New Series I'm Working on.

[lwaxana]

Very nice!

I like that Freya's eyes vary to show that she's thinking and feeling emotions. But sometimes when I'm caught up in the scene, I get distracted when the facial expression changes because the changes flash onto the face. I know it's kind of late to suggest this, but I just realized that there would be a huge payoff for creating your eyes (except maybe the irises) as vectors in anime studio. They could look exactly like your current eyes, and blend seamlessly with your artwork, but you'd have a ton of control over them.

These are obviously not the same kind of eyes, but it shows how stylized elements of your eyes can be reproduced using AS vectors. (My setup here is not ideal, though.) With AS vectors you can use masking to move the iris around, but still keep it inside the eyeball. You could also smoothly animate from one expression to the next. You could even put the gray shadow as a sheer layer over the top of the iris so that no matter where you move the iris, you still have that little shadow placed correctly. And if your eye animation was done with actions, you could reuse it over and over again.



Another thing about the eyes is that the wider eye position doesn't look right to me. The eyes appear to be bulging out of the sockets when the shadows disappear.

Anyway, if you experiment with AS vector eyes, I think you'll really like them. But I know you've already made a bunch of scenes and you're moving along in your project. :D This new scene is great. Oh! An idea for the zombie-demon guys is that you could make the fog layered with greater opacity. Then the guys in the back would hardly be visible and guys in the front would be more visible. It would give it a sort of Kurosawa vibe. But it also works well the way you have it. :D

[neomarz1]

Very nice!

I like that Freya's eyes vary to show that she's thinking and feeling emotions. But sometimes when I'm caught up in the scene, I get distracted when the facial expression changes because the changes flash onto the face. I know it's kind of late to suggest this, but I just realized that there would be a huge payoff for creating your eyes (except maybe the irises) as vectors in anime studio. They could look exactly like your current eyes, and blend seamlessly with your artwork, but you'd have a ton of control over them.

These are obviously not the same kind of eyes, but it shows how stylized elements of your eyes can be reproduced using AS vectors. (My setup here is not ideal, though.) With AS vectors you can use masking to move the iris around, but still keep it inside the eyeball. You could also smoothly animate from one expression to the next. You could even put the gray shadow as a sheer layer over the top of the iris so that no matter where you move the iris, you still have that little shadow placed correctly. And if your eye animation was done with actions, you could reuse it over and over again.



Another thing about the eyes is that the wider eye position doesn't look right to me. The eyes appear to be bulging out of the sockets when the shadows disappear.

Anyway, if you experiment with AS vector eyes, I think you'll really like them. But I know you've already made a bunch of scenes and you're moving along in your project. This new scene is great. Oh! An idea for the zombie-demon guys is that you could make the fog layered with greater opacity. Then the guys in the back would hardly be visible and guys in the front would be more visible. It would give it a sort of Kurosawa vibe. But it also works well the way you have it.

Yeah your right, I may give it another shot. I tried vectoring the eyes before I started the project, and I found the tools were a little hard to work with for my style. It should be easy enough to give it another shot, since I can basically trace the eyes that I already have. The one problem I ran into, was trying to come up with a way for the eyelids to blink down over those Irisis, or maybe your suggesting that I make a few different expressions. I'll take a closer look into this. The fog is a great suggestion, something I considered. Just got lazy because I wanted them to be visable as a mob. great suggestion.

A question on the vectoring, are you saying I should move the vector points to subtly change the eye emotion? or just that I should vector the expressions as separate expressions?

[neomarz1]

THE FIRST THING I NOTICED ( and I know this is rough ) is the arms on the "demons" must sway more, look more fluid then forced! As well as, Freya's arms need to be out like a hawk when she swoops in.

If your bringing her into a scene as more of a character who is coming to the aid of a child, you are going to want a different angle to hold up the suspense.


Otherwise, it's looking really good.

I had Freya's arms out, Ill go back and see what I can do. I think I changed it, so that I could put some motion into her direction changes. It gets to be a challenge when your trying to decide to go with motion, or posture. I recently was watching the "Daredevil" Movie, and I was always pulled into the "Bullseye" character. His trade mark pose, arms out. I often wonder if thats symbolic of christ (in his case maybe the anti christ). I think they even call it the "Christ pose". Freya is meant to be symbolic of christ. She is Eve's mentoring voice, and plays a crucial guide to Eve's salvation. Thanks for the suggestion. Marzout!

[neomarz1]

Freya's Fixed Scene

Ok, did a few little tweaks from your suggestions.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_HzmZoFRmQ

[aleXean]

Okay good I am happier with Freya's arms now. However, the skeletons still have a twitch that is bothersome, it should be more of a swaying pendulum. The only other thing is that sudden jerky movement when Freya's face comes in, gotta fix that looks to sudden.

And I am assuming you will make more mouths for her? Because she def. needs more.

[lwaxana]

Eyes closing over the iris is a masking issue. I have seen eye masking tutorials that use actual eyelids. My characters don't really have eye lids so I base my masking on the whites of the eyes. I think this would work on your characters, too. Essentially anything in the iris layer on top of the white of the eye will show. So if you want the eye to close over the iris, squish the top and bottom of the eye whites together.



You can see in this image that I use switch layers to handle blinks. And I created a blink action using the switch. But I also created actions for different eye shapes/expressions. Basically I just start a new action and in the action timeline, I adjust the points on the "open" layer to a new expression, for example, "sad". Then say I want my character's eyes to go from happy to sad. I can bring the "sad" action into the main timeline a few frames after "happy." Then Anime Studio will interpolate between the two expressions. Interpolation isn't always ideal because it can look too mechanical, but in a quick change of expression, it should look pretty nice. :D

BTW--I learned how masking basically works from this thread (otherwise it's a little counter-intuitive): viewtopic.php?t=9669

PS--I like the change you made to her arm position as she flies down. It definitely brings in the symbolism more. :D

PPS--Vector mouths would be nice to get some more interpolation out of AS, but I don't think good mouth animation is as critical as good eye animation.

[neomarz1]

BTW--I learned how masking basically works from this thread (otherwise it's a little counter-intuitive): viewtopic.php?t=9669

PS--I like the change you made to her arm position as she flies down. It definitely brings in the symbolism more.

PPS--Vector mouths would be nice to get some more interpolation out of AS, but I don't think good mouth animation is as critical as good eye animation.

You know im seeing alot of possibilities here. This would allow me to move the pupils around as well (for looking around, ect). It would mean a lot of rework on my current riggs, but I could see the pay off! This is a dumb question, for some reason when have my layer window open, it expands outside my desktop screen, and I cant scroll those menus anymore. How can I get my layer window back so that I can scroll it?

[Uolter]

You're doing a great work. Can't wait to see the entire movie.

[lwaxana]

Yeah, reworking the characters after you've already animated scenes with them could be really crappy. But it could also be a subtle enough change that you won't need to go back and redo actual animation. Like the way the Simpsons characters look slightly different now than in the first season.

But the rerigging might not be that bad because some of your characters have similar eye shapes. You could probably build the eyes once and then copy that layer into your other character files (changing out the iris image and making shape adjustments). If any characters share the exact same eye shapes, you could even make the actions in the first character and then when you copy the eye layer into the second character, your actions will be in that character, too.

If I'm understanding the layer window problem, it sounds like you have a layer with a really long name so it's stretching your whole window. Try dragging the window to the center of your screen and then resizing the width. Then you can move it back where you want it and it should be scrollable. :D

[neomarz1]

You're doing a great work. Can't wait to see the entire movie.

Thanks. its going to be great. This has been a longtime coming for me. I'm hoping for a great future for Eve.

[neomarz1]

I've been bouncing around the idea. Of actually putting an animation team for Studio Marz. This is a tough consideration for me. I know somewhere down the line this will be inevatable. I would have to find animators that are looking to be part of a Studio. Unfortunately, I have a meek budget that is tide up in "Voice Acting", and possibly music production. I guess what I'm hoping is that someon might want to just be part of the project. I'm pitching this idea, just to get anyone's feedback that might have something to say on the matter. Has anyone out there attempted this, and what are the problems youve run into? Marzout

[dsaenz825]

I made an animation team once, failed the same day the project was about to begin.

For me, the problem with the team that I put together was not really my fault (except for the fact that this was not a paid project lol). I mean I had everything covered: music, script, voices, and the way the scenes were going to go. We had decided on splitting up the work by having one background artist and two animators. But when the day arrived to start the project different things came up in everyones schedules that no one had any more time to help. Even now I dont really have much time to animate.

But thats just how it is some times. I bet though, if money was given to those that were helping me the project would have been done by now. Then again, those in my animation team had anime studio but were not part of this forum.
Maybe someone here might be more willing to help.

What sofware and equipment do you use for music production? I might be able to give you some pointers.

[neeters_guy]

Team requests, particularly the non-paying type, are notorious for their high failure rate. The main reason is underestimating the amount of work involved. Obviously you'll need excellent project management skills.

What seems to work (at least from what I see here on the forum) is when 2 animator friends work together. Teams like the middledistance guys, Nethery-Ramsey (spooze), b15fliptop, etc. have produced a good amount of good, sometimes excellent, material.

dueyftw is making a feature film and is funding it himself, although I haven't seen any posts about it recently: Flyer, movie team.

Lastly (sorry, another link), forum member jackass started this thread and got a lot of discussion that might be useful: Why don't very skilled anime pro users make a feature flim

[neomarz1]

I made an animation team once, failed the same day the project was about to begin.

For me, the problem with the team that I put together was not really my fault (except for the fact that this was not a paid project lol). I mean I had everything covered: music, script, voices, and the way the scenes were going to go. We had decided on splitting up the work by having one background artist and two animators. But when the day arrived to start the project different things came up in everyones schedules that no one had any more time to help. Even now I dont really have much time to animate.

But thats just how it is some times. I bet though, if money was given to those that were helping me the project would have been done by now. Then again, those in my animation team had anime studio but were not part of this forum.
Maybe someone here might be more willing to help.

What sofware and equipment do you use for music production? I might be able to give you some pointers.

No I appreciate you telling me of this experiance, it helps. Seems as though money is the root of any great project. I dunno, If I have to do this production on my own so be it. Maybe once I get the project finished, and people see that its a serious endevour they will be inclined to come aboard. As far as music goes, I am just using several software packages that came with my "M Audio" gear I purchased. Right now I have a guy named "Steve Cable" who is part of a band called "Luxe". He seems to be very interested, and he sees this as a promotional oppurtunity for his work. Things are sorta lining up. Unfortunately I havent heard from Kieran (the voice for Haleys). I hope I dont lose him, because he has the perfect voice for the character. Well, thanks! Anyone else has a story to share on this subject, please drop a line here. Marzout!

[neomarz1]

Team requests, particularly the non-paying type, are notorious for their high failure rate. The main reason is underestimating the amount of work involved. Obviously you'll need excellent project management skills.

What seems to work (at least from what I see here on the forum) is when 2 animator friends work together. Teams like the middledistance guys, Nethery-Ramsey (spooze), b15fliptop, etc. have produced a good amount of good, sometimes excellent, material.

dueyftw is making a feature film and is funding it himself, although I haven't seen any posts about it recently: Flyer, movie team.

Lastly (sorry, another link), forum member jackass started this thread and got a lot of discussion that might be useful: Why don't very skilled anime pro users make a feature flim

Thanks Neeters! Yeah I read that post awhile a go. Its a good one, with a lot of insight. Some of it is a reality that needs to be heard, but really if I just except some of the points made, then I'll just defeat myself. I have a gut feeling inside this is a strong project. I know I'm going to fall short on some of the expectations people may have, but I'll give it a real good effort. It's really hard to get people onboard with a vision. Especially when they have have thier own eyes. My best friend is an amazing writer, for years I have tried to get him to join me on this project. He has had bad experiances in the past where he has worked with friends, and lost the friendship through creative differences. I respect that, but eventually when you want to move forward you need to take chances. Marzout!