Ninja Turtles - From Character Wizard

[Kedric]

Video is located at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMROYu3NXc4

This is my first published video using the character wizard from AS8. I wanted to give it a try because I thought it would make the animation process faster. It ended up taking much longer because the switches and bones kept changing and the organization was hard to work with.

It also isn’t very pretty.

This is just the first render. The only large mistake I see so far is that Leonardo is transparent. If you see anything or have any suggestions, please give them. I need to make this look its best before I submit it to Machinima.

By the way, I am never doing this style animation again. It is a pain in the neck. I am not a very good artist, but I think I can do better than the character wizard.

I don’t even want to animate anymore. The only reason I animate is because I am getting so many good script writers and voice actors – I am having trouble finding more animators. If you are interested in animating for the Machinima channel and want to get paid for views, contact me.

Video is located at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMROYu3NXc4

[neeters_guy]

There's few instances where the wrong hand is switched, but overall I'm surprised it turned out as well as it did. The writing and voices are top notch as usual.

I'm not surprised about finding animators. A major animated feature may have a few writers, but the animation staff is typically in the hundreds.

One factor of labor intensiveness is the numerous cuts required for well-done video. There's no formula, but I've found a presentation needs a visual change every 2 to 10 sec. otherwise the boredom sets in. Because many animators here are lone animators, it's extremely common to see the fixed mise-en-scene of a single talking head for several minutes.

This isn't meant as criticism of this sort of work but it's a given constraint that one animator can only produce so much animation (we're talking secs per week).

My own experience on PokeBall has been a real eye-opener for me. I may resort to fewer cuts myself to speed up my output.

[Kedric]

Thanks for the compliment about the writing and voicing.

You are so right about the visual changes. Ever since I started animating, I have started becoming more aware of such things. Having that many changes though is not manageable for me currently since it takes so long.

I find the biggest weakness in my animation is how bad the character wizard looks. I loved the idea behind it but the character types do not look very good at all. I hope Smith Micro works on it some more for the next version. I have no problem with people using it if it looked a little better.