New Goldfish Music Video - One Million Views (finished)

[Mikdog]

UPDATE 30/05/2013:

FINISHED!



I did a fairly in-depth post about the 'making of' here:

http://www.mikescottanimation.com/goldf ... lion-views

UPDATE 27/05/2013: Final teaser before release:



UPDATE: Video is finished. Here's a teaser prior to release:



EDIT: Here's the latest work in progress. If you'd like to suggest anything or give any feedback I'd be most please. Thanks:



Hi all,

Wow, it's been a while. I used to be an active member of this forum, really enjoyed the feedback and discussing ideas with a lot of you. Anyways, at some point I got frustrated with the drawing tools of Anime Studio and working between Photoshop and Anime Studio for more fbf stuff. I've been using Toon Boom Animate for a lot of stuff, and it works pretty well for frame-by-frame work. Doesn't QUITE capture the feel I get with Photoshop, but gets pretty close to those tools.

Anyways, I've got another music video on the cards, and I'm thinking about going back to Anime Studio for this, and again, working between Photoshop and AS. I plan to use this thread as a work-in-progress running thing, where I can post work updates and such, perhaps ask you guys a question or two, and answer any questions you may have. I've found having a couple more eyes on a project seems to result in a better end product. For work in progress stuff, unfortunately don't really have permission to use the actual song as it's as yet unreleased, but I can substitute with something else.

I've already done quite a bit of prep work - won't post all of it because there's a ton. Animatic is done. Been figuring out a style to go with. Here's some stuff I've done (pic below). Anyway, onwards we go. I look forward to hearing your feedback as things progress.

If you'd like to look at the previous music videos I've done with Anime Studio & Photoshop, here are some links:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-tNUur2YoU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAdX_nwXlrY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cjwoit91SxU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSBIEMonruE

Thanks,

Mike

[neeters_guy]

Wahoooo! Mikdog is back!

Looking forward to seeing your progress on your new video. Congrats on the millions of views on Goldfish!

[Mikdog]

Hey, Neeters, glad you're still here

Here's a start, did some of the roughs for the first scene. Still want to flesh things out a bit. Enjoying the new timeline in Photoshop CS6, nice new features, onion-skinning, etc...

[Mikdog]

WIP:

[Mikdog]

Hi guys. Haven't forgotten about this thread. Done more on the video, just think I may put something up once I have a bit more to show. At the moment possibly still a bit early to put more out there.

[aidan97]

Mike you are a legend in animation.

[Yosemite Sam]

LOT of work you put into this. Awesome job, look forward to the final product.

[rosetiti]

Sir, I saw your latest Gold Fish song in youtube created by Anime Studio, and that made me put myself into this Animation World
You inspired me !

[Maxwell]

may i ask how you crate that 8bit animation that you can see in some of your work? it looks really good and i've always tried to make such an cool 8 bit animation. you'r work is really good i like it, a cool band and good animation

[Mikdog]

may i ask how you crate that 8bit animation that you can see in some of your work? it looks really good and i've always tried to make such an cool 8 bit animation. you'r work is really good i like it, a cool band and good animation

Hi Maxwell. The way I did it, after numerous tests, was to first do a rough with pencil and paper, scan that in, resize it down to 200 x 113 pixels in Photoshop using Bilinear or Bicubic Interpolation, then create a new layer, get the Pencil tool (not the Brush) and get the pencil size to 1 pixel, draw a rough pixel shape over the pencil sketch, then on another layer, do a cleanup version, clicking pixel by pixel for the black overall outline. To create colour fills, I'd get the pain bucket tool, uncheck 'Anti-Alias', check 'Contingency' and uncheck 'All Layers' and set the tolerance to '0'. Then you can add fill colours.

Also of importance is not having too many (or none preferably sometimes) black lines within the shape. Rather use darker coloured lines of the surrounding colours. In other words, if you had a pink fill, choose a dark pink for the line within the overall shape. Otherwise, your pixel object ends up becoming very 'heavy'.

Once that's done, resize up to ten times that size (2000 x 1130) using 'Nearest Neighbor' interpolation. Very important that. Otherwise, the images is upsized and blurred as the computer looks at surrounding pixel information with Bilinear or Bicubic interpolation. 'Nearest Neighbor' keeps the pixels looking like square pixels.

Save the PSD, import it into AS and animate away.

I also did a pixel section recently for a band's music video/ They're called 'Anamanaguchi'. Song is 'Meow' Video here (pixels come in around 2:22):



Other than that hopefully I can put up a rough draft of the first minute of this current music video early next week.

[oliver43]

YOU!!! I love your work!! AWESOME! Nice boards! You are my original inspiration that "it can be done using AS". If I can help or offer my machine as a render machine.. I would love to see how you do it!

I just checked the box "Notify me when a reply is posted" I do not want to miss any of this!

Missed ya heaps!

HA

[Mikdog]

Hi Oliver, thanks man.

Right on, here's a very rough first minute or so of the beginning of the video.

Not much else to say at this point. Backgrounds haven't been done yet, some of the later scenes are still a bit rough, and I removed the song (it's as of yet unreleased) but it gives you a pretty good general idea.

I'm drawing stuff in Photoshop with a custom pen I made based off a Photoshop pen I downloaded from the net called 'Experimental Inker' by Ray Frenden:

http://frenden.com/photoshops-lines-suck/
http://frenden.tumblr.com/post/39394983 ... ng-brushes

(I see he's selling a whole bunch of presets now. I downloaded the one he had a while ago while it was still free).

(EDIT: Just bought the presets. Feel nice. I like the blue pencil one).

My preset isn't pressure sensitive, it's a #7 size pen on a 1920 x 1080 canvas. Nice thing about it is that it isn't as aliased as the other packaged presets, but not as pixelly as a pencil. Makes colouring in the shapes nicer too, colours to right up to the edge.

Anyways, here's the clip. It's an unlisted video and even though you're not likely to, I'd prefer not to have this shared, thanks.

[Mikdog]

A little GIF I made from a wip scene:

[chucky]

Great to see another clip on the way Mikdog, love it so far.

[Mikdog]

Thanks Chucky.

Another bit of WIP (again, not that you would likely do it dear reader, but preferably not to be shared, thanks):



And some character designs: