I have some semblance of a finished video! I had to chop a bit more out of it, but it gave it something of a new direction, since it starts out following the egret instead.

If I so desire, I might be heading back and adding more to it when I have free time... otherwise, I'm fine with it as is at the moment.

All in all, I've learned:
- I need to work on my time management skills
- it is possible to chop down an animation if need be (even if I don't want to...)
- I need to figure out sound and music ahead of time...
- Symbols can be a pain, but are actually feasible for animation. It just takes time, experience, and patience to make it look good. Which I didn't do the fullest extent, but I do plan on figuring it out at some point. That way my characters won't seem so ... floaty. =P
- I have fun with layouts!


And now .... *waits for the computer to die while compressing / encoding etc.*
I'll get the clip uploaded here as soon as I figure out how at a reasonable file size.

... I think I'll be omitting animated water. XD As much as I like the notion of the water fall and all, I'll have to wait until summer to add the water effects. I've also cut out scenes 1, 3, and 11...



Progress shot, back to work!

edit: I will be back to add more later... asides from just this, I mean. XD

As pretty as it is, I'm thinking I need to cut down on the detail in the rest of my work for this project. >__>;

This weekend will be committed to Digital Cel! XO Brittany and I will have a working party at Monty. Saturday. ...today is pretty much occupied by Art History stuff for me.


Wheeeeeeee!!!!! *runs around in finals panic*

Um ... not much to report since last time. I've fallen a bit behind. But I'll work on getting caught up this week. I think last week my body was forcing me to catch up on lost sleep and what not, so I wasn't very active in terms of getting things done. <_<;;

For those who were considering using the Vcam that I linked to in my previous post, I found that when you export it, it'll only work in quicktime format (.mov), not as an .avi. Just a warning, so if you want to export it as a particular file type, test it out first.

I didn't get anything done since last class. Not to worry though, I still have a good chunk of the week ahead of me. (and Sunday through Wednesday seems to be my slow time of the week.)

Ya know, I just realized that I never did post my storyboards here. >_> I might as well do that now. Fear the horrid scribbles!











And for those who thought that the goat was going to kick the bucket and were sad about it, you can see from the last scene post-credits that he's just fine. Perhaps a bit dense in the head for wanting to give it another go after the duck, but we'll let him figure that one out for himself. =P

I suppose I'll also add that while trying to figure out what I should do for my waterfall animation, I was looking at Adam Phillip's site again (BiteyCastle.com), and found this link in one of his animations. If you need the code/source file to copy off of to create a particle effect or a camera move, you might want to check it out. I myself will be playing with the virtual camera feature, and possibly incorporating it in my final. ^__^

Link

I got some work done this weekend, mostly in the category of backgrounds. ... granted, I'm not sticking exactly to schedule. This may or may not be because I don't have the character model sheets completed yet. *cough* I know what I want them to look like, but I should probably have the model sheets done before I start building the characters in the animation. ^^;; it's just a matter of getting the characters down on paper (or on the computer, if you want to be technical about it). I'll tweak my schedule later on to better reflect what I've gotten done and still need to do.

In terms of what I have done since last time, I have a very simple credits scene done (minus whatever additional changes might be needed for the title or sound), and 1 1/2 backgrounds done (cue screenshot) -



I say 1/2 because the pan is supposed to have a waterfall in it (Yes, animating water. I am crazy. I believe I've confirmed this before. ^__^). I haven't figured out how I want to style the water yet, though. I'm thinking I'm going to leave the water animations off for a bit until I get more of the actual story content done, and then the remaining time factor can influence what style of water I'll have. XD

*yawn* I stayed up all night working on stuff for effects class. Pardon the typing or grammar if it seems a bit off. Or if I just seem a bit off my rocker.

Schedule-y schedule-y, here we go...

BG – background
SYM – Symbols (goat, egret, ducks, fish)
ANI – Animation (I decided on symbol animation)

Week 6

SC_08 BG – 6 hours
SC_08 SYM – 5 hours
SC_08 ANI – 3 hours
:14 hours

SC_06 BG – 10 hours
SC_06 SYM – 10 hours
SC_06 ANI – 5 hours
: 25 hours

Hours total (week): 39


Week 7

SC_10 BG – 0 hours
SC_10 SYM – 0 hours
SC_10 ANI – 1/2 hour
: ½ hour

SC_09 BG – 8 hours
SC_09 SYM – 10 hours
SC_09 ANI – 5 hours
: 23 hours

SC_02 BG – 6 hours
SC_02 SYM – 10 hours
SC_02 ANI – 3 hours
: 19 hours

SC_04 BG – 7 hours
SC_04 SYM – 8 hours
SC_04 ANI – 3 hours
: 18 hours

Hours total (week): 60 ½


Week 8

SC_07 BG – 8 hours
SC_07 SYM – 8 hours
SC_07 ANI – 5 hours
: 21 hours

(possible cut)
SC_03 BG – 5 hours
SC_03 SYM – 5 hours
SC_03 ANI – 5 hours
: 15 hours

SC_05 BG – 4 hours
SC_05 SYM – 6 hours
SC_05 ANI – 5 hours
: 15 hours

Hours total (week): 51


Week 9

(possible cut)
SC_01 BG – 5 hours
SC_01 SYM – 3 hours
SC_01 ANI – 5 hours
: 13 hours

(possible cut)
SC_11 BG – 6 hours
SC_11 SYM – 10 hours
SC_11 ANI – 5 hours
: 21 hours

Hours total (week): 34

That's pretty much it. I set the greatest amount of work for next week, so if I need to push it back into the following week, hopefully it won't be too bad. Scenes that I can cut out are at the end of my schedule, in case time doesn't work for me.

*digs around for stuff to show* Here, have a screenshot. I spent around 5 hours stippling this looping pan last night. Woo!

I haven't finished my test shot yet, but this gives me a decent idea of how long it'll take for me to get the entire animation done. I'm gonna say 6-7 hours average for backgrounds (this isn't the easiest background I have, but it certainly isn't the hardest either). Building the egret symbols I did for the walk cycle ... I want to say around 8 hours? So 8 hours for each character per scene... maybe another 5 hours or so for the actual animation part, though that'll vary greatly based on the scene... a total of 11 scenes...

Nya. I'll type up a nice little schedule later. (Possibly after I've gotten some sleep and can handle math better.)

Time to start up another checklist ... (which you can ignore, this is really more to help me stay on top of things)

Final Animation

- Script = in progress
- Storyboards = [roughly] done
- Character Design = in progress
- Schedule = to do
- Test scene (to establish schedule) = to do

I'll post the storyboards another time. I'm going home and getting some dinner now. =P

My last tutorial to be uploaded, the walk cycle.

... It's a bit wonky as the pacing changes throughout the bird's walk, so it ends up slipping when I use the motion tween to move it across the screen. The neck is also slightly off, but I won't nitpick on that right now. (and as usual, I'm sure blogger will eat the quality of the upload.)

Done with tutorials, hurrah!

Lip Sync

I'm done with the lip sync (at least with the syncing part of it; I'll add more animation to it at a later point when I have time).



Hopefully blogger doesn't destroy the video for you, but I know it's a small chance of the quality remaining intact. =P

edit: Yep, horrible quality. *sigh* I uploaded it to my website test page, so you can view it here (scroll down past the previous exercise)-
Lip Sync on Test Page

I used a line from Hitchhikers Guide To the Galaxy: "In the beginning, the universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move."

It was interesting trying to match it up for the sync. Given that the number of symbols is somewhat limited, translating it to help me better understand it ended up with this jumbled mess of a code -
'closed E-N T BE-GN-N closed T U-I-VSE WS (I?) TET closed TI AS MT A LT OF PEPL VE NG(R?)E N BN WIDLE RE GRD AS A BD MOV closed'

... MS Word apparently thought I was trying to type in another language or something, because at one point it took the text and flipped it to some symbol language. XD

So, the only thing I have left in this class to be up to speed for midterms is the walk cycle. Shouldn't be too hard. *contemplates starting it now, or getting some sleep* Sleep seems like a good option, given that I got up at 5:45am to go on the CAS zoo trip. ...which by the way, allowed me to grab some video reference for the egret/water bird that I want to use in my final for this class. Bonus! A day of fun, and beneficial to my classes!


*waves to Mom and Dad* I know you're reading this! And look, this one was only posted at 3am, not at 4am. =P Progress!

Rotoscope uploads

Muybridge rotoscope. Rave style, apparently.



Giraffe rotoscope. =D Video footage courtesy of BBC Motion Gallery.


I need to write up a check list to see what I have so far...

Tutorial 1 - Bouncing Ball - Done
a) bouncingball-01.fla
b) bouncingball-02.fla

Tutorial 2 - Puppet - Done
a)puppet.fla
b)jump.fla

Tutorial 3 - Rotoscoping - Done
a) rotoscoping-01.fla
b) rotoscoping-02.fla

Tutorial 4 - Walkcycle - To do
a) walkcycle-01.fla

Tutorial 5 - Lipsync - To do
a) LipSync.fla

Start web blog - well, I think the status of this should be obvious. (done)
Premise / Idea - done
Script - In progress
Storyboard - In progress
Character Design - In progress
Schedule - to do

Lesse, what have I done since last class...

Well, I finished the first part of tutorial three (the rotoscoping one). I'll have to get that posted later.

My roommate informed me of a plugin for flash that allows you to set up a rig with symbols. I'm interested in it, and am considering downloading the trial version to play with it. I'm waiting a bit on that though, 'cause if I decide to use it for the final, I'll only have a 20 day period to use it. I should at least finish my storyboards and character design first. Anybody else worked with it before?
Bone Plugin Site
... anybody know of something like this out there that's free? No harm in asking, I suppose.


Well, I know our professor asked us to post our favorite animation site, but I don't explore the web enough to really know of what animation sites are out there, let alone have a favorite (I know, bad me. I should check out these things more often). I tend to stay more in the realm of webcomics and virtual pet sites, so if you want to know more about those, I'll gladly share about them. XD

Speaking of which, if I might add a shameless plug for a webcomic:
Starslip Crisis
Kris Straub runs an awesome comic that is both sci-fi and art based. You probably won't understand it off the bat if you just read the current comic; you'll have to read through the archives a bit, but he's a good storyteller. Where else will you find a comic set in the future with a warship that was retired and became a traveling museum in space, only to be brought back into service when some lunatic tries to take over the universe with a piece of artwork?

My apologies if plugs aren't allowed in our class blog; I'm just doing my part to support someone who is trying to live their dream in doing their art for their full-time job, and needs the word spread to have a wider fan base (and income). I think that's a worthy reason, right? ^__^ (After all, I'll be deep in the poor house after graduating, but then, that's the cost of college for you. Here's to all of us hopefully getting the jobs we want!)

Let's see about getting some more of those tutorials out of the way today, shall we? *gets to work*

Puppet Tutorial N' Update

Our little bouncing puppet friend, who I still say is creepy looking:


...and it would seem that uploading killed some of it. It does bounce a bit more than blogger chooses to show here.

I've also been working on storyboards. They're not done yet, but here's a screenshot of them:


... and a bit of character design. I'm not sure if this will be the final look for him or not (Because it's still quite detailed with the feathers). It might be, though.

Bouncing Ball 2

The second bouncing ball. *will slowly get everything posted on blogger*

I have to say... I'm not fond of the graph editor. I figured it out, but blah.

Bouncing Ball 1

Geez, blogger takes forever to upload videos. Assignment 1, part 1: The incredible inedible ... bouncing ball. *thrill*

Alrighty, time to update. ... if I can manage to log in to Youtube to upload my work. >_> It's been a while since I used my account there, and I think I've forgotten the password. ^^; *sends for password reset and waits on her email to receive it*

I'll have to upload my bouncing ball assignments and the puppet jump later, but I do have one thing I can show you now - the second half of tutorial two, where we were supposed to take one of our own drawings and turn it into symbols to animate it:

Symbol Animation

I had fun doing that, and for my first symbol animation, I'm quite happy with it. (No, the play and instruction buttons don't work. I just built the game menu page. When I have the spare time, I'll go back and clean up the background on it, make the menu a bit more appealing, and work on the in-game graphics. Then find me someone who knows actionscript and can help me set up the actual game play.)

Premise

I wanted to animate a horse, nay, a flying horse, but I figured everybody's seen a flying horse. The idea then shifted to a flying goat. So. My premise is a goat that tries to fly after an egret along a stream in the mountains. (He has a small set of wings.) The two come across a cliff, and the goat decides he's ready to jump it.

Possible ending A: He's successful in flying! ... for about a second or two. He plummets downwards, the bird glances around, hoping no one saw, and flies off.

Possible ending B: He's successful in flying! Seriously, this time. He happily glides around ... and gets hit by a plane. Bird glances around, hoping no one saw, and flies off.


A sketch I did while trying to figure out what my premise should be. Goat with wings <3

Favorite artwork

Post 4: Pick a favorite piece out of your own artwork.

Er, favorite artwork ... that's going to be difficult to choose. This is particularly so because the passing of time creates new favorites and sheds light on the errors of older pieces. There's also the challenge of comparing multiple types of media.

Surprisingly, I have narrowed it down to one particular piece - but alas, I have no copy of it on hand to show you. It's a piece I did for Animation Layout and Character Design. Having had the class under Professor Troy Gustafson, we were required to create a layout based upon a location within the historical district. Being my ambitious self, I took on doing a layout with a view of River Street - and all the brick, cobble stone, water, and foliage located there as well. Rendering that was painstaking, but well worth it. I was proud enough of it that I hauled it home during Christmas break to show my family, and it is still residing there - in my bedroom in NY. ^_^;

So.... as I do not have that work to show to you, I will be pulling up a few others that I have strongly favored.



As you can see from the date of 12/19/04, this wolf portrait is an old piece, but despite that, I haven't found much error with it in the years since I drew it. My only disappointment is that I drew it from another image - a photograph of a wolf that was the cover to a Zoobooks magazine, I believe.


Griffin Print
This one is a print of a linoleum carving I worked on while in community college (sometime between Winter 05 - Spring 06). It was actually the second time I had done a carving of a griffin against a mountain scene - the first one was about twice the size, and had been carved in wood with an x-acto blade in high school. Despite doing the same subject a second time, I still opted to make it as detailed as possible -- and I'm glad I did.



I'm aware that this is an unusual choice for a favorite piece. I have my reasons, however. In September 07, I joined the staff of a virtual pet site called Rescreatu. The paint bucket was the first item I drew that went live on the site. I also crafted it with 3 point perspective, and it marks the point where I grew fond of drawing with perspective.
(and if you're interested enough to look the site up and join, feel free to give me referral points by using this link: Rescreatu)


Dolphins
I painted this as a present for my brother this past Christmas. I like watercolor paint and dolphins, need I say more? ^__^


One of many Neopets comics
I suppose I should give some credit to Neopets at some point, huh? It was in sketching and drawing comics to submit to the site that I ended up refining my skills enough to switch to an art major. Somewhere along the way, I picked up a bold line style as well.

Gallions (another Neopet piece
This one I like because I came very close to matching Neopet's style, and it's in color pencil (one of my favorite mediums).


Gyro
I did this one for my layout and character design class as well. It may not be the most detailed piece, but I think I like it because of the personality I envision for this little guy.


And for my last piece (Congrats to those who have read through this long entry XD), a work in progress that I think I'll be quite happy with when I'm finished:
Adagu City Map
This will hopefully be a map image for the Rescreatu site. I'm drawing it in Photoshop, though I hope to add interactive parts to it with Flash at a later point in time.

Post 3 - Animation for the final?

To be honest, I don't know what kind of animation I want to do for the final yet. I've worked in flash before, so I'm considering working in a different manner than I have previously. If you want an example, here's the animation I did for the Savanijam 24 hour animation competition:




I'm not sure whether I want to try symbol animation, or try a cleaner version of pose-to-pose animation. In particular, I like Adam Phillip's layouts for his Brakenwood animations (see animation under www.biteycastle.com , or the following video) and I would like to emulate that style.

Post 2 - Favorite Animation

I told you in my first post, I don't like picking favorites. Each one is special in their one way. However, for the point of this post, I'll stick with The Lion King.



Disney movie animation in general has a clean, crisp look to it that I like, and I particularly favor stories that focus around animal characters (when trying to choose my career path back in senior year of high school, I was torn between animation and zoology, which should tell you that I love animals that much). I suppose I can't nail down specifics about why it's my favorite; it's more or less the culmination of all of it's components. It has a good story, is beautifully portrayed, does a good job of developing the traits and displaying the personal struggles of the characters, has a culturally rich and exotic soundtrack, and altogether does what an animation should do - create the suspension of disbelief that these are real characters with real trials, and move us emotionally.

First Post - The Favorites I Don't Have (And the naming of my blog)

Hurrah, the start of my production blog. I feel like being silly and giving it an name and persona. This blog shall be named ... Alexander Reginald Francis, or ARF for short. He shall be a wolf pup. ^__^ *watches as everyone slowly backs away* What? I'm not crazy, really...

1. Name - Samantha Anne de Graffenried
3. Hometown - Mahopac, NY
4. Write a culturally interesting fact about that place (not geographic or demographic) Mahopac used to be a vacation area for people from New York City, and has a fair number of small lakes and reservoirs. I live next to a lake where it's rumored that there's a sunken ferryboat. BTW - NYC drinking water? There's a lot of geese that swim in it. Just to let you know. (For those people who claim that NYC water tastes good...)
5. What is/was your Major? - Animation
6. If you are a grad student where did you take your major? - Not a grad student
7. If you are a double major what is your other area of study? - I'm not, but if I were, I might major in sequential.
8. What other courses are you taking this quarter? - I have 20th century art history and 2D Effects animation.
9. What is your favorite meal? - A home-cooked meal that I don't have to do any work for.
10. What is your favorite song? - I don't really have a favorite, persay. It changes too often.
11. What is your favorite website? - Rescreatu and Neopets
12. What is your favorite game on the web? Um... the ones on Neopets?
13. What is your favorite web animation? - I... don't have a favorite? Come to think of it, I don't browse web animation much. I should do that more often.
14. What is your favorite drink? - milk
15. What is your favorite animation character? - There's too many to choose from! Um... one of my unusual favorites is Marahute, from The Rescuers Down Under.
16. What is your favorite video game? - Pokemon, any version of the games
17. Do you like reading? Yes, but I haven't had much time to read recently ;__;
18. What is your favorite book? - Did I mention I don't like choosing favorites? I never do these quiz things because of it. I favor fantasy settings or murder mysteries.
19. What is your favorite magazine? - I don't read magazines. I don't really have the time to. It would probably be National Geographic if I did, though.
20. What is your favorite TV Show? I rarely watch tv any more , but I'd have to say that currently, I enjoy Monk.
21.What is your favorite animated Movie? - The Lion King
22. What is your favorite Anime Movie? - Princess Mononoke
23. What is your favorite movie? - I... have no idea.
24. Who is your favorite director? - I don't have a favorite director...
25. Who do you admire the most? - My big brother, the experienced animators that I've been fortunate to work with, my friend Danielle Paulet, my friend Cat Trazowski