First Animation: Birthday Card for My Wife

[mattchee]

Whew! I finally finished up my first animation. Here it is:



It's a birthday card for my wife - I find that giving myself little assignments like this is a good way to learn by doing.

ANYHOW, here are the details for those that are interested:

I created all of the assets (background, props, character art) in Photoshop, since I was more comfortable drawing there, and then focusing on rigging/animating once brought into AS. I used AS Pro 9.5 (but have now upgraded to 11, WOO!). Editing was done in Premier. Simple as that.

Issues I ran into: the main issue I ran into is the one you can plainly see. Some of the bone deformations went really wonky during rendering. When I previewed the animation inside AS, everything looked good (in fact, I spent a long time making adjustments to get it looking good), but when rendered weird stuff happened. There's a part where the line-art of the guys arm straight up breaks, and then another point where the line on the girls arm gets all wiggly. This probably could have gotten resolved with a bit more trial and error, but I was running out of time, so I had to run with it as is. Other than that, photoshop played pretty nice with AS. I think in the future though I might just have to get good at using the AS vector tools and use textures, to avoid headaches.

Anyway, let me know what y'all think - I had a blast making it and can't wait to start my next little project (just gotta think of what I'm gonna do)!

PS- Wife's birthday is tomorrow, she hasn't seen this yet, so I will let you all know how it goes!

[slowtiger]

Maybe a bit slow, but I like the style. Especially clever solution when he reaches into his pocket.

[Pinesal]

I thought it was very good and I didn't even notice the line issues until you pointed them out and I rewatched it.

[Danimal]

Very nicely done. Quick and amusing, all videos should be like this!

[3deeguy]

You got it done on time. For a first project I think that's especially impressive. Well done!

[mattchee]

Hey all! Thanks! Glad you guys liked it!

Maybe a bit slow, but I like the style. Especially clever solution when he reaches into his pocket.

Yes, I think the pacing might have got a little weird. I found I had to make the action pretty tight to combat the "floaty" look, and so I felt I had to space things out a bit (if that makes any sense) to give the viewer a chance to process what's going on. Maybe too much?

The pocket shot - had to get creative with the layering there!

I thought it was very good and I didn't even notice the line issues until you pointed them out and I rewatched it.

Thanks, and good feedback! No one that I've show it to without mentioning the issues has seemed to notice, so that's good.

Very nicely done. Quick and amusing, all videos should be like this!

Thanks!

You got it done on time. For a first project I think that's especially impressive. Well done!

Thanks! Yes, I could NOT be late with this one!!!

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Follow up: My wife loved it, though she did have a similar reaction as her on-screen counterpart when her age was revealed - luckily the video was charming enough to keep me out of hot water on that one!

Thanks for the great feedback all! Can't wait to make more!