Our First animation is done - Review it please

[EnDee321]

Hi guys,
If you have gone through this thread viewtopic.php?t=11203 you know lil about our first animation. Me and my pal Madhawa, we worked about 5 months to complete this. I though some technical information will help you to critique this better. We just wanna identify our weak points and improve.

Our AS project is double pal size - 1440*1152 (Later came to know its wrong ), 25 frame rate.
Render as PNG sequence from AS.
Edited in Vegas.
Vegas project size 768*576, 25 frame rate, square, progressive.
Filters in video bus = Color correction -> Brightness,Contrast -> Broadcast colors.
Vegas output = 720*576, 25 frame rate, interlase (For broadcasting)

Please download the video from these links
AVI XDIV(768*576) - 77.4MB
http://www.fusioncrewmusic.com/Videos/M ... onCrew.avi
WMV(640*480) - 49.8MB
http://www.fusioncrewmusic.com/Videos/M ... onCrew.wmv
WMV(320*240) - 21.2MB
http://www.fusioncrewmusic.com/Videos/M ... -Small.wmv

Our special thanks to Genete for the technical help he provided.
And thanks everyone who share their knowledge and post many technical articles in forum.
See ya.

[jahnocli]

77 Meg!? Nah -- produce a half-size (or shortened) version, and I'll take a look...

[EnDee321]

77 Meg!? Nah -- produce a half-size (or shortened) version, and I'll take a look...

Sorry about that sir. I added small versions. Guess now you can download them.

[apscalmato]

Nice first attempt on an animated short.
I think the strength's of this piece is in your camera work which made up for the character animation. The character's were very stiff with very little movement. I did not feel any weight, anticipation, emotion, or personality in their movements.

Some tips would be work on your character animation. (ie - walk cycles, character interaction, etc...)

I hope this helped some. keep on animating

[Rasheed]

I have to agree. The video has a good design, pace and story, but it fails on the details. The animation is, well, not so good, even for today's tv animation standards. If you want to improve your skill as an animator, study, learn and find a good mentor, if you can afford it.

[EnDee321]

Agree with you sir.
But we dont have any place to learn 2D animation in our country or money to afford more. In this clip everything is done using the mouse and it is one reason for lack of details as Madhawa(Graphics designer) always complain about arm ache.
So this forum is our campus and you are our lectures. Please guide us to improve our work in all aspects. We are so serious in this. I read in this forum that animation in twos can improve the over smoothness, but I didnt understand it much. We are glad if someone can explain it technically.
Thank you for watching and commenting.

[mnagaha]

'complain' is such a strong word!

but i see your points Re: the animation.
as learning from the internet is not very easy as there are a lot of information/opinions, out there.
so there is no structure to your learning process.

but with this i keep learning the importence of pre-planing, difining the colors, etc...
and now i feel more 'braver' to take my time to get the idea straight in my head before, i sit in front of the computer!

i plan to do a lot of 'paper and pencil' cell sequences with figures
are there any good exercises that you would recomend?

thanks a lot for the reviews!!

[sarahg]

"The Animator's Workbook", by Tony White, if you can get your hands on it from a bookshop or library.

Brilliant piece, I love the art & the camera work. As people have said, the movement would be a good thing to work on. (My work isn't any better really but I'm less objective about my own stuff haha)

[fugdabug]

I agree with most of the constructive comments thus far posted. With some work on emotion and movement of the characters (some random action by various background charas would be nice... more chaos!). But all in all the basics are talking to me in a way that says you have considered a lot in this work... Did you incorporate Flash as well as AS by chance?
- nice job with the dream!

[sarahg]

Fair point; its easy to start with the suggestions on how to take it further and not quite get around to saying from the outset, "this is great work!"

I really liked this animation. Thanks EnDee321 for sharing it with us.

[squarebox]

wow, cool, i like it alot
i'm looking forward to seeing future projects from you guys

[EnDee321]

Thanx for watching dear friends.
Thanx alot for the tip with the book sarahg.
fugdabug, this is only AS. No flash.
And I'm glad you like it pals. mnagaha is working on improving his animation skills, so definitely our next one will be better than this.
See ya all.

PS:
We created a web page (rough work in hurry) so you can get some wallpapers if like
http://YAAGEE.FusionCrewMusic.com

[basarat]

I thought it was amazing......... a lot of work was put in this

[AmigaMan]

I agree, a LOT of effort has gone into this and even with the obvious animation inexperience it was a very impressive piece of work. In fact your timing is very good so it's just, as others noted, getting weight and character into your work and studying movement. Viewing more reference material would probably help. I think your next short will be amazing.
You will improve fast as you obviously have the dedication!
Yeah, can you tell I was impressed

[DarthFurby]

I also agree. It's rough, but really impressive on a number of levels, especially considering this is your first AS animation and you did EVERYTHING, including the music. I bought a synthesizer about 2 months ago and hope that one day, in the distant future, my stuff will sound half as good. Nice job!