OzTiff

Zach, you know I never even thought about making his eyes dynamic! As for an upper limit on the mini movie contest, I think that's a great idea. Particularly given that this competition has no set theme to follow. It brings the entries closer together in another element. Congratulations on your mini movie too, I thought it was excellent. RobCat, thank you for your in-depth reply, and yes, I was (almost) begging for fault finding. Both yourself and Nancy commented on the fact that Woozle appeared to be female. I had to take a good hard look at him, and yes, he could easily be a girl. Eeek, what kind of monster have I created?! I'm about 1/3 the way through modelling my next character and let me tell you, there's no way to mistake that this is a girl (nor are there any stalk eyes in the vicinity). I agree with all the rest of your observations, thanks for taking the time to make them. Ah yes, another thing on my list, attention to detail ....

Mike, that's unreal! When I think of the gazillions of bones I had in Woozle's face to try and get some movement. Even then I wasn't at all happy with the flexibility. I love the way his whole face moves. Would you mind explaining in a little more detail how you went about doing this? I use your Cog Joints (and TSM) to rig up the rest of the character but faces are so hard....

Love it! I showed my 7 year old, his response ... wicked! I envy your modelling skills.

Hi Tom, I definitely like the square version better than the round you had earlier. Have you considered using softer colours? When I think old tv's I think greyscale casing or at least muted colours. You're certainly moving along at a mighty pace!

Thanks Vernon, thanks Dearmad. And no, there was nothing discouraging in there at all. At the end of a piece like that there's no way I can look at it objectively, that's why feedback here is so good. My first thought when I watched the Cell Phone (apart from, well there's no way I'm going to win now), was how long it was and how 'simple' it was (not in effort but in style, sets, models etc). I'd be very interested to know the sort of planning that went into that beforehand, ie. how much do you map out beforehand and how much do you go with the flow? I guess I assumed that I was aiming around the 30 second mark. Mind you, I could have cut off half his walk and utilised the rest of the time more wisely! And Tom, you bet your boots I'll be bigger and better in another one of your comp's. Just might not be for a while! I'm going to model a new character first and that might take some time ....

Wow! Thanks for all your replies, they're very appreciated. Lifted me right up Yes, that walk and path ... I was going to fix it right before the end, but I quickly realised that that would affect the sound, the movement of the arm carrying the chalk and a few other things. Rather than wreck it completely as I ran out of time I left it as is. Nancy, I though your animation was terrific! The costumes and hair on your characters really bring them to life. As for the teacher being a male, Woozle is the only character I've made so far so he wasn't really designed for the part, and he's certainly not feminine enough to put a female voice to! So he just had to fit in. I'm planning on trying a witch next, what fun she could have had. Scott, yes, I agree on the anticipation. My effort towards the end was to throw a couple of paper planes in. I think as much as anything doing this, I learnt that I should have had a more planned out script before I began. Making use of the fact that this is an animation and moving the character around a lot more is also a good point. Thanks. Your peanuts reference made me laugh. Thanks for your comments Rodney. Poor old Woozle with his stalk eyes. I think that came from my terrible drawing skills as much as anything. More planning for the next model as well as the script. Stalk eyes are not great for showing emotion either, there's no brow to crinkle and the eyebrows don't really stand out. I really wouldn't bother trying them out. The sound, well that's was all thanks to other peoples comments on various forums. I downloaded audacity, and then went to Sounddogs and purchased a few sounds, then got myself a computer voice generator thingy (my attempt at recording was way more static than voice), made sure I typed 'zed' for 'z' and I was away... it wasn't nearly as hard as I thought it would be. Thanks Ed and Paul too. The forums are really what makes Hash, as much as the application itself. I don't participate as much as I should, but I sure read a lot. Oh yes, Nancy, the writing on the blackboard. I followed a tutorial by Darrin Mossor. http://www.mossor.org/Desktop/Tutorials/Sp...rite/index.html and just adapted it. It was a little trickier because I had to do the sound first (a lot of close listening and cutting and pasting) and then match the ease on the path to sounds. I was pretty happy with the results!

Hi, I'd really appreciate it if some of you could critique my Woozle piece, The Blackboard. It's the first animation of any substance that I've completed, and I'd like to take the many many lessons learned and opinions forward to the next project (as yet undecided). The current hash link is http://www.hash.com/users/minimovie/blackboard.html There is also a smaller window media player version available on my home page http://home.swiftdsl.com.au/~oztiff/ Thanks!

That's definitely going to be my desktop image for a while. So much thought and detail, way to go Vern! Wonderfully thought out. I did Biochemistry at Uni way back when, and this likes much more fun. Every kid needs one.

Thanks John, I'll give it whirl this weekend.

Sure looks like you're having fun! You're characters are terrific. A question, can you use skycast to light indoor scenes at all? I had a bit of a play around and the walls 'kind of' got in the way! So I'm assuming not, but this would then mean that if an animation contains both indoor and outdoor scenes it would next to impossible to get the same surface appearance on a character. Any thoughts?

Enjoyed your animation Devo. The bowl from nowhere made me laugh, not what I expected. I had a look at your demo reel too, nice! Very upbeat.

Cool characters and very nice product by the way too John. I look forward to a growing number of models being available on your site!

I bought Skycast a couple of months ago and haven't really had much of a play with it so at the post from Jon I thought I'd see if I reproduce the look for the Kapsules following John's settings. I'm sure I could tweak it further but not bad for a very short play.

(if the hens don't grab it first of course)...

I showed my neighbour at work, and his comment ... 'wow'! Great movement, very ant-like. Get enough of this guy and his mates together and they'll be carting off your caterpillar in no time