Koalas Cartoon

[jahnocli]

for some reason other people don't always appreciate it when I point out when and how and why I'm funny

Heh heh - can you imagine a stand-up comic doing this if one of his jokes fall flat? If you have to explain it, it isn't funny. Unless you are being sarcastic...?

[sargumphigaus]

As for the Koalas, just dive into a new file, import them and experiment like crazy. Try a head turn in a switch layer, it takes a little effort, but there's plenty of help here on the board when it comes to sharing details on techniques. Do the walk like ddrake said and just keep at it, when you get to a point where it clicks, then polish up things and give it a whirl again.

I usually use switch layering for head turning and walk cycles. The prospect can definitely be an intimidating one, but it's far from impossible, and when you learn and figure out little techniques for yourself, you realize that all the strife and effort you placed into learning is completely and totally worth it.

first things first, I HIGHLY RECOMMEND that you watch this tutorial by Selgin.



Personally, I find this extremely useful in 2 aspects.

1: It delves you further into the available techniques of the software and opens technological doorways regarding the tools and what have you,

2: And most importantly, it shows you just how simple it is to give the impression that a character is spinning. It gives you a map and understanding of how it works. I could be wrong, but for me, when I watched this, something just clicked. Now when I animate, I get shots of my characters spinning in place, I derive greater satisfaction from watching my characters heads turn, it's just a really effective tutorial, and oddly enough, I wound up not using the same techniques he used, but in theoretically speaking, it taught me anyways.

now for me, when I want my characters head to spin, sometimes I'll copy the straight face (The rest) and then grab the magnet tool and just drag it slightly to the left or right and then pull points around to not make it look so blatantly obvious. Fact of the matter is, with a switch layer, you have an opportunity to redraw the entire image all over again. Its time consuming but totally worth it in my opinion.

anyways...

The cartoon really doesn't really resonate with me. I like the idea of it. It's always fun to watch characters argue with one another and all, especially over pop culture. You definitely have that Kevin Smith vibe going on, i'll certainly give you that, But I'm still going to say what I said last time. Dialogue may convey the story, but the it doesn't sell the product. This is an animation with limited animation in it. Granted, I do see that you've raise it even further than your first, but it's still not enough. My advice would be to follow that tutorial I showed you and from there develop gestures for the characters. Detailed ones that involve head turning. Body language can often say more than words, and animation is an awesome opportunity to demonstrate and convey the in between the line quality of your characters. They can say the words that your characters won't.

This is actually a weird piece of advice. You can take it or leave it. Seeing as this entire sketch is based on dialogue and 3 characters communicating with each other, I think you should check out the Ricky Gervais show for the sake of reference. here's a clip.



You'll see these characters really interact and argue with each other and you'll notice how it never gets old or boring, or stale. I'd advise you to watch and ask yourself why this is so? (Try to look specifically at the shots of them in the recording room)

And I would take the harsh responses as a challenge, stories can never be to everyone's liking, but if it's well done, then you'll get critics to say " well done, not my cup of tea, but well done." I think that's a good goal for all of us

I can't tell you how many times people refer to my work as "Nightmare fuel" and then ask me WTF is wrong with me. personally this is exactly the response I excel at eliciting so i'm playing my strengths in this respect. You can't please everyone. Please yourself first and foremost, then ask if you can top your best. It's never good to say that the best thing you've ever done is behind you. I think with that attitude and a lot of work, you'll get exactly that kind of response that Little Yamori is mentioning.

[SvenReyter]

Sargumphigaus, I thought there would be issue doing the turn with switch layering for some reason. I thought that I may have issues with bone movement or the eyes and mouth switches if I made the head a switch layer. I'll give that a try tonight. The body turn video is interesting, I'll have to try that with a new character, the character layouts I use on this cartoon are a disaster.

Thanks for the input. Trust me, I want to do more with it, dialogue is just what I can do at the moment. I just wanted to make stuff, with what little I do know, to keep me interested.

I'm familiar with Ricky Gervais, I enjoy the podcast, didn't know there was a cartoon of it. I'll check it out. Thanks again.

[sargumphigaus]

You should purchase yourself a copy of the "Animators Survival Kit" by Richard Williams. It'll help you to understand the principals of animation and really help you as you push to improve how you get your points across. There's another book called "Timing to Animation" by Harold Whitaker and John Halas which is also extremely helpful. It's short and to the point.

Here's a free copy of it on PDF format.

http://31.222.223.118/ict/ictzone/publi ... mation.pdf

[sargumphigaus]

Sargumphigaus, I thought there would be issue doing the turn with switch layering for some reason. I thought that I may have issues with bone movement or the eyes and mouth switches if I made the head a switch layer.

worse comes to worse with the switch layer, you can just toss that into a bone layer in the same way as you toss single layers into a group layer. Also if the head positions misalign with he neck, don't forget that you can go in there and manipulate the points yourself. Be mindful of the tween options and origin points so you don't accidentally create an improper animation.

and there's nothing wrong with putting a switch layer inside of a switchlayer switch-ception! I do it all the time.

[Little Yamori]

by SvenReyter » Thu Apr 03, 2014 8:56 am

Sargumphigaus, I thought there would be issue doing the turn with switch layering for some reason. I thought that I may have issues with bone movement or the eyes and mouth switches if I made the head a switch layer. I'll give that a try tonight. The body turn video is interesting, I'll have to try that with a new character, the character layouts I use on this cartoon are a disaster.

I thought this statement said a lot, thinking there would be an "issue", and thinking your "layouts are a disaster" are self-imposed mental blocks holding you back. Bust down those blocks, Spend the next several hours of work dedicated to experimenting. Import your Koala into a new file and dissect him, rebuild him like the bionic man (bionic Koala), "better, faster, stronger" make his head turn in a switch, make him walk and jump. Importing it into a new file won't alter the original rig at all, it's merely a clone to experiment with, so just do it.

I get impatient with myself and my own work, so I get the whole "I just want to get it done" but then you have to ask yourself did I cut corners to get it done faster, and did that weaken the final work.

Keep at it, and tackle everything even the dreaded "masking"

[SvenReyter]

Thanks for the pdf link. It looks interesting. The switch layer is working out pretty well. I've got a lot of drawing ahead of me.

I'll try that as well Little Yamori.

Thanks

[Hentron]

For what it's worth, I enjoyed both cartoons. They both could have benefited from more movement of the koalas to make it more visually interesting. In episode one the scientists slowed things down a bit at the beginning. But in both videos I remained interested and chuckled a couple of times. I look forward to more episodes.

[Hentron]

...it's also worth noting that when someone is given 300 cc's of anything it means it was given in an IV bag and watered down with saline, so it doesn't mean that he actually pumped that much Thorazine into her system. But it is still creepy that he brought an IV on a date.

[SvenReyter]

Thanks Henton, I agree, I was going for an awkwardness between the doctor and the assistance. It just didn't work well for me, it just dragged in the final edit. And yeah...I work in a pharmacy, so I'm well aware of the IV aspect. That's actually part of the reason why I found it (300cc) so disturbing...that along with a small mammal's understanding of the drug dosage. To me, it was part of the joke. Happening to have any amount of Thorazine on a date is scary.

Hoping for more action and movement in upcoming videos as I learn more about Anime studio. I'm thinking Episode 3 is going to be much more ambitions as far as movement and animation. It has a lot more scene changes and action.

Thanks for watching and for the critique.

[willf]

I watched it with the sound off, and made it six minutes. Visually the best stuff was the scene where the Koalas were being shown on the video, because there was a lot going on, secondary actions with the timer and so on. The clouds make it look a lot less flat than last time, and the drop shadows are gone, so that's good. I thought that this one was less static than the first, with more movement between shots, shots lasting less time, and more camera movement then the first cartoon.

The scenes with the koalas looked like they had more time put into them than ones with the humans. The movement of the humans was a little mechanical, especially eyes shifts. You may want to move the mouth switch layers a little farther down the face on all your characters, they are crowding the upper lip into the nose, although it's most noticeable on the humans.

All in all, an improvement.

[exile]

Trust me, I would like to do more, I just can't right now. Turning heads and walking completely baffle me. So I tried to make it about the conversation. I'm just not very good with the software. I'm hoping an episode or two down the line I can branch out into a bit more movement.

You can learn the software easier than you can learn to do artwork, and the characters themselves were fine, as everyone agreed.

A lot of us have limitations with the software, but man, if you could come this far, you can certainly take your animation a step further with free tutorials - there's really good stuff out there on walk cycles, Selgin even did one on quadrupeds and added downloadable files (check webinars on the Smith Micro site). The head turn tutorials at Incredible Tutorials were so clear even I could apply the technique to characters. I'm trying to do animation for songs that are around 3 minutes long - that's a long time in terms of animation. It can mean a whole scene + episode for every verse and a new one for every chorus. That means up to 6 projects for one song (with no bridges and no instrumental solos). What I'm trying to say is, 1 minute of good animation is an accomplishment, something short with more movement and less words will give you plenty to do but is guaranteed to be satisfying (regardless of others' views). Don't be discouraged, go for it.

I'm not going to say how many minutes I was able to watch, that's not the point.