Community project poll

synthsin75 · Post by **synthsin75** » Mon Apr 21, 2008 12:21 pm

It wasn't a serious attempt at the animation, but if someone likes it they're free to leave it. I just wanted to add a stationary (scrolling background) walk cycle.

I'd still leave it open for rigging/ minor animation. Also, while I was doing this I ran into the possibility of changing previous animator elements. I mean it's always best to create anything on frame zero, so the background I added was also added to your initial animation.

I don't know if that could be an issue down the road.

Kankuran · Post by **Kankuran** » Mon Apr 21, 2008 2:37 pm

Rhoel wrote:

If the linear wins out, can I suggest the title be 101 things to do with a black hole. Black holes, the antics device for making anything dissappear or re-emerge, have been the backbone of quirky animation since the 50's; recently, they have fallen out of favour.

Great pity as this prop has endless possibilities.

Rhoel

Why not start each animation with the guy emerging from a hole, and then ends up disappearing into a hole? Whaterver happens in between is up to the animator. I think it is important to find a easy way to make people work with this project at the same time. The easiest would probably be that everyones animation starts and ends with the character (name?) beeing in the same position and with the same prop, or having him getting out of the image in some way. To make this work I think there has to be a set of simple rules so that maching the first and last frame in the scenes will be as easy as possible. This might ofcourse not be the best solution if we are looking for the ultimate artistic freedom.

Manu · Post by **Manu** » Mon Apr 21, 2008 3:16 pm

The way I see it is like that game where the first person says a sentence and then the next person has to continue the story. You set something up for the next person, that sort of thing. It has to remain a bit of challenge.

Kankuran · Post by **Kankuran** » Mon Apr 21, 2008 4:18 pm

I agree upon the challenge thing, and I believe it still will be challenging enough. I totally understand the idea, even if I believe that these kind of linear project are at higher risk of coming to a standstill. I could probably have time to make an animation, but I am not sure I can dedicate one week (7 days in a row), especially not a specific week. Maybe a day here, one there. So to make the project open to as many people as possible I believe it would be great if we could find a solution that works.

Those are just ideas to get as many people going as possible.

Cheers!

Manu · Post by **Manu** » Mon Apr 21, 2008 4:24 pm

When I say a week, I'm only thinking of evenings and weekends. I don't expect anybody to animate a whole minute, more like spending a rainy Sunday getting to know AS better. Whatever comes out of it is good.

synthsin75 · Post by **synthsin75** » Mon Apr 21, 2008 11:02 pm

Personally, I like the idea of working from the previous animators work. I probably wouldn't even schedule who has it when. I'd just post the file, then first to post 'got it' has it until they post it with their addition. Once it's reposted (preferrably with the next sequencial suffix, 'colla' becomes 'colla2', etc), next to post 'got it' is next.

I would limit the amount of time any one person could hold on to it though. If it went too long then Manu could private message the person and ask if they'll be done soon. If not, Manu (as project director) could just post 'up for grabs' or something. Maybe with the latest version, so it's easily found.

Just some ideas.

Kankuran · Post by **Kankuran** » Tue Apr 22, 2008 7:28 am

synthsin75 wrote:Once it's reposted (preferrably with the next sequencial suffix, 'colla' becomes 'colla2', etc), next to post 'got it' is next.

Yes, that is a good workflow.

Kankuran · Post by **Kankuran** » Tue Apr 22, 2008 7:30 am

Manu wrote:When I say a week, I'm only thinking of evenings and weekends. I don't expect anybody to animate a whole minute, more like spending a rainy Sunday getting to know AS better. Whatever comes out of it is good.

Ok, sorry for the misinterpretation, sounds fair enough.

Manu · Post by **Manu** » Wed Apr 23, 2008 5:58 pm

By the way, it has started

Barry Baker · Post by **Barry Baker** » Fri Apr 25, 2008 1:01 pm

Hey, this is a great project, and I need to exercise my animation muscles - can I join?

This may be of interest - it's a similar project that was started by Marv Newland in 1984. I was working at Speedy Films at the time when Paul Vester animated his section. I know that in this case, all each animator received was the final drawing of the previous section and a character model. No-one saw what anyone else had done until it was finished, except for Marv. Here's the link:

ANIJAM (1984)

Manu · Post by **Manu** » Fri Apr 25, 2008 1:20 pm

Welcome aboard Barry. I started yesterday with a bit of animation, hopefully ready for hand-over by the end of the weekend. I'll post a WIP shortly.

Manu · Post by **Manu** » Tue Apr 29, 2008 12:22 am

Well, that's it. I've spend two evenings animating on this. It's by no means a perfect animation I ended up with, but I'll hand it over to the next person. Who wants to be next?

Community project poll

What style of community project would you like to see?