robcat2075

one sixth The problem you're going to have is that the real motion they did will look like cheap animation. The suits were very stiff (because of the internal air pressure vs. external vacuum) so for the most part their "walks" consisted of small hops launched by pushing off with their toes/ankles. Fully articulated leg bends were more effort than they were worth. NA is pretty much doing a hop from step to step when he's coming down the ladder, not that the video from that was terribly clear. And if you want to be really accurate add the camera that took that video on a panel flipped down from the facet of the descent module to NA's right. Even more awkward for animation, the LEM wasn't facing into the sun. But the landscape and astronaut look great, much like actual pictures I've seen.

Impressive detail! How's the gravel under the railroad ties made? When did they get rid of the thing the hobos rode on? And what was it really for?

Nice Jug! That's what they want you to think, but the round thing is really to make it easier for the robots to hold the jug while they put human-mind-control nano-chips in the milk.

I took a look at your page... what's that 2nd item? (above the toaster and below the helmet)

I just realized... he's diving into a plastic wading pool!

The bigger, more emphatic gesture (to space) may be too big and too emphatic for such an old man. I'm worried he's going to knock over the floor lamp. Tell the kids that beverage should be milk, so they don't get a hunched over spine like he's got.

Like most of these things I spent so much time figuring out the mechanics of how this action happens that I just barely get it working and never get around to adding the "exaggeration" part of it. I really wanted to do more with the springboard. I should have started him farther back so the first hop could more plausibly land with more force on the board, deflecting it more, giving more opportunity for squash&stretch. Also, I should have had his first anticipation movement go down instead of back. I'd have to experiment much more with this to find the right union of "cartoon hangtime" and "real physics hangtime" It is fun. Harrowing, but fun. And I've learned much by trying this each week and comparing my results with the others'.

Back when A:M came with a full technical manual, I found it very helpful to actually read the thing from beginning to end. I didn't understand it all, I didn't use it all immediately, but it planted a lot of seeds in my mind about the tools that were there. Actually trying all the things in the manual came much later, but reading gave me a global sense of the program that a quickstart tutorial couldn't do. Although you can still page through the electronic docs in "Help", I hope the print-on-demand scheme proposed for the future will get the manual back in the hands of new users. (And I hope they will read it )

Yeah, i think moving the hands out of the body uses your screen space better too. This is coming together. Maybe his focus ought to go out towards the "gulf of space" instead of waiting so long after the hand has pointed to it. i think the gulf of space would seem more important if he were compelled to look at it (even though he's seen it all before), and then his attention should creep back to the camera (us) again during "minds immensely superior to ours"

Last night's topic for the four-hour Animation Showdown was "Dive!" Our character had to dive into a pool. I found this one quite grueling. It's not much but at least he got off! See it on my Showdown page (QT Sorenson 3 - 148K)

I think I remember you working on that. So you finally got it rendered! Looks cool.

Does that glass bottle have thickness or is it just the outer skin?

I'm thinking he's doing the unclenching of the hand too many times. The second one works great. I used to work with an old Disney animator who would have looked at the last pose and said "get those hands away from the body!" After about the tenth time he said that to me and threw away my drawing I realized he was talking about silhouette and making easy to read poses. The initial poses are much stronger because outline of the hand is separate from the outline of the body. I'm also thinking you shouldn't leave that other hand out of the action. Using the other hand could relieve some of the repetition of right hand. Things other hands can do without twinning: -scratch chin -hand over collarbone (catching breath) -hand to forehead (thinking so hard it hurts )

How about if he sort of subtley shook his head "no" (to himself more than for the audience's benefit) when he said "no would have believed..." How about for the "scrutinizing" stuff if he had both his hands in front of him as if they were gripping some small imaginary sphere that he was studying? (warning: danger of overacting in both of the above suggestions) Gonna add some brow movements? I think the face is a bit static without them. But I'm just guessing here. The most facial animation I've tried so far is pointing eyeballs in different directions. My character doesn't even have a mouth.

There's always the Filmation solution... cut to a reaction shot of someone blinking while otherwise motionlessly listening.

Neat character. Geez, he is thin! I think it's working best during "the timeless worlds of space"; there the poses really work with the voice.

It was an action, offset each time so the beginning and end would match up. Everything was an action, really. Arranged like this: (BTW has anybody noticed that no matter how far you scroll down in the PWS, you can never see the keyframes on the last item in the window.)

Hey, Grubber, that's a fearsome critter! If you continue to be bored you should try the modeling showdown on sundays at digitalrendering.com

If the harmonica will be seen this close in your movie, you might consider redoing the central parts with a tiny, tiny bevel on the edges to help define them better.

Thanks for all your comments! Zach pretty well explained the focus of the Showdown, but I understand what Rodney is getting at. There should be more to animation than just a character moving well, there should be a reason for the movement. A non-animator audience will demand that. 5-10 seconds screen time is enough time to tell a story, but getting all the acting done in four work hours to tell it ... hoooeee...I'm not that fast. I try approach every showdown like this: #1 - accomplish the stated goal. Climb a pole? Ok, if nothing else, my character is going climb that pole with the best animation I can do. Just getting that action to work took most of my time. #2 - Find some way to do it that no one else will. So I didn't do a "sneak" when we had to "steal something." Not much wiggle room on "climb a pole" though. #3 fit a gag/story in. With more time I might have had him skid in, look around in a panic, then climb up the pole just in time to elude the police running in. That's the plan, anyway I'm lucky to just get the guy up the pole in four hours. Fortunately, there are no prizes in this thing except bragging rights for a day or two. Voting irregularities? Doesn't matter. No one appreciated the originality of what i did? Doesn't matter. I'm not deluding myself that somehow I'll get "discovered" if I win. I'm free to try anything I want and fail. And hearing other animators explain why they didn't like mine has been useful.

well, that's not bad for no smartskin. I think fat characters are hard to do because they have so many potentially overlapping masses around their joints. That must be why there are so many thin, bony characters walking around. PS. Tell the bear I said "Rubenesque", not "fat"

That is just too charming and adorable! I'm impressed by the wide scope of the mouth.

Pole Climber was the topic in wednesday's four hour Animation Showdown. An' it were a tough one! This is my entry re-rendered for better lighting and with a few animation tweaks suggested by other contestants, including ZachBG. Download it from my Showdown page

hmmm. I downloaded it but it only showed white, which is odd since it's in "animation" codec and that's a standard quicktime codec. But actually "Animation" codec is usually not a good choice for animations you might post on the internet. It doesn't compress very much. If you redid it in Sorenson 3 you would almost certainly get a larger image size with a smaller file.

It was like a real Star Wars movie, but without the bad haircuts A few rough (compositing) edges but quite spiffy none-the-less and a substantial production since it seemed like every shot was an effects shot of some sort. You could probably submit a clip of one of the all-A:M sequences to the "Space" contest this month. And win.