Noddlepod [final updated]

[funksmaname]

Hey,

I thought I'd share and outline some of my process. Feel free to ask any questions! and it's not too late to make suggestions - Final video below

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJ10NobSH-0

Before doing anything in AS I planned out the animation with very rough drawings on paper. After that I made very rough animations for timing using PAP (free fbf animation prog). I imported the PAP sketches into AS using Synthsin's image import sequence script.

scene 1: n
nothing of note here particularly, the lipsync was done very quickly and easily using the method described by ShoNuff here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSDFMJHU ... w&index=15

The narrators rig is overly complex - it uses patch layers, multiple nested bone layers and uses Mike Green's 'Bone Parent Master' script (http://www.mikegreen.name/)... Mainly because I created the character before I had any plans or ideas of what I had to do with him - note to self: the more planning you have the less actual work you have to do!

For the painter, I painted the green splotches over him using the scatter brush, but the performance went down the toilet so I exported a PNG and reimported it as a texture - worked really well. The body is just a masked image layer, while on the hat I imported the same texture to the fill itself. there's a few bones over relevant parts of the character just to move them around - he's not rigged with a skeleton.

scene 2: o
I made heavy use of Capricorns FKIK manipulate bones script (viewtopic.php?t=18787) thanks to Gilles for his tutorial which made me aware of the script. I may do a little video to show how it was used, its a real time saver - essentially both characters had three fixed target bones, at the feed and the hand. That meant I could animate those positions until I was happy, and then make adjustments to the body positions after. It helped me get my head around where everything should be to create the 'falling' weight on the left character. Both characters had skeletons. The first thing I animated was the movement of the O, then stuck the hands to it. I mostly used (our) Mike's Swiss army tool for all the bone animation, with occasional clicks using Cap's modded tool to solve any strange bone tweening.

scene 3: dd
Both these characters are almost entirely point motion. The only bones in the scene are the womans legs - I think I used the FKIK script again to help me know how far I could move the body before it would cause sliding... I relied heavily on the pencil timing I'd previously done for this scene and the pencils went through a few itterations before being approved for 'inking'. It was so helpful to have the sketches, gave me focus when animating and took a lot of guess work out. I made HEAVY use of Wes' new select shape tool (http://www.kelleytown.com/forum/animato ... hichpage=1)- i just love it, I always put stuff on as few layers as possible, it meant splitting stuff JUST to animate shape order was very unnatural. This fits my workflow perfectly. I also asked Ponysmasher to create a 'point tracker' script which is how I made the lightbulbs follow the already done point animation of the characters (http://www.kelleytown.com/forum/animato ... PIC_ID=768) - I also used it to add the mouth to the woman who didn't have one until i'd already done all the body animation (i moved it around manually after so may not be as perfect as the bulbs) - I also used Wes' fbf script to create the 'poof' effect on the bulbs.

scene 4: le
This scene has only has 3 bones in the ponytail (animated manually) - the rest is point motion and I relied heavily on my initial sketch sequences. I used MorphDials for the man reading as shown in a recent tutorial video I made...

That's pretty much it - the characters at the end were all one silhouette 'rig' i made which i think changed the shapes to make them a bit more like their previous characters... the whole thing was composited in AfterFX and motion blur was added with the ReVision effects Motion Blur plugin.

Other scripts used:
Wes' Colour Picker
Ponysmashers Colour Tool
Fazeks Tool replacements
Ramon's Split Curves button

I hope some of this info is useful feel free to ask anything I forgot to cover.

[cheyne]

Hi Funk, haven't read over this completely, but your second link visits a page at YouTube for a lip sync tutorial by "Shonuff93". Don't think that's intentional?

EDIT: Damn I'm a fool... haha, *sleeks away into a corner*

[SvenFoster]

Hi Funk, haven't read over this completely, but your second link visits a page at YouTube for a lip sync tutorial by "Shonuff93". Don't think that's intentional?

really?

scene 1: n
nothing of note here particularly, the lipsync was done very quickly and easily using the method described by ShoNuff here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSDFMJHU ... w&index=15

[Genete]

Great result and great review of the work-flow. Congratulations!
-G

[benecosse]

lots of nice detail

[slowtiger]

Overall quite good. I really like the design, and the restricted colour palette. And I notice that you try to have different paces in the movements to be more dynamic. It's a good piece of work - but it could be perfect ... In fact it's so good that we can talk about acting here, finally.

1. I think that all of the animation suffers from "slow inbetween disease" which ruins it for me. Example: the woman's skirt waistband at 0'18" which rotates like a hula hoop without reason. Similar effect distracts on all character's trousers ends (the line over the shoe). All this is unnecessary movement which distracts from the character animation, that's why normally you would avoid it totally. (In classical animation you'd often put shoes and trouser line on a separate cel level to avoid those dreaded "dancing feet".)

2. Human movements tend to be a sequence of holds. Again the woman at 0'16" doesn't move her legs naturally - normally she'd raise one lower leg and hold it, then raise it even higher when balancing her stretching movement, and only lower it fastly when she shifts to the other leg. She would not let the lower leg sink slowly as you did it.

3. Also there's some "too slow" movements, like the 1st character's left arm at 0'09" - you should either hold it completely still, or let it swing in a natural pace (think pendulum), or have it move fast from one pose to another (then hold again).

4. Since you always have two characters interact, you should take care of their timing in terms of alternatively "shout and listen": while one character does something, the other should remain still - then react while the first character pauses. Think of stage actors, or comedians. Even a very slow head movement like the right man in 0'14" steals valuable attention from the left character.

5. It's a matter of discussion wether a graphic style like this demands animation on 2's. I think it would be worth a try to incorporate more jerkiness. Have a look at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dr_URPYVhYg, a 50's commercial about Piels beer which is similarily complex in design as your characters. While most movements are on 1's, there are completely still holds between the movements which enhance the dynamics nicely. And although quite often only one small part of the character actually moves (one arm, or the mouth), the whole animation has a sense of fluidity.

I think it's a good idea to study 50's animation more often because they had to face the very same problems as we do, and found good solutions. Unfortunately there's no single source for videos, nor a DVD. I recomment the book "Cartoon Modern" (http://www.amazon.com/Cartoon-Modern-St ... 602&sr=1-1) for anybody interested in that style, although it features still images only.

Anyway, a very nice example, and definitely a keeper - I'll watch it for inspiration again!

[funksmaname]

Thanks all, and thanks for your comments slowtiger.
Much of what you mentioned was done out of inexperience so i really appreciate the advice.

The actions of the characters were timed so only one would be doing something important at a time, but the fact that the other is still 'alive' does indeed draw your attention and I wasn't sure what to do about it... my final thought was that people wouldn't be able to see all the subtleties in a single viewing and be forced to rewatch, looking at a different character. Once you know what is happening (rather than watching for the first time) you'd kind of know where to look, but I completely agree that this makes it difficult to read the first time which isn't ideal.

With the dancing feet - there's no real reason other than I struggled with the feet! Here's an earlier version of the 'd' woman on the left, next to the pencil key's I drew (in this case in TVP) - I left the legs for later, and used bone motion to help me get my head around them...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jec8MaRl-sM

In a way I need to grow some confidence to make certain things 'still', especially entire characters when there's more than one. Once I planned their movement, I worked on them separately which, semi-intentionally, gives them each a life of their own but in the scheme of things I see how this results in distraction as they are both fighting for attention...

The swingy arm at the beginning I will fix, you're not the first person to mention it!

I agree with the style wanting to be more jerky on 2s, but didn't have the time... maybe I should have put my default interpolation to step and done it all 'manually' but it would have created a lot more work for me due to my lack of experience. I experimented so much with process during making each scene that I don't have a prefered workflow.

[slowtiger]

It's not mandatory to work on 2's - it's just a reminder that sometimes this very smooth interpolation/inbetweening on 1's might weaken the dynamics of a scene.

My preference for doing pose - fast action - pose surely comes from my analogue animation experience: that was the fastest way to animate cheap children's films. But seeing scenes like yours now convinces me that there's more to it than just simply saving work. Actors and dancers do that all the time: action, then pause and let everything come to rest, then action again.

Feet: even in AS I sometimes put feet on a separate layer, without any connection to the skeleton. Remember, it's the result that counts, not the beauty of the rig ...

[PARKER]

Great work.

[funksmaname]

Final video updated at the top of the post. enjoy

[GCharb]

Nice, me likey!

[Durand]

Great work. One can learn a lot from this forum. What, with Slowtigers generous criticism and all. More educational than years of film school!