KBaer
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Mac Snack 1/14/07
Well, we just completed another MacWorld show in San Francisco, and got to witness some of the new toys that Apple announced at the show. We didn’t get to see Steve Jobs’ keynote in person, since we were putting the finishing touches on our booth for the show. That, and we didn’t really want to stand in line waiting for them to open the doors to the keynote at 7:30am, and then wait another hour and half for it to start. I’ve seen that line. I don’t have that kind of time.
The big buzz was about the “iPhone”. Why do I have it in quotes? It seems that Cisco has that name trademarked for their line of Internet phone products. There was a rumor that Apple was finalizing and agreement with them to use the name. However, after the Apple announcement, Cisco filed a lawsuit against Apple. My impression is they’re angling for more money.
Apple had two on display, sexily rotating in cylindrical plexiglass display cases. They were very pretty. It was a bit larger than my Treo 700, but the display was gorgeous. Certainly, a better display for watch video than the video iPod. The price points of $499 and $599 for the 4Gig and 8Gig models were pretty well received. However, the limitation of being tied to a single carrier, Cingular, was disappointing to some. Personally, I was excited to hear that it was running Mac OS X and had 3D graphics acceleration on it. The prospect of developing software for it is intriguing. But, Steve Jobs said in a recent interview that they intend to keep it closed like the iPod. So, really third party developers would only be able to make Widgets for it. It’s really too bad, since I know I’ve benefited as a user by having third party development on my Palm OS based Treo phone. I depend on Vindigo to find places to eat when I’m in a different city.
But, the other big announcement that was overshadowed by the iPhone, was Apple TV. Formerly announced under its codename, iTV, this is Apple’s bridge product between the Internet and your TV. It looks like a half-height Mac Mini, but has many more connectors on the back for video. The idea is that you hook the device to your TV like a set-top box, and use the iPod/Frontrow style interface to access your audio and video content you’ve brought in through iTunes. It also has the ability to stream High Definition video at 720p resolution. As Apple’s library of studio film content grows, the more this mean something.
Apple is still mostly focused on adding big-studio content to their online distribution. But, we are looking forward to a shift to independent content. Independent filmmakers have always had two strikes against them since film and video distribution channels have essentially been all tied up. It’s nearly impossible to break in with very heavy up-front expenses. But, the digital distribution model opens up great possibilities. And Apple has already made it possible for independent music labels and bloggers to reach an audience through iTunes. We want to see them open up iTunes to independent animators and filmmakers. I do believe it will happen. But, they are clearly going after the big studio content first. We should all lobby Apple to start promoting independent animation and films. Since many of the content creators are also their customers, it just makes sense. As Apple TV takes off, and I hope it does, I think it brings us much closer to the real possibility of animators actually making money by making their own films, rather than working on other people’s films to make end meet.
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MacWorld Jan 9 – 12, 2007
Well, another year, another MacWorld. This was our 15th consecutive year showing and selling A:M at the annual MacWorld show in San Francisco. As you can imagine, a lot has happened over that period of time. Our first show was in 1993, and we were showing the brand new Mac version of Will Vinton’s Playmation, running on a 20Mhz Mac IIci which had a 68020 processor. This year we were running on our MacBook Pro, sporting an Intel Core Duo (not the newer Core 2 Duo) processor running at 2Ghz. That’s a clock rate of 100 times faster, not to mention all the other speed improvements!
The show was quite exciting, with many new product announcements from Apple. That’s always a plus, since it directly impacts the attendance to the show. The crowds were good. We’ve seen this change over the years, but not in the way one might expect. When we started exhibiting at MacWorld in 1993, the show was much bigger. There were two large halls at the convention center, the South and North halls, and both were full end to end with booths, and the aisles were packed with attendees. Interestingly, even though Apple has many times more users than they had in those days, the show is much smaller. But, this is more a reflection of the trends in trade shows overall, than a sign of the Mac market. All trade shows have been shrinking over the years. Comdex, the grand daddy of all computer shows, which was so huge that it occupied half a dozen convention centers in Las Vegas, is no more.
So, why do I bring this up? Because MacWorld is one of the very few shows we go to that is actually growing. We started in the North Hall all those years ago. But the bigger booths were in the South hall. By our 3rd year, we moved there. The show kept getting smaller, and a few years ago, it just occupied the South hall. Then that began shrinking till there were 3 or 4 unused aisles at either end of the hall, camouflaged by large black curtains. But, last year, there were more booths. One of the big reasons was the iPod. Apple’s amazing success in the MP3 player market attracted some new blood to the show, including iPod accessory vendors.
I was curious what this year would hold. Would we see even more iPod users, shifting the balance away from the longtime Mac users? Last year we noticed that the folks that were there for the iPod brought far less money to the show that there were willing to spend. Mac users that have been on the platform for many years have a history of spending a premium to be on a Mac. Since we sell A:M at $199 on the show floor, the more people we meet that are willing to spend that, the better. The good news is that this year, there seemed to be more people interested in the Mac side of the show. I talked with many people that were switching from the PC, or buying their first computer and getting a Mac.
We did quite well at the show. We made many new customers, and sold many upgrades to long-time A:M users. I kept having people come up to me and say “well, I’m here for my annual A:M upgrade. I do this at every MacWorld.” We like hearing that. I make a point of thanking them for their continued support. Dhar Jabouri, you all know him on the forums, came to the show just to see us. It was great to see him there! When I saw him, I came up to him and said “are you here to critique my TWO animation in person?” I think he’s had constructive comments on every shot I’ve worked on, and many of them have helped me improve them. Our celebrity encounter this year was another visit from the comedian Sinbad. He’s actually been a long-time supporter of A:M. He often buys multiple copies for his “guys”. This year, I was talking with someone else when he came up, so we didn’t have any time to say much more that “hey, how you doing” to each other. But, it’s always nice when a celebrity says “hi” to us, and not just the other way around.
Overall, it was a great show, though a grueling four days. We signed up to do the show again next year, and they expect the show to grow even larger.
Restaurant Notes
When Martin asked us to write up these trade show reports, Bob Croucher said I should add some restaurant reviews as part of the report. We work very hard at trade shows, and when you stand on concrete for 8 straight hours, talking to hundreds, even thousands of people, we like to relax after the show day with a decent meal to recharge. I try to research a little of the area we are in, and sample some local cuisine, being mindful not to spend our day’s profits. So, I’ll be writing about some of our food finds we make around the country and around the world.
San Francisco has many great restaurants. We usually concentrate on the ones we can walk to, that have good fortifying fare. As is tradition, our first dinner was at Chevy’s Mexican Cantina, on 3rd and Howard St, next to Moscone Convention Center. One world; fajitas! We get them year after year, and it dependably good. Personally, I’m partial to the Carnitas, a slightly sweet, and amazingly tender sliced pork. I combined that with a marinated sliced beef. And, with a big glass of Dos Equis beer, superb!
At the end of the first day, we wanted some Chinese, and I wanted to go to Chinatown. The R & G Lounge was really good. The food was good, but the service wasn’t. The seafood lettuce wraps, and the Macadamia Nut Beef stirfry were very tasty.
After a long show day, we needed some Italian pasta. Porcini and Panetta just north of Market on Cyril Magnus Drive provided some great food for reasonable prices (we don’t like sticker shock with our dinners). The ravioli specials are a very good option, and the goat cheese appetizer with sun dried tomato and aged balsamic on bruchetta was really a treat. A great way to wind up a long and tiring show day. Just up the street, we had great sushi the following night at Zen Sushi. The cruchy California roll was really amazing. We both also enjoyed the Miso soup. We’ve eaten at both places before and they did not disappoint this time. One word of caution; if you see a war protest march coming down the street you want to cross, try to cross before the procession gets there, otherwise you may have to wait a bit for that great meal you’re craving. Heath didn’t quite make it, and I had to wait for him to get through.
One more note. I spent the weekend in SF with my wife after the show, and we got to relax a bit. We went back to one of our favorite restaurants, The Stinking Rose. This place is a shrine to all things garlic. It’s essentially an Italian restaurant that claims to flavor their garlic with food. If you don’t like the stuff, don’t go. But for those that like it, it’s an experience. We had 40 Clove Garlic Chicken, and Garlic Encrusted Baby Back Ribs. I’d recommend both. We passed on the Garlic Ice Cream for dessert this time. I’ve had it before, and the experience of taking a bite is you first get regular vanilla flavor, followed a couple seconds later with fistful of garlic. Interesting, but I need to experience that once. Another word of caution; when you sit down, you get fresh garlic rolls, which are great. On your table there’s a jar of fresh chopped garlic with parsley in olive oil. It goes well with the rolls. However, since it’s raw garlic, it’s very strong, and it will stay with you till well into the next day. It’ll start coming out of your pores. So, use it in moderation or pay the price. The Stinking Rose is located just past the north end of Chinatown on Columbus Ave.
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I've been working on 2_08_34. It's part of the Nimmie Amee scene, and Tinman has just seen her new husband wearing his old head. He lunges forward, and Scarecrow and Woot try to hold him back. I haven't animated Woot at all yet, and have so far concentrated on Tinman and a little on Scarecrow. I was trying to get Scarecrow to hold onto Tinman's upper abdomen area using constraints and offsets, but it's really rough right now. Scarecrow needs a lot more work. As far as Woot, I was thinking he wound grab Tinman's leg, and maybe get dragged a little on Tinman's second step. Just a thought. I've only got 4 days into this so far.
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That's better. I notice something else....maybe it's intentional, but his right elbow bends first and then raises. It would be smoother if it bent as he raised it.
That was intentional. I wanted to make it more of a flourish motion, and it didn't have enough emphasis when I did it as you suggest.
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I tried to apply some of the suggestions here as I worked on this shot today. I also tried to give the motion more flourish, and add more flopping around motion to his torso.
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Wow Ken, you did all that? Nice work, but there are some improvements I think it still needs:
I agree about scarecrows arms.
Tinman needs to bend his neck rather than rotate his head down.
When Tinman pushes scarecrow, his right arm needs to be extended back. It's abit out of synch at the moment.
Yeah, that was all me. I spent some time getting that shove action to look decent. It was a fun shot to work on.
I did a little tweaking on the scene to reduce the swing on the arms at the end, and to make Tinman's right arm sync up better.
I didn't change the head tilt to the neck, because I didn't see where the control was for that. Is that a Squetch thing?
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Here's my WIP of scene 02_08_04. It's kind of nice to have only one character to animate this time :-).
I decided Scarecrow should hold his hand to his ear to illustrate he is listening for Tin Woodman's heart fluttering.
Then it occurred to me that Scarecrow doesn't actually have any ears. :-) Oh well, I'm taking artistic license.
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Here's my final pass on this shot. I tried making Scarecrow's arms have less twinning. I also switched to final versions of the characters.
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I took Jeetman's advice and added some ragdoll type motion to Scarecrow. I also added more facial expression and head motion to Tinman. I still need to figure out how to incorporate Woot into the shot.
I'm having fun with this shot.
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Here's my WIP so far. I just saw the WIP for scene 20, so it's not lined up with that yet. I'm just trying make the shove action work. Woot is in the chor, but not in the frame yet. I suppose I could place him inbetween the characters, though I have them get pretty close for the shove to work.
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OK, this is my final take 1 revision. I tried to apply some of Rodney's suggestions.
Hopefully, the next animator can take this and do something great with it.
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I took David Higgins' advice and changed Scarecrow so that he steps forward now. I also moved the camera to get a better angle. I think it's an improvement. I may move Woot a little closer to Tinman for a better composition.
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I reworked this scene to match up with the previous scene that James is working on. Scarecrow just had his left hand on Tinman's right shoulder. This was a little tricky to stage. I decided to make Woot try to stand on his toes to see in the distance, rather than having Scarecrow do it. It's all still pretty rough.
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Here's my first take so far on this shot. I've animated Tinman and Scarecrow, but not Woot (who's still a proxy).
The animation is still pretty rough, but I was trying to get the basic gestures and lipsync and facial motion hammered out.
Comments welcome.
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I wrapped up me second pass on 1_05_30. I spent the last couple days reworking the lipsync on Tinman. The motion before was just the Sync_Null moving up and down. I did brand new dopesheets and spent a bunch of time fixing the channels.
I think the lipsync looks better now.
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I worked on Woot's hand gestures today.
I also changed the compression settings to make it smaller.
Tomorrow, I'm going to redo the lip sync. I discovered that it was all done just using the MouthOpen pose slider, and no phonemes. I'm going to try it with a dopesheet.
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Ken, that's a 13 MB file. Are you compressing it at all?
It's compressed with MPEG4. It's a pretty long shot. I think that's why it's large.
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That's the wrong movie, Ken.
Whoops, wrong link. I fixed it now.
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Here's my WIP of a second pass on 1 05 30.
I think David Seymour did the Tinman animation. I've spent most of my time animating Woot and Scarecrow, and a little touchup work on Tinman.
I'm open to suggestions to make it better.
Latest from SVN:
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I updated the lipsync for this shot. It turns out the dopesheet words had a one frame gap between each word. This resulted in a lot of closed mouth frames. I made each word overlap by a frame, and it seems to have helped. In fact, it improved it much more than I expected.
Here it is.
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That was freakin' awesome!!
We have some problems with the AM Films submission mechanism, so I have to put them up myself right now. I'll try to get this up soon.
Did you have some video reference for the dancing? It really looks great.
And thanks for submitting to AM Films!
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Here's the shot I worked on last week. I started it while on a flight to Germany. The woman in the seat next to me was nice enough to offer her tray table for my mousing.
The shot shows the witch coming out of the shadows, see the woodsman through her window with his new tin leg, and she gets mad, and kind of shakes with anger.
There's a white plane she walks through, which is just a guide for where the shadows are going to be. It will be removed for final.
[attachmentid=22033]
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OK, here's my last pass before I move on. I've grown rather fond of this shot, and look forward to seeing it improve when it falls into more qualified hands. Still, I'm pretty happy what I've got after 5 hours.
BTW, I changed the realtime lighting, and the Quicktime compression from Animation to MPEG4.
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Here's today's progress. I mostly worked on the embrace. I did have Nick look up a little earlier, before his arms go up, as someone suggested. I think it works better.
I decided to have her rest her head on his chest at the end of the embrace, so we can see her face. And I have her close her eyes. I haven't done any other facial animation yet, which will really help. They kind of look like robots right now.
2_06_34 take 1 WIP
in TWO Animating
Posted
Here's some more work on this shot. I did some more work to improve TinMan's arms, and I added a hip turn. I decided to re-animate Scarecrow from scratch, and make his action come more from the side, and not try to hold onto Tinman so long. I think it works better. Comments welcome.
2_08_34-take.mov