Moho Forum

pretty general question but in all seriousness

I've been wondering this. Why have you chosen animation if you're an animator or a hobbyist like me or if you're a real 100% all around artist and you've chosen to maybe express yourself through animation/ drawing vs some other thing.

Even if you're one of those artistic prodigies

I guess I can start with me- maybe not why but how.

I sort of stumbled into this just because I like to write stories. I think I'm originally a writer as I used to write novels and poetry n junk. Nothing was put out there of course and when I read what I've written after a while I think it would be best used as toilet paper. Then I got into machinima because I like video games and made a couple fan fics. After a while I was tired of the limited ability of machinima and failed learning to do 3D digital art so I picked up 2d since I used to be able to draw when I was younger and even got a scholarship to an art school but was never serious about it and pretty much only did crappy cartoon drawings and could never understand other "artists"? finally I found this program and have been using it and voila- and I guess I mostly do this since I have the time since I work part time

So....why an artist/animator/whatever you call yourself or think you are? I'm just curious and hoping to maybe glean something from forum banter

also- since i personally believe that creativity and its "ilk" are a form of mental illness- I was wondering how many of mad artists came to the same conclusion (animation or whatever)

Wow, a lot of similarities in our own stories. I too started as an author, nothing but short stories really. I became fascinated with 3D a long time ago, and thought it'd be a perfect medium to tell the same stories I had written in a visual medium. What I learned was wow, 3d is hard. heh heh heh Regardless of the tool, and I've used a whole slew of them, I learned I really didn't have the patience nor talent to create good looking stuff. I didn't (and still don't) have the time required to learn every single nuance of the different tools, although I did learn and still use basic principles of animation.

I jumped into game editors after the 3D experimentation because of the availability of lots and lots of assets. But I ran into limitations imposed by the different game editors, although to date, I've been most successful with game engines. Warcraft 3, StarCraft 2, and NeverWinter Nights 2 specifically.

The problem with most game editors is the limited set of animations one can use, since after all, they were made for games. The everyday actions (sitting at a table, lying in a bed, shaking hands, etc...) just weren't available.

Then I found iClone (back in the day when it was at version 2.5 (I think)) and thought it was a perfect solution. It wasn't, but it was close. very close. (Just got iClone 5, and it's certainly getting better and better). But still required a lot of external assets to build a decent story, so it was either model them myself, or give up on that.

So 3D was temporarily out, I jumped into 2D. Picked up this very odd product called MoHo from an equally oddly named company, Lost Marble. Having familiarity with 3D and bones, I thought this was awesome, bones on 2D vector shapes. But the caveat there was I had to be able to draw good looking stuff. Ahhh, just as in needing talent in 3D, one needs talent in 2D, specifically drawing. Again, not one of my strong suits.

I've messed with different 2D apps (Flash, ToonBoom Studio & Animate, ASP, and recently CrazyTalk Animator) as well as 3D apps (Animation Master (formerly Hash... love the Hash name), Cinema 4D, Carrara, Poser, etc as well as different movie making apps. iClone, MovieStorm, Voovees, Muvizu.

Right now I still use Cinema 4D for modeling (I have gotten a little better... not much, but a little... heh heh heh), CrazyTalk Animator and Anime Studio Pro (still haven't gotten any better at art) for 2D, and iClone and Muvizu for 3D film making.

Through it all, keyframing and animating are really the only things I've turned out to be pretty good at. But I still tinker, I still muck about, and eventually I will create the next award winning flick.

My latest obsession is visual effects using Adobe AfterEffects. Wow, now that's a lot of fun. Mu ultimate goal would be to combine all of this somehow.

Interesting....perhaps since people don't really read books anymore....writers are turning to other methods to write "visually"

i guess I'm lucky in that I can draw a little bit

Just out of curiousity? Has anyone experimented with a little known game called the movies that come out a while ago-

It was like the sims but you could create your own movies with it. This is where I started

*also- has anybody thought of combing iclone with AS for cartoons and such?

Rene77 wrote:Ps:Wizaerd, seems to me you are just searching for the same animation technology I'm looking for. Maybe I mis interprete you words but to me it seems you also like fast and good.

Ahhh, no. I still want to manually animate things, I just want the patience and skill to best use the tools. I am not looking for some magical way to have it done for me.

kellz5460 wrote:Interesting....perhaps since people don't really read books anymore....writers are turning to other methods to write "visually"

i guess I'm lucky in that I can draw a little bit

Just out of curiousity? Has anyone experimented with a little known game called the movies that come out a while ago-

It was like the sims but you could create your own movies with it. This is where I started

*also- has anybody thought of combing iclone with AS for cartoons and such?

The Movies? Absolutely! Loved it. Made many, many moveis with it.

Rene77 wrote:

wizaerd wrote:

Rene77 wrote:Ps:Wizaerd, seems to me you are just searching for the same animation technology I'm looking for. Maybe I mis interprete you words but to me it seems you also like fast and good.

Ahhh, no. I still want to manually animate things, I just want the patience and skill to best use the tools. I am not looking for some magical way to have it done for me.

You did let your self get brainwashed by self proclaimed "art"ists.

JUst express yourself. Art is not about skills, it is about sharing and expressing emotions...... Your way!

Cheers,

René

I could just buy a painting or I could paint one myself. I get much more self-satisfaction in the creation, so I'd rather paint the picture.

I took a photography class eons ago, and any monkey can use a camera and take the film to get developed. But an artist develops the film themselves, and there are oodles of different methods for different results, and an artist will make their own prints, and with creative darkroom methodologies create some truly awe-inspiring work. Something that digital cameras cannot do. Oh sure fire up Photoshop can get artistic results too, and there is a certain art to it as well, but I get much more satisfaction out of the manual developing and printing. When I show the work, and explain how I did it, people are much more appreciative than if I had just "hit a button" and had it done for me. it's not brain-washing. It's self satisfaction at a job well done.

For me it started in fourth grade I think, wrote a story for a class assignment and won, I was hooked.

Later I made a few short movies with friends and a super8 camera, but then stumbled on one of Preston Blair book, and I was hooked again.

Been animating since.

So I guess my motivations are the same, I like to write stories, and animation is the way I like to express them!

yah I have to agree- there is a certain amount of satisfaction in making something from scratch myself-

AS8 havs alot of new bonuses like the character creator- but to me, I'd rather whip out a pencil and paper and make my own character the exact way I like it rather than try to tweak premade things

but its good they have things like this to help ppl to jump right in because it's taken me almost a yr now to learn AS to a reasonable degree and it's funny-

since I know AS now, Ironically I'm starting to go old school an animate some things complete with pencil and paper and then put the keyframes in and just pretty much color and tween with AS

I'm lucky thought because I have no life and tons of time to learn this stuff

**added caveat- I guess If Rene is looking to make a film and maybe is not interested in any particular style( machinima, cartoon, or anime or something) Perhaps Rene, try live action. Theres lots of indie film clubs about colleges and whatnot and you can find stuff online of course- Plenty of ppl are trying to do the same thing and if you have a script and a digital camera, then why not

theres some awesome stuff done by amateurs

Amateur film artists made this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ixFf4ljuCg and its a mix of machinima and live action with After effects- I think its the most faithful rendition of Half life 2 yet and hollywood could't keep up with this

Nice, I hadn't seen that one, thanks!

It's safer to play GOD with an animated character, doing DNA manipulation would eventually result in a global catastrophe!

Man, imagine genetically modified mother in laws with an even larger mouth and bigger lungs, BRRR!

my work is all about communications - getting a message across to an audience - usually about future and emerging technologies that will be deployed in the 5 to 20 (+/-) year timeframe in "public services" areas such as government, healthcare, education, transport. I stand between the "scientists" developing all this new stuff and the "businesses" that want to feed their needs and visions into science and who will need to understand and adapt their ways of working to use the new stuff that science creates.

for example, the eCall service that will be fitted to all EU-built cars in 2015 was first mooted around the time that cars got microprocessor-based engine managment systems whenever that was (early 1980s??), but what was also needed was a reliable and open GNSS - such as GPS, GLONASS, Galileo; good mobile phone coverage along rural roads; and a few other features. Result: a big multidimensional, multidiscipline, long term strategic programme of work to make it all real. So in 2015, if your (new) car crashes then your car's computer dials 112 and shouts for help -- yeah I know, what if the computer is wrecked too, or there's no coverage or ...

One big barrier is that many scientists and business people simply don't speak the same language - figuratively and literally.

My job: bridge that communications void. Tools of the trade: static and moving images, the written and spoken word and, sometimes, frantic arm-waving and face-pulling (but, however much I'd sometimes like to add "well aimed baseball bat" to that list, I somehow resist ...)

Animation is just one technique in the "visual" armoury. I started out with fbf / cut-out then discovered AS. I learn how to improve my skills by doing things for fun as well as in the course of business. there's an example on this page: http://www.youtube.com/digitalagendavid ... 565357D006

(and Gilles: isn't that mother-in-law trait hereditary anyway? the growth genes are dormant until their first child marries and then .... )

GCharb wrote:Man, imagine genetically modified mother in laws with an even larger mouth and bigger lungs, BRRR!

Why would you mutate to make them worse. With DNA manipulations, perhaps we could remove the mouths altogether. And those cold, burning, glaring eyes...

Why have Animation to fill up my free time?

It doesn't hurt as much as motocross or ultralights. Their is nothing like hitting a tree 70 feet in the air.

I sucked at motocross and now I'm too old. And the same for other things. Music, drawing, writing but with animation being so easy all I have to do is push one button an all the work is done. The only problem is no one will tell me where that button is!

Just kidding. Why not work at animation? I find for myself running into 'Walls' At some point I get only so good at something, so I stop. But with animation there is always something more to learn and it's never boring.

Dale

Interesting question why animation and how did you get into it...

I will try to not make this sound like im full of myself but more a truthful assesment
All my life there have been several common themes that as I get older I have really began to understand.
I have always been able to learn things and get to a level of competency quickly but get bored.
I'm naturally a problem solver and of a techie nature that saw me drawn to 3d as I could not draw.
Despite being a weird combo of shy and yet extremely sociable when in a group I will always be making people laugh and recalling stories. I can tell a story adding some suitable embellishments for comedic effect and drama was my first love at school. I cannot tell a joke.
I have and will continue to watch a lot of cartoons and animations.
Images on a screen. Characters moving and living fascinates me.

So one day I was thinking hang on. All I ever do is technical things. Work even my play was programming. All I ever do is things I know I can do and I want to do something I enjoy without having to be good at it.
So I started to try and draw. Not great but getting better. I started to paint. Not great but getting better. Now I doodle a lot.
Then I saw anime studio and thought oh my god. I would love to make my stuff come alive!!!
So I did and it was bad. Then it got better. Then Ive spent ages dabbling with it. Little 5 sec things. I'm just about bored. Then I remembered that the reason I got it was to bring them alive. So I've started to really try and get some focus and write and animate a proper piece.

I love animation and I don't have to even be good at it as it's just something I enjoy.
One day I will unleash the awesomeness that is yet unseen. You will say errr yeah that's erhmm great. You'll be lying but I won't care because it's all about the journey kids.