My first animation

[Genete]

Here you can see my first animation. It is plenty of errors. First of them is that animation was done meanwhile I was learning Moho, so problems of character set up, layesr and so on were "managed" when some animation was done.
ALL critics will be well accepted.
I use linux and moho 5.4 It was a sequence of JPEG files that finally rendered with cinelerra.
Original idea and story board made by my 7 years old son. I could not make any modification of the original version.
No sound

59 seconds - 1.8 MB
http://s85.photobucket.com/albums/k74/G ... 60x288.flv
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYfWSs6-cOI

[Mikdog]

very cool

[Ham&Cheese]

I liked it, good job!

[Brent Lowrie]

Good effort! I am planning on producing some of my Sons' ideas and designs as well. Creative wee gits if I do say.

I know it's your first go so I won't be too critical. Once you get the timing ironed out, it'll really flow. Right now it looks as though everything is on very even timing. That is, everything and all the extremes are evenly spaced on the timeline. Varying the spacing will add some snap and character to an already promising-looking animation. Slowing in and out of key poses in spots would help, as would some aniticipation and follow through. Cheers!

[HOYBOYS]

Very Nice Animation GENETE...you did a lot with stick people...like the long fall sequence and the darkening effect...would have liked to hear some sound with it...let's see some more!......The HOYBOYS!

[Rasheed]

I agree, don't underestimate the power of the stick figure. In essence, it is pure animation, no fancy drawings to distract you. On YouTube you can find quite some nice animations using only stick figures. Great learning tool.

I like to see more, please

[ulrik]

That's a really good animation I think, good job!

[Genete]

Thank you all for this good welcome to "share your work".

I separated every scene in different files (folders) and afer rendering in separated folders, I joined all together. I was worried about some initial changes that could affect to to all the animation, so I prevent to separate scenes saving every state of the file when animation was acceptable.

I discovered the keyframing speed variation (smooth, step, lineal, etc) after 4th scene (the hole) so jumping cycle of Palito (what is the name of the main character, "little stick" in english) is a little non realistic. Perhaps I could arrange it and then render again but I prefer let it as done. It will remind me the errors.

The returning of the magnet to the hand of Palito show me how turn shape tool does not work as suppoused...

Hole creation make me a little crazy but finally I dominate masking...

The cavern was made using a single shape. A VERY BIG single shape. Then it was when I missed an inprovement on zoom tool in AS/Moho...

Brent Lorrie wrote:

I know it's your first go so I won't be too critical. Once you get the timing ironed out, it'll really flow. Right now it looks as though everything is on very even timing. That is, everything and all the extremes are evenly spaced on the timeline. Varying the spacing will add some snap and character to an already promising-looking animation. Slowing in and out of key poses in spots would help, as would some aniticipation and follow through. Cheers!

Thank you for your suggestions Brent. Although my english understanding is no so good I understand that arrange timing will improve the story. Perhaps I was a little impatient to see some results so, as far as I finish a scene, I made the folloging one withoout thinking in transitions or reforcing character poses. Anyway my son did not admit any changue in the timeline and no intermediate transition was allowed. Just this evening he has watched the movie and has enjoyed it a lot.

All your comment give me courage to start a new animation. My 7 years old script supplier is working now in "LA CRUZ MÁGICA 2" (THE MAGIC CROSS 2) so Palito will return soon!!!. (*)
Also other two project are running in my head:
1) Animation of a hand made comic from a friend of my son. Nine pages comic.
2) A interpretation of a child song of spanish artist.
This time story board, timming and character set up will be improved. At last I will try

Regards

PD: Thank you all again. When a novice show here his work, all kind of comments are neccesary. Worst thing to do to a beginner is ignore it, although there were a bad animation behind. All we have been some time novice...

(*): First file date of this project was august 28th 2006. So I've spent exactly two months in learn Moho and produce this file. Soon = 2 months or more

[Rasheed]

I know it's your first go so I won't be too critical. Once you get the timing ironed out, it'll really flow. Right now it looks as though everything is on very even timing. That is, everything and all the extremes are evenly spaced on the timeline. Varying the spacing will add some snap and character to an already promising-looking animation. Slowing in and out of key poses in spots would help, as would some aniticipation and follow through. Cheers!

Thank you for your suggestions Brent. Although my english understanding is no so good I understand that arrange timing will improve the story. Perhaps I was a little impatient to see some results so, as far as I finish a scene, I made the folloging one withoout thinking in transitions or reforcing character poses. Anyway my son did not admit any changue in the timeline and no intermediate transition was allowed. Just this evening he has watched the movie and has enjoyed it a lot.

I think what Brent meant was that animation is like music. In some parts the music has a slow pace, then it speeds up (builds up) to a climax, and slows down again. Sometimes the music even stops for dramatic effect. You can do this by imagining, what if this happened to me, how would I react? Another way to find the right pace is to use a piece of classical music as a reference. Classical music, unlike most recent pop music and the muzak you hear in supermarkets and what not, has a lot of drama and change of pace in it, which can be translated into animation. I think jazz music can be classified as "classical music" nowadays.

Watch for instance Giant Steps by Michal Levy, which shows a good use of pacing in animation, just with very simple building blocks (literally). I think this is a piece of brilliance (although you have to watch it several times to see the finer nuances).

[binus]

Good Animation work GENETE

[arthbard]

Good work! I thought the animation on the falling was nice.