11Second Club - Jan 10

[higginsdj]

Hi all,

 

I had been entering this comp with another App in the past but this month, after my initial attempts were panned have chosen AM and a completely new approach. Currently rerigging the 2 characters to be able to blink and talk (at least at a basic level). (Chicken: "You Stole from my kin.")

 

 

Cheers

[higginsdj]

I have a slight problem..... I took the models off the Extra CD that I installed on my HD then enabled embedding and saved to project on my PC. If I remove the CD from the PC, AM reports an error when I try to open the models. How do I fix this?

 

Edit: OK - fixed it with a consolidation (wierd since the consolidation didn't pull anything off the CD)

 

Cheers

[higginsdj]

OK - The delivery of the first line - no lip synch yet though I think with these characters I might be limited to simple jaw movements (if I am to meet the comp deadline). Critiques welcome.

 

Update 1 (1.9mb h.264 mov)

 

Cheers

[robcat2075]

I think with these characters I might be limited to simple jaw movements

 

I think that's definitely true on the chicken beak. If you enough head nods no one can see mouth shapes anyway.

 

 

I think you need to add a few frames at the start so chicken's head can wind up into "you" as the anticipation to going down on "stole"

 

You want B, not A

 

[higginsdj]

Good point. I did this same thing with my first attempt with Mancandy (in the other app) with frame 0 at the extreme (very extreme) and that threw a few people off.

 

I think animating with the restrictions offered by these characters will do me good as I have less to play with. Having too much control with other charatcers has lead me to very floaty animation and I need to make it snappy and to the point. I was contemplating Aardman style mouth and mouthshapes and animating on 2's to give it a stop motion feel. Thoughts?

 

Cheers

[HomeSlice]

animating on 2's to give it a stop motion feel.

I haven't tried this, but you should be able to just render with "step" set to 2 or 3 to get that stop motion jerky look.

[NancyGormezano]

but you should be able to just render with "step" set to 2 or 3 to get that stop motion jerky look.

 

or animate at 12 fps instead of 24 -

[higginsdj]

Quick Update: Shot 1: Cropped the camera to get a closer view of the chook so the viewer gets a better read of the face. Put in some holds and took out some floaty bits so I think this shot works. I think the beaksynch is working too. (But I am never a good judge of my own work)

 

Chook Update (2.67mb H.264 mov)

 

Crits (good and bad) and Comments welcome.

 

Cheers

[robcat2075]

I hear the beats in the speech as "you STOLE from my KIN" but the motion of the chicken is doing "you STOLE from MY kin". I really sense he should be landing on KIN.

 

Overlap on the head as it goes up and down will make it snappier.

[John Bigboote]

Better check your aspect ratio...11sec uses a more of a 4X3 ratio, unless they have changed it. Hate to see you go too far...it's looking really good!

[higginsdj]

I see 'my' as the start of the 'Kin' beat but I'm probably initiating the movement too early. ie Kin might be the stressed word but it is 'my kin' that has the emotion attached to it.

 

I haven't looked at any overlap or secondary action yet (I think wing flapping might help the 'stress' in the phase)

 

No - the 11 Second Club switched to letter box in December 09 (560 x 316px)

 

Cheers

[higginsdj]

OK, I think this one is approaching as near to finished as I am capable of at the moment. I'm not fully satisfied but I am fast running out of time. The facial work (mainly the eyes I think) in the 3rd line of dialogue doesn't seem quite right but I can't 'see it'.

 

Comments and critiques (good or bad) are most welcome.

 

Final

 

Cheers

[steve392]

Looks good ,only thing I could comment on is maybe a little bit of movement on the chikens tail as he moves

[robcat2075]

One of the "rules" of cutting in dialog shots is to either

 

1 -cut right after a sentence is finished (most common),

2 -on a pause in the middle of a sentence, or

3 -on very strongly accented syllable with a hard consonant on the front (least common).

 

These are the moments where the cut will be least noticed by the audience. It's a way to get the audience the new view without distracting their attention from the real object of the scene.

 

It's very rare that a mainstream movie will break this rule and very rare that breaking it works, mainstream or not.

 

So your third cut feels much better than your first. The first one also feels awkward because it looks like we are catching the sheep's anticipation move twice, once going into the cut and once again right after it.

 

The second cut is a hair late too. That could be moved up a few frames to be at the beginning of that brief pause between their lines.

 

You've got some good expressions and poses there. The ears on the sheep bother me because they don't seem to be passively following the movement of the head nor do they seem to be animated as part of the expression. It's possible to switch between the two, but I'm never sure which one they are doing most times.

 

Too late to change now, but i think sheep's reaction to the chickens first line is too soon

[PF_Mark]

frame 223 and on you have teh chickens head swaying back and force with no or too little counter action of his tail. I feel you could add some overlaping motion to his back end as the head sways IMHO. I I really like the rest!

[higginsdj]

Yes - that first cut worried me to - but I didn't know why. The ears are single bones and I didn't bother with them much other than to keep them out of the way of the face. I was also considering adding a step toward the chicken and a step back for the sheep rather than just keep the sheep on the spot.

 

Talking tails, the Chicken tail has no bones but I just noticed that the sheep does. I think it might be too late to add this on the chicken - but I will give it a go and see if I have time. I might also give the sheeps tail the odd swish. (I wonder if I can find a fly model....)

 

Still a little time to try to change and fix things (3 days plus change).

 

Thanks all - All advice and critiques most welcome.

 

Edit - well chicken does have bones in the tail - they are just not showing in the chor...... Any idea how to unhide them? They show in an action window (same thing happened to Brannigan in the SO files)

 

Cheers

[higginsdj]

Woohooo.... Did the chook tail shuffle with a couple of actions. I even applied ease - after 10 years of using AM I finally 'got it'.

 

I shifted the camera cuts - Yes I think they are much better - and delayed the sheeps first reaction to chook.

 

Now to start work on those ears

 

Cheers

[higginsdj]

More clean-up and then other things rear their ugly heads (eye movement, stationary holds etc). I think I am done (again) but if you think anything needs work or a fix'in then please let me know

 

Final (again)

 

Cheers

[steve392]

Thats looking better to me ,made a lot of differance

[higginsdj]

Hmmmmm...... 3.57 (out of 10) on 11 Second Club (between "Poor" and "Needs a lot more work"). I can't say I was surprised but I think you guys need to be a lot less kind on me with your critiques. I do not get offended - I know I need more work

 

It does make me wonder if I am not wasting my time working on a short of my own though. I've been averaging 3.5 ever since starting with the 11 second club so I am not making any improvement. I think I have made progress though - I seemed to have moved from Floaty to Stiff so now I just need to find a happy medium.

 

Cheers

[Animus]

I had a nice 3.35, closer to "Poor" than "Needs a lot more work".

It was no big surprise for me: the night I voted after not watching my clip

for a few days, I realized when viewing it amongst others that it didn't work.

(Still, after watching some of the clips rating better, Ouuchh!)

I watched your entries in the club, you finished in the top 20 once,

and it's a very good clip! Just to say it's still worth to work on your own short,

A good idea, an interesting story, a personal touch are what you need.

The Simpsons wouldn't win 11second club.

 

Trying to cheer myself up as well,

And yes this forum is very kind, gentle...

 

Cheers

 

Michel

[robcat2075]

I'm surprised at the winner, but I'm usually surprised at the winner.

 

Hmmmmm...... 3.57 (out of 10) on 11 Second Club (between "Poor" and "Needs a lot more work"). I can't say I was surprised but I think you guys need to be a lot less kind on me with your critiques. I do not get offended - I know I need more work

 

I regard dialog shots as very... very... VERY... HARD... to do well. Dialog tends to be a lot of subtle movements and subtle movements are the hardest thing to get going right on a CG character.

 

That's a problem with our OZ movies. They're all dialog shots and yet we're lacking dialog ready animators.

 

An 11 second shot is a whole universe of things ready to go wrong. Every month I listen to the new clip and think of something that might be cool to do, but then I realize how much work it will be to do it well.

 

The problem with the 11 second club is that it's promoted as a way to learn animation and yet one can not learn animation by doing dialog shots. Not to start anyway. Body mechanics needs to be mastered before venturing into dialog. There's really only three rules to body mechanics, but they are so general that very few people can see through them to their specific situation.

 

 

Critting dialog shots is an exasperating task because it's very hard to put motion and rhythm into words. And if the person doesn't "get" body mechanics already no amount of description is going to make them get it.

 

When I crit things on the forum now I try to pick one representative item rather than try to solve everything. If a light goes off, great, if not, hopefully one thing got fixed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

It does make me wonder if I am not wasting my time working on a short of my own though.

 

How long is the short going to be?

[higginsdj]

About 5 minutes. Getting some final views on the script and working through the animatic now.

 

Cheers

[thekamps]

Just an FYI...

 

The month of February is pretty much anything goes.

No dialogue.

You get to animate to a nice jazzy swing number.

 

I know there are a lot of A:Mers doing music videos

[robcat2075]

About 5 minutes. Getting some final views on the script and working through the animatic now.

 

Cheers

 

Don't do a 5 minute short. Not your first time out. That is way too long. Even Pixar doesn't do five minute shorts.

 

Do a 1 minute or less subject. It's very possible you could get the animation polished and up to spec in a 1 minute project but the amount of work in a five minute project will defy getting it done well.

[higginsdj]

Yeah - but I am taking 7 months off work to do it (paid leave of course). 2 Characters, landscape set (VUE generated background plates) 8 lines of dialogue. Dialogue plays out in ~1.5 minutes so in theory it could be as short as 2.5 minutes. I just said 5 to cater for the opening and ending credits.....

 

If I had a 1 minute story to tell I would tell it - but the only one that has stuck with me is the one I am working on.....

 

Cheers