dimos

First off let me just say again that this is a very nice cycle for someone so young and fresh to the artform. But you asked me so hear I go. What I see from the front view... 1) Over all speed is good but it seems that every 5th frame is doubled up, which gives a little bit of a undesired poppy action. Just to note...Do you work 24 frames or 30 frames? I suggest to always work in 24 frames per second. That's how feature films are made and most television and commercial productions. 2) Head needs a little secondary. Ever so slightly drag (or tilt) the head up or down depending on direction of flow. My suggestion is that the head on frame 1 should be tilted upwards and should snap to where it is in frame 3 but you may need to play with that until it looks right. 3) The arms are twinning and that is not so eye pleasing. Vary the arms by offsetting them about 4 frames from each other, or maybe making each one arm move slighlty different (but don't loose that craziness because that funny). Also try a test to see how much funnier (or not) it'll be be to leave thae character hands openly flapping in the wind. It could add in a little more humour. Keep that hand loose but not overly flappy. 4) Each time the foot that is off the ground passes underneath the character it passes through the ground which kind of pops a little. You may try to fix this by rotating the foot to point slighlty out to the side as it's passing underneath. It may make the run sillier (which is good in this case). WATCH THE KNEES! The characters right knee seems to bend inwards as it passes underneath him (or her not sure). What I see from the side... 1) ARMs should have a slight forward and back motion (swinging). When right foot is forward, left arm should move forward and right should move back. Due to the silly run it should be SLIGHT but noticeable. 2) The feet are pssing through the ground but I mentioned that earlier. 3) The secondary head animation would really benefit this view quite a bit. Try a few variations to see how it looks best. 4) I know you said the tail isn't done but that would also help out a lot. Now all that said here are some extra ideas. Tongue flying out of the left side of his mouth flayling around (funny). Maybe some secondary animation with the eyes. Anyway... Thanks for the nice words. I hope I helped. Dimos

for those of us who can not access A:M at work... Can you post a few pics of the parts of the house you used sweeper on. (in there proper setting please). I'd like to take a looksy. Dimos

Josh, If I'm not mistaken your about 16 years old right? If so let me tell you one thing. GREAT work!!! If you're not 16 or younger, well... it still pretty good. Some things can be tweaked but for a beginner your pretty damned good. CYCLES can be the hardest, most tedious peices of work. If you use cycles in a production atmosphere they have to be pretty "spot on" for them to work well, and yours seems to work well. I have seen less amusing cycles from professionals. If you keep up at this and study the craft to hone(sp*) your skills a little or a lot (depending on how far you want to take it), I'd say you have a DEFINITE future in the industry. I like the character a lot too. Did you model the character? Keep it up. Dimos

That true

Yes - MAD is taking a satirical stab with their parody. This is my point exactly. I'll be convinced the Star Trek video is parody when I hear what exactly about Star Trek he's mocking. In the trailer, I didn't see anything other than some changed names. What position does it take? What's it's "stand"? Answer that, and we'll agree. I think the problem is that you're using common sense. Lawyers lack this entirely. Parodies come in all shapes and sizes like I said before. It does not always have to be based entirely in satire.

If fox made a show called DFriends it would probably flop. Maybe Da Friends would be a better title, but that title seems to be more appropriate for a UPN or WB show. If REAL life actors look similar to the FRIENDS cast and are in a series called The Friends but everything else..... STORY, SETS and so on are different.... There is not much grounds for a lawsuit. You can not own a word or a title, only the trademark. Many books and movies [and more] have similar titles so it is really hard to sue on the grounds of that argument. You can not be sued for naturally (or in Hollywood's case unnaturally) looking like someone else. So unless it is a direct rip off of Friends in story and settings, there's very little to try and go on. Dimos P.S. Since we are taking legal like here.... I am not a lawyer and I do not claim to know the ins and outs of copyright laws and so on. I have a some experience with this because I have been in the industry for 15 years and I am basing my arguments according to my recollection of these laws. If you really want to know about the law PLEASE ask a qualified individual such as your lawyer.

Parodies come in all shapes and sizes. There is always going be lawsuits over this kind of stuff. Whether they are justified or not [and the alleged victims take it to court] is up to the system. But to me, this does appear to fall within legal parody guidelines. Mocking the show without using any proprietarty characters, sets, props, sounds and direct visuals seems to be kosher to me. MAD magazine does these kinds of parodies ALL the time, and so do other entities. I've seen worse offenders than this direction and Webadage seems to have looked into the legalities enough to understand the basics. But then again it's always best to consult a lawyer just to be safe. Dimos

I don't think Atomike is entirely correct here. I think in this particular case Webadage is or will be clearly using a parody of the settings, characters (acting in particular) and props. He is NOT using any of their material in any shape or format and claiming them as his own intellectual property. It seems to me he is mocking the original in the form of a parody. I think it's pretty clear. But of course leave it to lawyers to grey the lines of reason. Dimos

The lighting in the second shot is much much much better. Looking pretty impressive. Keep it up. I see you've added faces now. I like that too. Dimos

Ah shucks... ..but there are other guys like me lurking as well. I really like Victor's work and others too. So I ain't the only "heavyweight" here. Plus I really feel this software warrants more professional support because I feel it's great. It doesn't have some stuff like the other packages do but it has a whole lot more to make up for those so called "missing peices" in my opinion. It's just a great peice of software and a great community. And if you think about it I haven't shown any A:M stuff YET because well....hhhhmhmhmhm.... what I have ain't good and I ain't got too much!!! Sadly I have been too busy to work/play with A:M because I have been working too much on other things and having plenty fun with my family. Thanks Dimos

Thanks for the nice-ities. That's not necessary really. I mean if y'all want to that's fine but not necessary!! Yes I did. Personally I feel the work I did in this film, Shark Tale and The Wild (not yet released) is some of my better work. The water, in Spirit, was done in layers from what I understand and remember. A CG fluid dynamic with multiple layers of added digital and traditional hand drawn effects (with some water warping effects for the underwater bits in the raging river section). The opening scene is truly amazing. It was actually many shots seemlessly blended to make it seem like one long opening shot. The CG animator, Michael Spokas (real nice guy), worked very closely with the traditional Supervising Animator, Simon Otto (awesome guy and freaking talented) to get a real cool looking eagle flight path and animation. The sets were amazing in my opinion. I really like the painted textures placed over geometry. It's a cool looking effect. Me neither Thanks! I feel very satisfied with my work. Always learning though, but satisfied with my past performance. I only hope it gets better. Yes it was! I had a crap load of fun. a lot of pain too but fun none the less. Thanks again folks. If ya notice any broken links or funny things please let me know. I am building this site on my own with very little experience in this field so any help would suite me just fine. Dimos

OK, I fixed the links that were messed up and all SHOULD be well. We'll see though. Rodney...Thanks fer the kind words. Dimos

I already found two links that are wrong. I will fix as soon as I can. Sorry. Dimos

Hey Folks, Seeing that many people now-a-days are getting websites for promo purposes I decided to join in the action. Not really much else to say. Check it out and let me know if links work and so on. Thanks in advance for your help Dimos My Webpage

Yves, You never stop amazing me with your combination of science and artistry. You understand properties of lights and textures like I haven't seen anybody before to such depth, and yet you still have a very mature and in depth artistic grasp on the whole image as well. You are a very important man here and don't you forget it. Stain, Your image just gets better and better and better and better.......and so on! Dimos

I'm impressed. If that was your first REAL animation than you have nothing to worry about. Keep it up! Dimos

I said it before and I'll say it again. I HATE YOU ALL! (said in a harsh, envious loving way) Dimos

X, You're rendering skills are remarkable and the clay material is amazing. Keep it up. Are you going to animate this short film to look like a clay style or are you going to animate in a more CG/Traditional style? I'd prefer you stick to an all clay look for characters, sets and animation but that is only my suggestion. Whatever you do I am sure it'll look just fine! Dimos

....and if you could please, can you let the simulation/animaton settle more to get a better idea of the overall settling? Please? Dimos

Hey Elm, I've been meaning to ask you... Who or what is Saturn? I've seen the logo in many of your works. Dimos P.S. I don't really hate you guys

Marvellous as always! You know you all make it harder and harder to like you guys! Dimos

much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much much BETTER!!!!!!! And I though the first one was totally amazing when it first came out. Great! Dimos

I've noticed I tend to do that a lot in recent times! I mean say the same thing that the other people are saying but from an entirely different direction. I hate it because it seems like I'm arguing my point when there is no argument whatsoever. Ah well at least you know where I'm coming from. Well sometimes you have to give up on something to gain something else. When a project concentrate more on time they get inconsistent work. When a project concentrates on consistency and quality it takes a little time. It's entirely up to the people in charge of the project on what they really want. I hope whatever method you use to best tell your story and create your film is one that you are truly happy about. You are so right, but even the greatest film makers settled for a little soul stealing at first. When they "proved" themselves in the eyes of the money folk after a project or two (or more), then their control comes back into play. Just a thought. You don't have to do it right now because there is never a need to rush a good project. Indeed, take all the time to strengthen and improve on your ideas, it's always best to have the best possible package before pitching. Ahhhhh! 23......I remember at is it was yesterday.....unfortunately for me it was 10 years ago. More power to you my friend and good luck in your future projects. Email me sometime and we can continue this discussion and more like it at other times. Thanks for the chat. Dimos

I came back into this late once again. Raf, You can't blame the writers, you can't blame the artists and you can't blame the directors. Heck, most times you can't really blame the modern day producers because in reality mostly everybody on the production gets paid by the people with the money, the people who truly call the shots, and most of the decisions that are made are voted on by committees that then are second guessed over and over again and transform the products into a watered down bland version of it's origin idea. Their dime, their call. At the end of the day the product belongs to the people with the money. It is very sad but very true. The producers and money folk of the eras gone by, as in the days of Tex, Chuck and Walt, had a lot more trust in their artists and studios. From what I remember learning and reading , their mentality (in a nutshell) was; "Here's the cash, now make us back some more". They generally stayed out of the creation process and it worked well for them. The problem with modern day animation is that the folks with the money are just to afraid to trust anyone with it and they begin to control every aspect of the creation process. Plain and simple. I've always wondered about applying this idea to CG. It seems like it would add another layer to the acting to have each animator focus exclusively on one character throughout the film. Unfortunately, it's not cost effective. By contrast, the entire animation team on Robots was just a little over 30 people. It really would makes sense to do this because then the character acting would be very consistent throughout. One of the problems I have noticed in CG film in general is that character acting really differs from sequence to sequence. I remember that some of the artists on one the films I worked on tried to convince the CG production folks that this is a better way to keep things consistent but they wouldn't bite. In traditional animation when we had character teams, it wasn't only to keep drawings consistent, in actuality it was more so to keep acting consistent. Drawing were always re-drawn by the clean up department to keep the drawings as consistent as possible. I do not see why it can not be done in CG animation. There is a way. As far of size of teams that shouldn't matter too much. If there is any major interaction between multiple characters than the animator who's character takes precedence in the scene would animate the entire shot. That animator would have to then visit all the appropriate supervising character animators for feedback and the director would resolve any conflicts in the scene. It was done this way traditionally and worked out well (minus a couple of hurt egos from time to time). If you have a script an idea i suggest you start pitching it. If someone out there likes it (with the money and or resources), the money will come in for you to "prepare" yourselves. DON'T WAIT FOR IT TO COME TO YOU, GO OUT THERE AND FIND IT YOURSELVES. Dimos P.S. We seem to have similar ideals for animation. Now I am definitely a fan.

Where or how do I find the RandyHair.mov quicktime? Is there a link or something? I am interested but confused on where to go. Dimos