Moho Forum

Hi Bakenius,

Your storyboard works is very impressive, also your sense of timing is very strong.

I see a lot of potential here.

Please could you PM me so we can have a conversation over email about future possibilities.

Thanks

GK

Contacted by GK....not bad. It doesn't surprise me though.

Can't wait to see the finished piece.

Wow. It'd be great if a student got a good start in the industry as a result of posting here.

Bravo indeed Leo!! I really loved this piece...mood, character design, Bgs, stpry the lot!!

Well Done! cant wait to see the finished film now!

Hey Leo, I'm in the HKU animation class before you right now, your project looks cool, I'll be following it closely. I am actually considering doing my final film with AS as well. Maybe you could post that other project you did with AS? Tegen de wind in? When do you have to have your film done btw?

Hello everyone.

I've finished scene 4. That's about 1m15s of animation done, just another 5 or so to go.

Of course, the animation is still a bit tweening and editing a bit awkward, but at this point it wiser to first finish more sequences before going back and tweak it to (relative) perfection.

You can very exclusively see it here: http://marin.hku.nl/animation/moho_test ... 01-21m.mov

It's about 70 MB, but it's on a fast server.

Any remarks, suggestions and questions are welcome!


GreyKid Pictures: I'd love to talk so I PM'ed you, not sure if it worked though...

human: [1] I limit my palette out of aesthetic preference, but I do so intuitively. No set colour limit.

[2] I balance colours and contrast (never forget contrast!) between characters and backgrounds by giving the character more contrast and colour variation then the backgrounds thus making them stand out more.

[3] Yes, you could see the controlled colours as a virtual character. But colour is simply just another tool to communicate within the animated medium.

funksmaname: A fast pan between the three designers sitting in line is a really cool idea, but might work better then as I have done it now. It's just that I have to set the scene up differently do to so. It's on my to-do list when I'm done blocking the whole animation and hopefully have some time left to tweak.

EddyWallyHave we met? Do you have a URL of your work, I'm curious! And yes, I'm planning to post (at least fragments) of the Tegen de Wind In production, but it's not a top priority. And yes, this project has to be finished the second week of August.

And once again, thanks for all the feedback guys![/b]

Looking good so far! There is a URL button at the bottom of my posts. I don't think we ever spoke though.

Gooood stuff.

I just found some minor spots which could be improved. As you say, it's all in the making yet, so you could think about it - our just drop my annotations.

- You have a certain favour for placing important stuff right in the middle of the frame and arrange everything else symmetrically around it. While this may serve a narratory purpose (architecture, the committee thinking "square" and so on), I think it would be better to not overuse it.

I found it especially irritating in the scene with the 3 participants sitting in a row: you just cut from one person in center to another person in center, which gives the impression of just exchanging the characters without showing a different seat. Since they already sit in a row, why not use a pan? It could be a slow one, or a fast one which just lingers a bit on each particitpant.

- Symmetry again: the Mayor's movement of beckoning the architect doesn't read because it doesn't work in silhouette. Why not let him use only one arm, but lift his hand higher as his shoulder?

- I found the animatic faster than the finished animation. OK, it's not finished yet, but I missed dynamics in the motion. Everything seems to move in the same slow pace without accents. The nmodel sliding over the table is a good example: right now it just doesn't move right (should be minimal to no slow in, then immediately a long slow out).

- Eyes! Don't ever move pupils slowly from one position to another unless they're following a steadily moving object. The standard movement is from one position to another without any inbetween.

In a head shake the pupils usually stay fixed to what they see (and don't move with the head), or the eyes are closed or half-closed during the shake.

- As much as I like the subdued colours, I miss some overall contrast in the shots. The establishing shot of the three sitting in the hall could do with a lot more darkness under the ceiling.

As usual, all my suggestions only cater my personal taste and should be ignored safely!

GreyKid Pictures: I'd love to talk so I PM'ed you, not sure if it worked though...

I did get your PM, sorry I haven't replied been a little snowed under. I'll get in touch this week.

GK

EddyWally:

Ahhh. I know of you! You make some really impressive work. But indeed, we never spoke, which is quite a shame actually!

GreyKid Pictures:

I thought as much. No problem, I'll see it when you find the time for it.

slowtiger:

You make some very valid points here. I can't thank you enough for taking the time to write them all out for me.

The main difficulty I find in AS is that it makes rubbery ease-in ease-outs as an standard setting. I haven't really figured out how to counteract it effectively. Once I get into the motion curves of AS I get completely lost, where I don't have that problem with motion curves in Adobe After Effects, the software I used to get my storyboard done.

For the instance of the shoving of the building across the table, I'm thinking of doing that in a top layer in After Effects just to have more control, because indeed, it moves rather unconvinced at the moment.

The eye movement thing you mentioned; it a real 'head-smash-into keyboard' moment for me. I should have know better. It's good to get alert for this kind of thing before animating most of the animation. I have no time to waste with 6 minutes of animation to be done in 5 weeks.

*mantra to self* more snappy, more snappy, more snappy...

Thanks everyone for commenting!

You probably know you can set the interpolation to other settings right? I ssually put it on linear and then animate the ease in and out by hand. The default interpolation of AS feels rather bad and lacks good controls.

I dont *believe* (?) you can edit the graph view directly... you have to use keyframes and just see the effect on the graph for more info...
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edit: silly me, you CAN edit the graph, but its confusing... and it doesnt show the effect of interpolation settings on point motion... the point line seems to control the XY location of a point, not its interpolation... which is odd?? maybe i'm missing something
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What you might want to do, is leave keyframes to smooth, put your two extremes in, keyframe the mid point, then keyframe the midpoint between each extreme and the midpoint (so you have 5 key frames), and just drag the two outer midpoints in towards the middle to 'sqish' that part of the motion...

dunno if that made sense, but i explained it a few days ago on the 'how do i... ease in&ease out' thread...
heres the anme file incase i didnt make much sense

Simple bounce

Great work btw, good luck with the project

*bows"* Thank you for even reading my ramblings ...

The model on the table: I think it can be done with 3 keys. You have an acceleration the model gets from the hands, and then it slows down in its slide over the table. So you have a key where the movement starts, which is set to ease in, and a second key at about where the hands leave it alone, set to ease out. Third key is the stop on the other side. By moving the middle key in time, and the model's position in space, it should be possible to get a correct impression.

Hm. I just tested it. The result is not satisfying enough for my taste. OK, let's do it the old-fashioned way ... and here's the Old Inbetweener's little helper: prepare a drawing with a logarythmic scale on it, on paper, scan it in, place it under your path of movement as a reference, place your model's keys accordingly ...

I finished a new scene yesterday; the one with the subway girl preceding the scene I started out with.

http://marin.hku.nl/animation/moho_test ... 01-08m.mov

Any and all comments to improve upon it are really welcome!

And here is the first scene with a lot of slowtiger's suggestions implemented. It's still not quite where I want it to be, but sadly there's still over 5 minutes to animate and just about 4 weeks to do so. So I have to draw the line somewhere...

http://marin.hku.nl/animation/moho_test ... 1m_3rd.mov

Alright, I'm back on 'building the mermaid' in AS. Thanks for all the support you guys!

The new scene looks awesome!
When you got a bit of breathing time, i'd like to learn more on how you achieved the bits outside the window...?

good luck...