My first short

[higginsdj]

Well being a bit of a hack, having little imagination but a love of animating I decided to take some shortcuts and purchased Satyajits Aesops fable kit. So this thread will outlien what I have been able to achieve.

 

I started today with the Crow and the Pitcher.

 

I'm using a new 24" iMac Intel 2.4ghz Core Duo 2 with 3gb RAM and AM v14c for OSX 10.5.1, iMove '08 for the NLE. (iMove came free with the iMac)

 

Took a bit of time to get the hang of the old TSM2 rig (couldn't find the constraint swithc for a while - boy that was really annoying) but got my act together and knocked out the first 3 storyboards worth of animation.

 

Well everything except the animation is supplied so all I had to do was to build a bird fly action and put the elements in the scene, play the movement of the actor in the scene move the camera and the lights then render it out. So here is Scene01 to 03.

http://www.david-higgins.com/Animation/pro...itcher01-03.mov (1mb H.264 QT .mov)

 

Comments and critiques most welcome. Hey, I know it's not great - but I'm animating a story.....

 

Cheers

[Luuk Steitner]

That's a good start. Maybe you could alter the wing flap action a bit. When the bird moves his wings down, his body raises too much. A wing is not 100% efficient, so if you move it downwards there is always some loss.

 

I'm looking forward to see more

[thekamps]

That looks great to me.

 

I've only re-lipsynched some "Reward" shots

[bighop]

It looks good to me.

 

I have a question about your Mac. I'm getting ready to upgrade my old Mac to a new one this year. I have a 733 G5.

 

How is the rendering time on your new one? I know it take forever and a day on what I'm running now.

 

I'm debating between the iMac and Tower type. The Towers are nice....but very expensive.

[noewjook]

I like the visual style , I have noticed that the bird has some what a painted look.It fits very well with the painted backgrounds.

I guess - seeing painted artwork from you before- that you have painted the backgrouns yourself ? or were they delivered with

the fable kit ?

Music fits very well and the narration voice is also very well.

I like it.

[tbenefi33]

Your doing good keep up to good work I like that background style.

[Bruce Del Porte]

A beautiful start, I love the backgrounds and overall look. . The animation as-is certainly doesn’t distract from the story telling. If you want to tweak the animation, maybe have some head bobbing counter to the wings flapping (wing down, head back – wings up head forward) would loosen his upper body a bit. Also, maybe he can glide as he is looking back and fourth so the eye is drawn to the head movement Nice job, I look forward to more.

[higginsdj]

It looks good to me.

 

I have a question about your Mac. I'm getting ready to upgrade my old Mac to a new one this year. I have a 733 G5.

 

How is the rendering time on your new one? I know it take forever and a day on what I'm running now.

 

I'm debating between the iMac and Tower type. The Towers are nice....but very expensive.

 

I'm a PC man and the iMac is my first venture in the Apple world and I must say I am impressed with the Apple. Render times seem fien - but I do not render that much - 99% of my renders have been shaded renders for animation work and comparisons with large renders from yeasr gone by would be pointless

 

My personal and biased opinion is go with the iMac as it gives you a Windows option to fall back on (with the now free boot camp and lots of other stuff is free as well)

 

Cheers

[higginsdj]

I like the visual style , I have noticed that the bird has some what a painted look.It fits very well with the painted backgrounds.

I guess - seeing painted artwork from you before- that you have painted the backgrouns yourself ? or were they delivered with

the fable kit ?

Music fits very well and the narration voice is also very well.

I like it.

 

Everything except the animation is delivered though the music is from TWO. Its temporary until I work out how to get the delivered music into iMovie without having to put it in an iTunes library first.

 

Cheers

[higginsdj]

Ahhhhh - Front Projection maps. A challenge but with the aid of a bit of a cheat (and a bug report to AMReports) , a workaround plus another learning experience putting me in good stead for the next few scenes and another Scene is under my belt.

 

This is just a minor update. Yet to decide whether I will both revisiting the animation or move to completion then go back and tweak. Since it is going to be a short short - I might do the latter - just to make sure I actually finish something..... Opinion and comments welcome.

 

http://www.david-higgins.com/Animation/pro...itcher01-04.mov (1.2mb H.264 QT .mov)

 

Cheers

[noewjook]

You mean de naration is delivered as well ?

I should not change very much the animation of the bird.The way he is moving now shows he is really verry exhausted.

My first impression is that the movements contribute very well to the mood of the story.

My second and third impression does this as well.

I am really looking forward to see what is coming next.

[Rodney]

David,

So far so good!

 

I read too quickly and hadn't realized this was an extraction/extension from Satyajit's kit.

Its cool to see some results from the kit being posted.

 

A slight pan left (tracking the bird) followed by a pan right would add a lot to the initial shot.

I can't think of the general rule but the idea would be to pick a point in the frame and treat it as if the bird is pushing that point around the screen. The effect then is that of a moving camera following the bird.

 

As I recall the camera typically moves at the point the bird exceeds the halfway point in the frame. (forcing the camera to follow the bird)

 

This adds to the sense of movement and leads the viewer to step into the space the bird is flying through and percieve it as much larger than it is with regard to the actual background available.

 

As you are likely using the whole background image already you'd have to sacrifice a little of it to allow for the pan by scaling it out a little (i.e. zooming in).

 

Edit: To add to the effect of a tired bird I think giving the bird a lot of nose room in the camera frame will help sell that even more. If he's got a lot of area to fly into that might add to the effect of hopelessness and searching. That he is flying from the left seems to be a nice addition to this as well.

[higginsdj]

Thanks guys. The amount I can pan is restricted by the size of the background art. I might have to either zoom in to allow the pan or extend the art off to the right on the opening shot...

 

PS - I'm following the storyboards supplied at this stage without having to do too much thinking

[apophispro]

I like this! It's a fun little short.

 

The bird's flight is what stands out for me right now. It gives the appearance more of floating than flying in a lot of cases. This is particularly because the movement of the body is very static. When the bird is ascending for instance, the body is moving almost in a perfect upwards diagonal even when the wings are not propelling it upwards. The other thing is the flaps are slow and consistent which makes a nice feeling in consistency with the mood of the short, but would probably result in the bird falling to the ground were it actually flying.

 

Here's something I've noticed people have a tendency to do when dealing with the artistic mediums. It's very easy to focus on something without focusing on the things around it. In fact, it's very much an instinct for us because it's the way the human mind works. In order to focus on one thing we eliminate the surrounding influences so as not to be processing too much information. Therefore when we see a bird fly our natural reaction is "Hey! Look at the bird!" The problem with this is that we don't typically look at the air. This doesn't pose a problem if you're just watching the bird, but if you're animating it then the air is actually the more important part.

 

One way to think of it is in terms of character animation. Good character animation is synonymous with good acting. Acting, to go back to a cliche, is mostly reacting. Every line, every facial expression, and so on are all reactions to thoughts, feelings, and more importantly things going on around you. If you're in a conversation the line you say next is mostly due to what the person you're talking with said. Good acting most often occurs when the actor is thinking more about what the other person is saying than what they are going to say because that is how it would naturally happen.

 

So to get back on topic, a bird's flight in some respect is a conversation between the bird and the air. The air has mass and reacts to the bird, but it also has its own actions which the bird in turn will react to. If one could imagine being a bird flying, the bird is most likely very focused on what the air is doing and probably isn't thinking much about how it's going to move its wings next. The two primary concerns in the bird's mind are where its destination is and monitoring the air to perform the proper reactions in order to successfully get there.

 

What I'm getting at here is that in theory the best way to animate a bird in flight is to not actually animate the bird, but to animate the air. This will more accurately simulate that the bird is reacting to the air since in animating the air you are animating the bird's reactions. Of course the next thing to be taken into account is, since we're not birds, how do different types of birds react to air exactly in varying situations and what factors affect that (a la wing size, intent of the bird (hunting, long distance flight), use of tail, size of bird (determining use of body), etc). For that, research is always helpful, and youtube does seem to be a resource for everything so here are a few videos I found. Once again my recommendation would be to look more at the air and how the bird is reacting to it than how the bird itself is flying.

 

 

Hope this helps!

[higginsdj]

Perhaps I'm missing the point here but there is no means for animating the air so I have no choice but to animate the bird.

 

I do see the point about animating the bird as it should react to the air/passage through the air. (I should also point out that I'm more interested in a stylised form rather than 'accurate' form though soem level of accuracy is necessary)

 

Thanks for the links I'll investigate further when I get home from work.

 

Cheers

[Rodney]

Perhaps I'm missing the point here but there is no means for animating the air so I have no choice but to animate the bird.

 

Short of doing some dynamic simulation I think I understand what he's trying to say here.

Its related to my suggestion to pan the background (I think).

In essence moving the air and environment (the space) around the bird versus moving the bird itself.

 

I think the classic pterodayctl flight through the desert scene (by Eggington Productions) uses this basic technique.

As far as I know it's still on A:M Films.

 

Your shots are a lot shorter than that one but the same principle applies.

The idea might be to animate the scene without the bird first. Then add the bird at the appropriate key locations.

 

Not trying to make this any more difficult than what you want it to be. Have fun with it any way you want to pursue it.

Just adding suggestions into the mix.

[higginsdj]

You mean de naration is delivered as well ?

I should not change very much the animation of the bird.The way he is moving now shows he is really verry exhausted.

My first impression is that the movements contribute very well to the mood of the story.

My second and third impression does this as well.

I am really looking forward to see what is coming next.

 

Yes - everything

[higginsdj]

Re-doing the flying action after viewing reference files has been 'interesting'. The wing action appears to be more a butterfly swimming action. So now I have several actions created for Fly, fly fast, enter glide, glide and exit glide. I'll need more for slowing to a hover, landing and takeoff.

 

I have a render going on of the opening chor but my Office PC is somewhat lower spec to my iMac so it's taking 2.5 times as long...... I should have something up soon(ish). I think I caught the 'animate the air' but I'll let you guys be the judge.

 

By the way this thread is just a 'blog' of my efforts to get my first short done so feel free to add comments and advice at any time

 

Cheers

[higginsdj]

Oh the struggle, the struggle...... Here is a new version of the opening shot for critique... (These Sorenson codec's have got nothing on H.264 - shame I only have access to use H.264 on my iMac.....)