Dearmad

Fixed. Sorry. Had the wrong filename up.

Completed two scenes these past few days... well, "complete" meaning "I'm moving on anyway..." Here's some info on one of them. A still. There's a quick-rendered clip added to the sweatbox at my site. While it *should* scale well and show enough details at 2x resolution, I am sorry for the sorta small resolution, especially for a non-action scene. Until I get a good monthly read on traffic at my site- I need to be a little coservative about bandwidth... The main points of the scene are the expressions the mother goes through looking at her daughter, from sadness to that welling of love feeling and a smile. Then she sees something... Stuff I want to improve: The rate of mother's turn toward the bed, some of the bracelet animation early on. As usual, crits welcome. Thanks for looking, all!

Finally caught up on this thread- sorry I disappeared for so damned long, as stuff like this inspires me. Your stress regarding output: LOL. I've got about 15 minutes or so done- maybe 18... and if I divide that by my time... I get 0.5 seconds per day across about 5 years... So dude, you're making me look like a lazy little bastard. Although my average has flaoted upward lately... On lipsynch: I'd be careful approaching it as a "pass." You may end up having to re-animatre a lot of stuff needlessly once you place it in. Amarillospider mentioned a way to do it that I also heartily recommend. It makes lip synch so freaking easy. In fact all the LS I've done for my short so far has been enjoyable and not a chore- certainly not something to avoid until later, as I want to integrate it into the animation. On the re-rig stuff: Have you considered using improved/different rigs only on the shots where you found you neded them? That way you don't go back and have to reanimate stuff that was already OK before.... I have about 4-5 rigs for my puppets so far, and just use the updated versions of my rigs in the current shots. This way I move forward constantly. Just a thought. On your stuff: Nice nice nice. I'm not in the camp that would call for you to make your animation more "snappy" especially by relying on stronger pose holds... but you've seen my style (such as it is burdened by my lack of skill) and I'm more a straight-ahead type with some key poses thrown in that are critical. I see overshoot. I see moving holds that are not overdone. I see enough anticiaption that my eyes track where you want me to. For *me* the only element sorta missing is that the female character doesn't move strongly from her hips. Her center of gravity seems a little high, and so she seems to "float" a bit. Her walk hasn't enough "oomph" to it from the hips. In the last vid posted, I love her "coward push" lean into him- and his reaction. She's totally cool, man... Cinematography is nice- effective, keeps the focus well in place AND you frame things interestingly as well. My ONE BIG gripe: LARGER UMBRELLAS!!! She wants *no* sun on her! Ok, now take heart and keep your nose to the grindstone!

Luckbat, Yeah for at least two weeks solid here... and then I'm budgetting "me time" regularly weekly. I find I need animation to stay sane... Paul, thankee kindly. Now back to the happy grindstone.

Just a quick note to say applesnake.net and .com are back up with a really nice web host. And progress is being made on the film... I stripped out a lot of the old avi's i had in the "sweatbox" 'cause I lost them at my old host, but no worries- they weren't important to the film, just rough clips I was sharing. new ones will come now, anyway. And PLEASE email me about any erros at the website if you encounter them... as reconstructing it was straighforward, which means I probably did something wrong.

Hi. This'll be my last update for awhile. Yeah I'm plugging away at it and will finish it, but I'm in my last few terms of graduate school, so things are serious with that. In fact applesnake.net/com will be down for awhile now too, but I'll be maintaining the registration for them and such and will reappear when I'm done with my comprehensive exams and practicums... I'm at a scary point in my schooling - make or break time, so I better make it, get that nice job... and then return to my beloved hobbies! At any rate- the film is half animated now. All sounds are recorded/ready- so everything is in place for me to just find time to put butt back into chair.... which won't be for awhile...

well the pdf is >18 mbs... and still d/ling.

Eh, win2k is a fine OS. Anyway, I like the design of the screenspace in your anim, there, Christine. Your way of breaking up the screen really shows your experience with visual story telling, I think.

Yup. I know I'd enjoy watching it...

Burger related powers? LOL... Man of Mayonnaise causing weight gain in people who demand their food NOW, Lacuner Lass- girl of despair, causing strokes... can Between the Buns Man handle them?? Can Between the Buns Man overcome the stench of their nasty ways? Watch! As Between the Buns Man sings the jingle to confuse his mortal enemies!! "Oh brrring me a burrrger thaaaaat's sweeeet and gooood! Oh brrrrring me a burgeeeeerrrrr that's softer than wooooooood! Burrrrger fiend, burger fiend, My bestest frend. Burgerrrr fiend, buuuuuurger fiend, stuffing buns to the eeeeeend!" Gasp! As Between the Buns Man pries open the buns of evil and FORCES his way IN to that evil lair.... Swallow! The drama down with a soda from Burger Fiend! (sotto voce) Available now from your local Burger Fiend franchise in small, medium, large, and just-too-damned-much sizes...

The grain density makes it look like the photograph is about 4x4 centimeters in size- or shot with REALLY FAST film- which lacks verisimilitude considering the amount of light in the shot. I think it may be losing some detail at this point, but maybe that's the look you're going for. Color balance is really pretty, and the rocks look- well, dang, like ROCKS!

What does "suck eggs" mean here- I'm assuming it's figurative language. John: Wow... Hash has certainly improved the organization of the PWS, it sounds like. Amazingly good, and lots of them, improvements all around.

Luckbat: AGH! That is SWEET- don't have that in 8.5. Grrr.... Higgins: You need more than the set as an image behind you if there are actors in the reflections. I think Luckbat in his project, and I in mine, are well beyond the point of what ifs. And in my experience, the advice I gave was sound. I think I made it clear about setting up only what you need, but, in a rather complete set that can be a lot, nonetheless. Luckbat's (and alot of my sets) have a lot of elements to them, I guess. I have storyboards. But when I hit the actuals of the set, sometimes the drawings aren't up to what I end up wanting and things change- in fact a lot of the time they change- sometimes small changes, sometimes so large I have to restoryboard. I preplanned for 6 months, I preproduced for a year and a half. I'm well aware of the need to make only what I need and manage efficiently what I have made. I have many shots where if the camera moves even a pixel to one side it'll expose the edge of the set, for example.

I thought about that, but decided I simply didn't have time to live my mortal life to not be efficient enough to generally edit in camera. Since I have instant access to "dailies" (quick renders) and am editing together the film as it is shot (to see rhythm) I can go back and re-edit an animated sequence to stretch it out a bit right then, add something here, a beat there... the analogy to film didn't hold up for me- my actors are digital puppets at my total mercy and control, not actors; I can film them anytime I need to- I can even have multiple iterations of them (which I do) for various purposes. And I certainly don't pay them, so they work looooong hours... Also lighting conditions are static until I make them dynamic (losing light? Never!), things can blow up again and again until it's just as I want it, etc... it's a very different world of filming from reality. I don't bother with another angle unless I think I want it while I'm editing- and even then I set it up from the originating shot but treat it as a completely seperate shot- meaning lighting will change if I need to get the right look, etc... I have a few cuts in my film like this, where I went back and needed another angle to intersperse. To look right even some animation had to change... I'm glad they're seperate "shots." However, having said that, don't let me step on your toes as you move ahead- each person's method of approach will profoundly set the mood and tone for their work, and that is important to respect in art. Well, at leats I think so.

I was elsewhere during this update, but want to chime in: this stuff is SO NICE! I love it! And I like how you go about creatively solving problems to enhance your images.

Yeah, then I see the reason for your organiziation. Whatever- selecting groups of shortcuts and being able to activate/deactivate them all is a reasonable feature IMO.

Just some stray thoughts: I keep "sets" stripped of lights and cameras in stock, as choreographies. I pull one out when I begin a sequence, and light it for that use, decide camera angles (in accordance with storyboards, etc). I don't light a set and consider that set "solved" ever. I will change lights from cut to cut within a set in the same scene, if it suits the scene. So I tend to not need a lot of lights in any shot I'm animating. What this has done is built up a LOT of different lighting solutions as I've moved on- each shot has one, so I sometimes go back to how I solved it in one shot and reuse that in another by stripping out characters/actions and beginning from that other shot's point. I've been operating in my film with chors as the main unit for filming- I don't use "projects." I don't understand why I would need to, since the chor loads up everything- models, lights, actions, etc... Don't need multiple chors going at once either, which is the only thing a project could do for me.

I dunno... speaking from the perspective of about 20 minutes worth of completed animation in my own short, that's somewhat dangerous advice with a cost that can be more than it's worth. Example. Say I've gone through a sequence, say 0101 to 0120, so 20 shots. By the time I get to shot 20 (0120) I realize I want a different angle on 0110 (shot 10). It's a simple change, really, but will show a totally different angle to the set (but within design limitations)... OOPS! NO props there, OOPS, no wall, damnit... I find retaining flexibility between sequences can help me unify a shot sequence more than sticking to a rigid story-board plan can- well worth it, IMO. (Obviously, though, I began with the storyboard sequence to lay it out!) Also, if you're going to be rendering reflections- most likely a lot of the props "off" camera, are actually still "on" camera. It's much easier to just include the whole freakin set for any given shot sequence, since I'm not an arthouse with enough people in it to labor at will over things- need the software to labor. It doesn't slow down anything in the computer much at all, if you can toggle certain ones on/off while you work and then turn em back on when you're done. Designing a shot is not as simple as one imagines when it comes to actually doing it for a film sequence. 'cept I don't understand the 10 cameras thing, I divide my sequences into units that only ever involve 1 camera, even if there's a cut/edit inside one of those units, a simple step interpolation solves that problem. The only time I have more than one camera is during set-ups where I *rarely* use a second one attached to some character to assist in animating, but it is VERY rare I do that, I tend to animate in in 2-4-6 or top views then check my shot camera, when in a chor, otherwise it's in an action.

I don't use that many cameras, so I can't speak to that. But I sorta thought they'd have the on/off and controlling props in groups bit down by the latest version. Hm. It's one of my pet peeves during set-ups and tests for really large sets too. Looks, from the screenshot, like you may have it easier than me though- you can go down that list and click-click-click, I have CLICK on the item, click on active in the properties box, then go back up to PWS and click the next item, then back to properties... FECK! I think it's good that Hash will be making another, larger film, so these types of improvements will have more meaning to them and impetus for them to add them into the latest versions than what just a few wacko crazies occasionally sending them an email about, "Hey could you add in...?" can do... -a wacko crazy

-ahem- are there going to be superheroes involved in this landscape at all? heh heh... I just love your style, man- it really is nice.

Good visualization stuff, IMHO. Will help the "unimagintive" money holders see what you're talking about... Gotta say that the colony bit is clearly inspired by Zoic style... you could whip the camera and DOF even faster if you're trying to capture that look.

Mr. Jage: Thank you. It's been a lot of hard work, and I appreciate that people like it. It was my intention from the beginning to squeeze out the purtiest pictures I can get from AM as far as I can with my skills. Ken: Yeah that's frame 0 after the preroll, a few frames into the shot and there's a force and an action to vary them that break it up considerably. That's when the scene actually will start. Also a few sparks fly up from the chimneys on occasion. You're good at picking out things that bug me too. Ok, back to animating.

I did, but maybe it's not reading strongly enough. I'll push the pinks and ambers a bit more in the morning light one. Oh waitaminute, I forgot the red/pink tones completely, now that I look at the chor: good call! (And thankfully an easy thing to fix, because I'm an idiot. Thanks!

Robcat: Thanks. Fixed. Fishman: Yup, I was laughing at his watching those nullls too- like curious mosquitos or something.... And hey, when I post animations, I take what you all say seriously, so being a part of this film in that way is easy! Hash Forum gonna be getting a credit, no doubt. Anyway, here's an update. Hope these aren't too frequent for you guys, but when I make progress, I like to share a little bit of it. So here's some stills from a montage-like sequence of Ravel driving to and from the front at various times of day. It's during this sequence that he almost kills someone (the 1916 road rage animation I posted). Night, Afternoon, Morning times from top to bottom.

Very cool. I love the cape- the thickness is nice. Like the style I'm seeing here a lot. Where's this going? Is there a short you're planning? Did I miss a thread on that?