Dearmad

John: You're exactly where I am with that action. And no, no camera angle in my film is designed to weaken anything- that would be my acolyte status as "head" animator doing that. Crits on this clip are all spot on, as far as I'm concerned- and I'll keep at it. Ken: Um... it blows just like a firework- and I expect the appropriate oohs and ahhhs on que. I even put a little pilot inside the cockpit so a rag doll can fly out when it goes. Working on blood splatters still, but first the kung-fu moves for the little girls are on my plate; -er- after the robot.

Sounds like you got yourself an assignment there. Yeah yeah.... I can't wait until I get to play with all the new toys they put into the toybox (aka A:M) when I get meself updated.

Sorry, I meant no disrespect. It's just that, you always post these really excellent looking still images, but when you post clips, they're usually accompanied by, "This is a clip from my project, only it was rendered realtime so there's no lighting. And also I removed the background." So it sometimes feels like the clips are "crippled" somehow, as if you're avoiding showing more than the barest glimpse of the project as a whole. Those lush still images always make me feel like I'm missing out when I watch the clips. And sometimes when you post updates, they're accompanied by comments like this: "Between this scene and the last one I showed there's quite a bit of stuff, but they're long scenes which reveal a little too much about the story..." That's all I meant by 'secretive.' Once again, sorry if I offended. I'm a big fan, really! No way, man. I didn't take offense. Seriously. On the animations: LOL to your characterization of me. I see your point now. The reason animations may seem "crippled" is that there's only one section of the film with final renders done- I share what I got in the state I have it (if I share it at all). So the animation stage you see is basically just that- not final rendering, just animation. I'm not using time to final render stuff that I'll be going back over one more time through again as I edit the final film together using my proxy clips. LOL again- that is a seriously funny quote! Sometimes I DO remove backgrounds because I know exactly what they do and look like, and need to focus on the characters. On the stills: I render out stills at various *key* points in any animation sequence as I set it up (lighting, positioning, camera angles) and work on it (animate) to ensure lighting, shadows, materials, particle effects, etc... are all exactly as they should be at certain points. I make sure shadows are falling where they should, highlights are punched up enough, the materials don't read as too busy, etc... I share a few of those stills with you guys. A good example is the still at the top of this thread: the plant shadows on the rock, the depth of field, the smoke in the background, Ravel's self-shadow depths and color highlights on his face, the overall color-quality to it (greens versus gold-red tones), how the procedural gruond material read, and the framing of the shot- that's what I was checking on. So the lush look to the final images will be there but I'm not hiding them from you all. They aren't rendered yet. After animating the film, then editing together all the clips and finalizing sound, I will, during that process, be going back over sequences to touch up the animation, and maybe even reframe/repace. Only things I've consciously hidden are: 1: The actual sequence of the storyline- as the revelation is important to the plot 2: A few of the more "showy" segments of the film already animated. Some of the things I try to do visually are components of the plot which I don't want to reveal yet. I reserve a little right to go for a few "Ooohs and aaahs..." when you see the final film.

That's odd... what about if the bones above the dynamic one were constrained to "roll like" the dynamic one but at lower and lower percentages of enforcement as you go up the chain? Eh, well, anyway, I'm sure there's some way to do it with some creative further constraining. Thanks for sharing!

fishman: Yeah, believe me, I'm very careful about lighting in final shots. So attuned to crafting the action and just testing it out, I didn't much think about it in this "test." Stupid of me. "Minature feel..." Yay! I wanted it to have that feel a little bit, like we're looking into a microcosm of sorts. Going a tiny bit for stop-mo puppet scale feel with much more details (and hopefully some realism) to the animation than one would see in a Rankin-Bass production, for example. Certainly not shooting for Corspe Bride completeness... but, yeah... that sorta feel. Glad you noticed. And yeah, once I'm done, I'll be sharing a lot more about the "making of" part depending on areas of interest. Just not a lot of time right now. Luckbat: Secretive? How so? There's more details at my website. Maybe there's some area to the film I'm blindly overlooking about sharing? If you mean the story and plot? Well.. yeah, how the story unfolds is one of the keys to the whole film, so I'm keeping that one under my hat, but heaps of the plot are revealed at the site- just not concisely. :/ Kenh: 10:30 (minutes:seconds) is animated now, which takes it up to section 5 (of 12). So the best guess I have from story boards and having animated that third of the film is it will be between 25 and 35 minutes long. I'll check on her elbows- and yeah, I break them purposefully a few times- given her anatomy, I discovered it was about the only way to get things to look right. But I think there are a few spots where it doesn't read right. Pixelmach: again- it's embarrassing. In a way I was so careless about lighting my test- lighting is one of the things I focus strongly on. And yeah, it's an uphill fight every moment of animating it. However, the dance scenes will be the hardest pieces in the film and I'm working on one of them now, so after this, no more real technical hurdles to jump in the animation, just artistic ones.

Homepage for Ballet Pour Ma Fille: AppleSnake Original discussion thread: http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=2288 -- Ok, the title to the old thread just sucked- can't figure out how to edit titles... so, new thread. Anyway, here's a simple little Fouette-type turn by RG, who is the dancer in the film. Animating ballet is very hard, I've discovered. It is not made easier when the proportions of your character are... not anything like a real ballerina. This took three days to get to this point, and I need to move on- though I'm not satisfied. Need to tone down her head a bit when it moves forward, and I may make her poses a little stronger and not so in passing, though they are held longer than a real ballet dancer would hold them. And no, this clip is not the setting for the dance in the film, just a checkered plane and the action dropped on the puppet. Anyway, here's the clip (1mb, DiVX, 8 bit mono sound): fouette_m_.avi

Nice. Will the bones work along their roll axis too? So you can control the twist in the chain- or get it moving in a twist?

Yep, he holds up well in walk cycle. Still cute, looks sad in the sad one. Don't need no blinky eyes. I like his arm motions in the second walk- the restrained, sort of slouchy look carries well.

Wow, that's a really nice piece. I like his reaction, it shows he's in the moment really well to me- not broadcasting too much or indicating unnecessarily. His look as he goes down is priceless, and the time he takes to experience that his landing is OK at the end reads really well to me. Only thing missing for me is the thought that's going to cross his mind next and lead to his next action... "Let's do that again...."

I like him. I disagree about emoting for him. It wouldn't be hard- just don't rely on his face, rely on poses. His body and how he carries his head will carry the emotion. In fact, I'd bet he'll be even more interesting to watch if you animate him that way rather than moving "eyebrows" and "widening his "eyes," etc... Also, his button eyes, rather than cheating with them, could be conencted by lose threads so they sorta have an excuse to move- or drop, or tighten against his face a little. But again, I wouldn't rely on them- in fact i'd jsut let them be dynamically connected to his head and rely on head pose, weight, silhouette, etc... It'll look GREAT and only reinforce the cool idea you have going for his character already.

Very nice. Turning her head may require some fan bone type solution and enough geometry to support it, though. Although, not turning the head much at all may be a neat looking style choice.

Thank you so much for sharing that technique. That is truly imaginative. It makes for a very nice look.

Take all the time you need! This type of project cannot be rushed. I love the style and feel of your project! Your work is truly inspiring. Keep up the excellent work! Uh... my WHIP says: "It can be RUSHED!" Now stop reading all our accoladilicious posts and return to work, John! Nevermind the treadmill, nevermind my hand on the speed dial, nevermind nevermind!

I can't believe you're taking so long either- I wanna see MORE! I really like the attention to coloring in the last shot. And the soft feel to it- the lightness to it is also good. I'm curious how you maintained the characters in what looks like relatively sharp focus on the same plane as a fuzzier/out of focus(?) plane. It makes them stand out well even without being "punched" out by light- maybe it's just an illusion?

D/ling now- 10 minutes to go. Interesting you recorded dialogue with your actors together. Since I, like you, have only one room to record in and can't sound proof the actors from each other , though I could record them into seperate channels to isolate that- I had my actors deliver lines seperately. One victim would be recorded first, then I could take tracks that sorta worked, splice em together and play that into the next actors ears while they recorded their dialogue in response. I can't wait to hear how yours turned out. Congrats on finishing your project- that alone is a feat. Will edit when I have comments on the film. (7 minutes to go). Ok, saw it: The voices are done really well. Good amount of character to them. I liked the last episode best. Pretty funny. Amusing how you bothered to probiscus-synch. That in itself is funny.

Updated the animation clip in the post above with the final version (well "final" enough to move on to the next scene, that is). Facial animations added in, a few other minor tweaks. Thanks for looking.

Hey, cool. Sounds like a great little premise.

Rodney: Thanks for the sentiment. Hope the final film lives up to its promise. Starwarsguy: Don't worry. I'm not too sensitive- you wouldn't believe some of the criticism I've faced from my own wife. In fact I'll have to give her credit as Artistic Director. Glad you like the vehicles... there's an animated scene I did (the most complex one so far in the film) that I won't reveal until the film is done where some Nieuport 11's fly overhead. It's my favorite scene so far. So more vehicles coming! But... no explosions. Not a single one. Well, actually, there is internal combustion going on that leads to smoke and sparks coming out of the ambulance tailpipes when they drive... that was a fun effect. AM is such a fun and cool TOY!!

An exception? Anyone else getting that? What player are you using and what version of DiVX you using? I've encoded it using pro5.2.1 If you've gone a few version old on the codec, try an update of the free decoder then let me know. If you're current, though, well, let me know that too. I d/l'ed the clip and checked it with g-spot- it reads fine.

The still. I'm not sold on my FOV settings yet, however. There is a certain "minature" feel I'm going for, though. I do know the FOV does switch in this scene from Ravel and his friend to BGM and then back again....

Here's a portion of a 3 character scene. DiVX 5.x. I made a QT version using Sorenson3, trying the sugegstions above, but am completely turned off by horrible that compresison looks. Sorry to those who don't have DiVX- but I suggest you get DiVX anyway- it's free and painless. Some comments. This was tough. Having three actors all at once really makes for a tough scene. While this level of animation "skill" may seem a little underpolished to you guys, and I certainly can see things I'd like to improve (a lot in fact)- it dawned on me today (this happens a lot to me- this dawning feeling) that I want to FINISH this film- I can see why Pixar has so many animators for a film and they work on maybe 3 minutes of the whole thing- I just don't have TIME! It's a tough compromise between the length of the story/pacing and how much effort/time I can spend on any given scene. Not to say I'm unhappy by where it's at now. Again, I consider things done at 90%. When I'm done animating the entire film, I'll go back and tweak/fix whatever I can. The audio isn't "placed" into the scene yet, and is only 22khz/mono, and 8 bits(!). Needed to hit the <1MB mark to post here. Obviously this is just a quickrender with about 70% of the set "inactive" to speed up the render. You can't see it at this size/quality, but the facial expressions aren't finished yet (will be by today)- such things as eyeblinks, eyebrows, mouth posture, you know... the lip synch is in, however. I've also included in the next post a still from this scene- so you can have an idea of the final image, given how horribly compressed I had to make this clip. -shudder- 0406k_divx.avi

Nice. Only issue I saw: He won't be able to reach his own hat- ever, no matter how he bends. But, that could lead to some funny stuff about how he manages to perch it up there and remove it when/if he wants. And I liked the green shoes.

Elm, Believe me I meant no offense and TOOK no offense- it is just as I explained it- being american your add pointed out some interesting preconceptions I have as to how politicians should behave, and how I expect people speaking german to behave (not germans, sorry about that) . I'm a victim of propoganda, and my own culture here, I readily admit. LOL- your yelling bit in your reply is sorta funny. anyway the crowd is fantastic, the atmoshere is really well done, and the crowd is fantastic- reminds me of your guys awsome work in that chicken toon with the crowd in the highrise. Amazing stuff coming out of am. Good likeness of Figl. Here you go, for those interested: http://www.vsmichelhausen.ac.at/htm-Dokumente/figl.htm danke for sharing.

As usual: meticulous, good animation with technical difficulties thrown in to boot... good crowd. As usual: I'm depressed after watching it. As usual: I'm inspired after watching it. I just can't resist, however... to be honest, it taught me a little about myself- a certain little... prejudice I guess I have, as an American. But b/w footage of German men shouting to crowds from a balcony (even when they're only holding up a harmless brochure) only calls up one disturbing image to me. I guess I've been, in some way, a victim of propoganda over the years. Interesting. Or is that somehow the point of the add? He does have a Charlie Chaplin (ahem) moustache, and his hair is looking like it could be going in the direction of... If that IS the point of the add, I must say I'm stunned. Sorry....

Very nice modelling and very nice style. What's the picture about?