experiment

[Bruce Del Porte]

I'm making a DVD of old shorts and very shorts and am experimenting with opening title ideas. This is a three second experiment as as part of a 15-20 second introduction title scene. This idea is to have "Animation Festival" spelled out doing a dance number. I know the animation is crude, I'm looking ideas on how to make the whole concept work or maybe a better idea.

 

sample mov

[ZachBG]

Hi, Bruce:

 

I like the concept. I presume, though, that you'll have different backgrounds, colors, etc. because it's a little hard to read right now.

 

I don't know why, but I find the letters' turn-around to be very distracting. Almost like I should be trying to read it backwards.

[Hutch]

Maybe when they turn around the letters could change to become "festival." You would have an extra letter left over so maybe he falls down

[Bruce Del Porte]

Thanks for the input. I added a little more and played with a lighting idea, still pretty crude. The "Animation" will eventually complete the turn and dance in place. The "Festival" will dance facing the camera the whole time. I just did a short action to get timing. After the "Animation" completes the turn, I'll Have "Bruce's" drop from above. I haven't really thought about coloring the letters. It still needs a lot of work and of course will be about 20 sconds long.

 

second sample

 

Let me know your thoughts

 

Thanks

[pixelmech]

Maybe when they turn around the letters could change to become "festival." You would have an extra letter left over so maybe he falls down

That is a GREAT idea - I would shoot for that! The whole letter falling down fits in with the light spirit that animation has as well.

 

Tom

[Bruce Del Porte]

I thought about having the letters morph into festival but I'm not quite sure how I would pull it off without an ugly transition. Any clever suggestions?

[Bruce Del Porte]

As the dog was walking me this morning I thought about the morph and it turned out to be easier than I had first thought. I just had the extra letter disappear here but I think I may have the "N" follow the letters back and get the show biz hook.

 

animation to festival transition

 

Great ideas guys, thanks

[NancyGormezano]

Excellent transition, works really well - also love the colored lights - How are you doing that

[ZachBG]

That's great! I could see the transition on second viewing, but it looked absolutely seamless the first time I saw it.

 

I assume they'll be on-screen long enough to read each word in isolation?

[Bruce Del Porte]

Nancy,

 

The colored lights are a gel tga sequence, dropped on a rim light, placed behind the letters. I shot the background flashing lights as a separate layer and used it as the gel. I added some volumetric to the rim with the gel.

 

 

Zach,

 

Yes, the entire piece will be about 20 seconds. The letters will turn again, back to "animatio" and I think I will have "Festival" line dance in from the right. The "n" will scramble back into it's position. There is enough music I can make it longer if need be.

[Animus]

Very good animating!

 

The timing with music is perfect! The transition is totally surprising!Is it intentional that each letter is almost lined up with a channel of lght? If yes, i would use it even more.(just an opinion)

Boy, it must be fun to make a project like that!

 

Good luck!

[Biotron2000]

Nancy,

 

The colored lights are a gel tga sequence, dropped on a rim light, placed behind the letters. I shot the background flashing lights as a separate layer and used it as the gel. I added some volumetric to the rim with the gel.

What is a gel TGA sequence, anyway? It looks great; I really like the idea and the execution.

[Bruce Del Porte]

Thanks guys.

 

The nine letters of "Animation weren't really mage to line up with the nine rows of lights, really just a coincidence.

 

A gel is an image or film clip that a light projects through. This then adds a projected image on the objects the light is shining on. If you use a single image as a gel, you get a static projection of that image. In his case I used the rendered clip of the flashing light (glows, not really lights) background. I rendered it out as a TGA sequence but a QT .mov would work as well. The colors of the gel tint the light. To make it a gel, load the image/clip like any other rotoscope and drag it from the images folder and drop it on a kleig light in the chor. Adding some volumetric to the light (options folder) adds to the effect. You have to render to see the effect.

 

This is the first frame of the animation and the first frame of the gel. If you look at the top edge of the projected lights, in reverse order, you see the colors line up with the bottom row on the gel. Probably way too much information. You can index from the gap.

 

BTW The lights looks funky because of the tga to jpg conversion in order to post. I think it is because jpg can't show color with a non-zero or 255 alpha value. It's just the lights frame from the movie.

 

[steve392]

Thats graet ,what a good idea ,nice job

[Bruce Del Porte]

I'm make slow but steady progress. I still want to add the "n"as the odd man out bit and maybe the finger snap to the "Animation" line. Then lots of tweaking. Help with some crits please.

 

 

Further Progress

[Bruce Del Porte]

This is all of it, now comes the tweaking. The odd-letter-out bit didn't turn out as effective as I would have liked (maybe even a distraction) but it's placement and time window may never allow it to be what I thought. Sorry about the size (12MB), flashing colors don't compress easily. Any helpful suggestions would be appreciated.

 

 

Rough Cut

 

 

 

Bruce

[Bruce Del Porte]

I think I am nearing the close of this project. I made an ending to go along with the intro and spliced them together for one last post. Once you fade the colors out, they look pretty good on TV.

 

Making a DVD out of AM cartoons is harder than it would seem. Maybe I'll piece together a tutorial.

 

 

Intro & Ending (10MB)

[Bitter Jeweler]

Wow! All I can say is it makes me smile!

especially the "festival's" bit at the end.

 

Also thanks for describing how to add a a gel to a Klieg. I am going to try it!

[robcat2075]

Cute piece!

The odd-letter-out bit didn't turn out as effective as I would have liked (maybe even a distraction) but it's placement and time window may never allow it to be what I thought. Bruce

 

 

It's the timing and motion of the hook.

 

The hook should be thicker and it's motions need to be more obvious, otherwise we don't notice it in time.

 

When the n comes back in it should overshoot its spot then loop back to the right place. Or maybe it could even enter from the opposite side. Or maybe the hook could still be chasing it.

 

More work to do that, yes.

[Vash]

That's funny cause when ever I add a gel and project it on just a blank wall nothing shows up. And I hate to say this but when I concentrate hard on the letters there is an abrupt transition. Sorry I'm probably overstating it. No one would probably notice that. And that's about the only way to....

[Bruce Del Porte]

The hook should be thicker and it's motions need to be more obvious, otherwise we don't notice it in time.

 

When the n comes back in it should overshoot its spot then loop back to the right place. Or maybe it could even enter from the opposite side. Or maybe the hook could still be chasing it.

 

More work to do that, yes.

 

A couple of constraints made the gag hard to pull off. Spacing is tight because there are so many letters in "Animation" and the dance doesn't have them walking toward the back of the stage for very many frames. It actually turned out to be better on a TV. About the same resolution but the picture is much bigger so the hook is more visible. I may just leave the whole gag out, I've rendered it out both ways. On TV it doesn't add much but it isn't really a negative either. Restaging the dance to give me more time to make it noticeable would definitely be more work. I can add steps but it would delay the "Festival" entrance. I added the gag in rather than planning for it. A lesson learned! I like the overshoot idea if I have room, I'll probably give that a try.

 

Thanks everyone.