. Perhaps someone can educate me but I'm only able to adjust one keyframe at a time. Thanks all for the recommendations. I'm still searching for the optimum drawing program for animation. I believe that in time... many years here... perhaps 10 or more? that program will very likely be A:M. So still need an interim solution. Many companies and individuals are closing in on that presently. I'd try to list them all but it'd be a very long list! (perhaps that'd be the makings of yet another top 10 list) As the topic is about Digicel Flipbook it should be worth noting that very little has changed with the program in years. It found its niche and appears to be satisfied there. (I have heard rumors of an update but not more than that)

Thanks for the heads up Roger. I've used Digicel before but found the lite version a bit too restrictive. I don't think I would recommend anything below the Studio release except for basic usage and/or trial purpose. (The lite version Is currently only $20 so well worth that however) For those that want to get good at using Digicel Flipbook, Jason Ryan;s video tutorials (many of which are free) do an excellent job of running through operation of the software and as workflow that assists with creation of CG animation. Jason has a lot of useful previews related to his paid tutorials also.

I don't know much about this but saw it and didn't want anyone to miss out if interested. Apparently there is a free online animation course from Futurelearn. Here's the write up: https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/explore-animation I don't have specifics but according to the article I gleaned this from the course is free for the next month only. It appears to be part of a bid to get more interest going in online classes after a $200K investment from Creative Skillset.

I'm not sure what your setting on Multipass is but I find that cranking that up a little will also help to blend the shadows. Not quite related and it may not apply in this case but an additional blending trick I've been using is to turn up the transparency just slightly on the ground plane so that the camera's background color bleeds through to ground (as seen by the camera). Of course you have to turn off the Alpha Channel in order to get that to work BUT if using the alpa channel (in the case of comp'ing ) you can then easily change/tint the sky and ground to any color you want just by switching out your background. And this will of course work best with a background that is either a solid color or blurred considerable.

And have we noticed that some folks love that stuff... even prefer it over highly detailed (read: more realistic) movement.

Strangely interesting... xhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XahbqLdCVhE

This topic is certainly timely. Last week I downloaded a trial copy of Toon Boom's Storyboard Pro. I'd post the initial storyboard I created with it but... um... er... it's pretty lame. I'm tempted to post it just to encourage folks to post work of their own. Not that the forum is setup for it (outside of posting in the WIP forum) but I love the idea of reviewing dailies. It keeps us plugging away at our stories. I doubt I'll purchase the software but it's nice to know it's available if I need to go that route. I'm leaning more toward drawing splines in A:M and (as you suggest) scanning in drawings to rough out the story. One of the projects I'm currently working on has a lot of input from kids and I'm having a blast developing characters and a story with them. I set up the basic framework but am trying to let them drive the main story. I pay the kids 25 cents a design for their drawings (if they are selected for use in the story) and they are currently making me poor! I'll be posting some of that related work in my Tuckertown topic or perhaps in a topic of its own. If I submit a mascot this year it will very likely be a character created for use in that project; one that was initially sketched directly in A:M (I think I referred to that character above). As a collaborative project with kids that don't have access to A:M and would probably struggle to use any similar software, drawings on paper is the perfect route. I just jumped into A:M a few minutes ago and modeled an R2D2 wannabe from one of the kid's other drawings. We'll probably have to adjust that design quite a bit more in order to be able to call it our own. But it went from drawing to textured model in very short order. Creativity is fun no matter what the approach.

I just experienced one of the reasons I'm not yet ready to jump right into the animatic stage (it's hard for me to call it previz because everything before the images are there is pre-viz; story sketches, layout roughs, etc.). I thought I had a good continuation of the scenes outlined above with villain launching into air from top of building, then shooting a blast of energy down toward the building. Somewhere in the process though my attempt to (simply!) translate and scale a sphere (the proxy for the blast of energy), something went wrong and that sphere refused to work the way I intended. While a few frames from the entire sequence would be useful as representative stills, after some 30 minutes I still don't have that shot roughed out and I find myself at the point of wanting to scrap the whole setup and start again. This when I know that in just a few short minutes I could have drawn the scene out in rough animation. (It's certainly not hard to draw an expanding circle) Grrrr... It's enough to turn a mild mannered wannabe animat.... storyboar...previ....WHATEVER THE HECK I CURRENTLY AM... into a nefarious villain!!! But... good may still triumph over evil and win the day. I watched the video Tore linked to and think I may be up to giving it a go again.

I get stuck at every point of the process but then again I enjoy the process. Apparently more than the completion. Attached is a quick down and dirty previz of a shot from the superhero story I just outlined. It just took a few minutes creating a few cubes (without tops/bottoms even) and adding a sphere. If not clear it's a shot from street view at the first appearance of the villain. From this I can easily see the next few shots forming in my mind. Villain rises into air above building. Camera closes in on villain so we get a good look at him Individual shots of S-team members entering building/scaling side of building, flying toward villain. Shot of team member A inside building w/ shaking walls, loose props falling to floor. (OS voice over of team members throughout as they coordinate attack on villain) Close up of villian in rage/evil laugh etc. Villain powers up/FX bubble outward (esp. down) Building tembles and begins to collapse Team member B (flying) overconfidently says, "Houston, I think we've got a problem." ignores villain/starts flying toward building (anticipating he is going to keep parts of it from toppling into street below onto crowd of people). Shot of team member C inside building realizing what is happening as voice over (telepathic voice for team leader/primary coordinator) yells inside everyone's head, "Everyone out of the.. (building)." Voice doesn't complete sentence. Final word obscured by foley/crashing. FX/smoke billowing outward from (mostly) bottom of building Team member B is seen trying to keep building from falling as weight of walls/debris crush down on him. Close up of Team member B face as he begins to panic and is engulfed by debris. Medium shot of Team members D and E inside building as walls and ceiling rain down on them. D trying to sheild E from falling debris. Both fall under its weight. Dust approaches camera and obscures everything Rumble fades Dust fades Pan across piles of concrete and steel as everything grows eerily quiet with only slight wisps of dust moving. look up to GV.mov

I'm sure it helps if the story is fairly locked down. If it has a script even better. And... okay I won't say 'You can do it!" but... hehe... As someone who can draw you've surely got to know how easily a few lines on paper (or in a computer program) can be to put into place. Believe me, I'm trying to skip the storyboard stage but am too easily distracted by elements of the story that aren't nailed down. As an example, I recently started to work on a 'story' for the mascot contest. This story will result in a still image... should be easy enough... and it was going well at the very beginning as I roughed out the essence of the main character with splines in A:M. I *should* have stopped at the initial stages of where the character was still drawn in 2D. He looked exactly what I needed him to look like at that moment from from the camera's perspective. But then... I started to think in terms of the final scene being in 3D and away I went into the realm of detail that didn't need to be worked on at that stage. When I finally took a break and sat down on the couch I grabbed one of my trusty (empty) sketchbooks and decided to draw the story-scene as if it were a comic book cover. In no time at all everything fell into place, and as changes occurred I adjusted the drawing. Then I scanned the drawing into the computer and did a color comp so that I'd know (basically) what the final scene might need for lighting and texturing. All of this took very little time as well because I wasn't spending a lot of time trying to perfect anything. (Disclaimer: I did get distracted and decided to make a decent comic book cover with logo... so that did take more time than necessary) Now, the big plus that I see of the approach you are talking about is that once you've previs'd your shots you've already got a great head start on breaking down and animating the story. You don't have to go back in and do those basic steps because you've already accomplished them. That is a great time savings! So, what am I saying here? I'm not entirely sure. Maybe its that I'm not disciplined enough to refrain from delving into too much detail too early in the process of previs? That's surely part of it. I think more than that is that many of my ideas aren't fleshed out enough to begin with and therefore are still back in the initial brainstorming phase. An example of this is what I would call my 'superhero story' that begins with the introduction of a team of superheroes facing off against their number one enemy. In continuity, they've fought him many times before although those are battles the reader has never seen. Almost immediately, the villain brings down a skyscraper on top of the team crushing them beneath tons of steel and concrete. In comic book page time we've only got to (maybe) page 4, maybe page 6 or 8 if more exposition is needed. What happens from there? Well, for a lot of that I've only got bits and pieces. I know who dies. I know the effect of the event on everyone to include the villain. But that is just the initial setup. It isn't the main story which still needs a lot of work/brainstorming... pre-viz. Now we can note that what I've described as the into to that story can be previz'd pretty straightforwardly. Need parts (or proxy) of a city. Need a building (or proxy) that will (eventually) collapse. Need (at least proxies) of all the team members. Need (at least a proxy) of the villain. That all can be previz'd in A:M. But I can't previs the next few sequences because they haven't been formulated. I'd have to skip ahead and grab bits and pieces that are currently disconnected from the underlying continuity. And diving in to previs without at least an outline/skeleton of a plan is probably not the best way to formulate those sequences. Not at least when a few words or doodles hastily scratched on paper will work better/faster. Of course those words can be typed into a program such as Premiere or (fill in the blank with your favorite software for such things) almost as easily as they can be put down on paper. That's where experience and such come into play. This is a lot of words from me to basically say, "I'm working toward what you are suggesting but am not there yet!" And In case you can't tell, I'm enjoying the exploration.

Thanks for that Mark. A great subject to ponder. A few thoughts of my own.... To date most systems haven't been able to skip the storyboard stage because... From the AWN interview: The interview goes on to say in the same paragraph how they were dealing with the issue when assets weren't immediately available for use: So in the end, they don't set aside the storyboard process so much as assimilate it with the next stages (blocking/animatics). There is another aspect of this that keeps me going back to the drawn storyboard and that is the ease of placing/refining a concept. It may only take a few seconds to draw that idea but finding something similar/acceptable might be nigh impossible. It's been said that there are two primary factors in creating anything that is revolutionary; time and distance (timing and spacing anybody?). When either or both of the two are drastically reduced the stage is set for innovation. For the lone wolf production (such as Wannabe Pirates and the like) where the vision is held by one person it may be adequate to temporarily place a sphere or cube in the place another object will eventually occupy. This helps us better envision (in context) that thing that will eventually exist in virtual reality. Although showing that rough draft is sure to get confused looks, "What is that throbbing cube?". "That's not a cube that's Deek Feeder darkest lord of the universe!"

For those of you wanting to move your A:M work into the communal online world and perhaps eventually make a few $ in the process here's a platform that is in early stage of fielding and yet considerably mature underneath the hood. https://www.otakhi.com/pages/overview Here's a current look at the repository: https://www.otakhi.com/pages/home.php This would be for those of you that like to use code as a key component is three.js (javascript) but the platform states that writing javascript is "purely optional**" as the modular approach is designed to be drag and drop. My guess would be that a trip through a program such as Blender would be required to get your assets into three.js. There are some demo videos that provide excellent overviews of spline path animation, particle physics, etc. Diving in without watching these videos is not recommended as it would be hard to infer how to proceed from the UI alone. oTakhi is likely not for the faint of heart or that don't care to join the otakhi community but it does demonstrate a direction online animation is heading. The folks behind oTakhi appear to be positioning themselves to take advantage of shared community resources on the internet with an eye for commercial potential. This is headed in the way of some of my research interests and of such is of interest to me. It's also the space (literally and virtually) that companies like Adobe are moving into. We will likely see a lot more of this type of thing in the future. **Writing code would be entirely optional if every component you ever needed and setup already existed to drag and drop into your projects. As this is very likely not to be the case writing of code is not going to be optional to anyone that wants to be creative.

I really like your character design artwork. Great style, expressive and very unique!

Nice. I remember that episode Mark! (I miss those Wannabe Pirates!) I had forgotten about the specific special effects you used of course which is a good thing. Everything to the aid of telling the story. I recall that as one of the techniques Keith used for the Roadrunner and Coyote although I think he use a variety of techniques. Hiding parts of a model is sure to be easier than creating a new model (for each arm and leg) from scratch and the rigging it with special setup. Although, I'm guessing a simple arm or leg wouldn't be too hard to setup... duplicate... scale to opposite side etc.