GreyKid Pictures

AmigaMan · Post by **AmigaMan** » Sat Mar 31, 2007 12:32 pm

Stunning work! From the design to the animation everything is top notch and you obviously have a great team there.

Reg the 'layer ordering problem' that some here mentioned... I guess what most people (me included) are wondering is how, in the front view of a character running, you easily have the arm swing from behind the character to infront? Do you have two drawings of the arm on different layers (without bones) and pull the points for animation on each?

I have so many more questions but don't want to bombard you

Can't wait for the book btw.

Freakish Kid · Post by **Freakish Kid** » Sat Mar 31, 2007 2:01 pm

@adam_rp:

Thanks for the compliments.

I personally really enjoy the design and prep of a project, so thats where I like to spend the most time.

I also love the compositing of a project, bringing every element together and creating the final image is one of the most exciting parts of my job.

@AmigaMan.

Thanks and yes we have a great team.

Same animation on the layers - boned and point animation, it's just duplicated and masked. Very simple and straight forward. Most answers to problems usually are.

GK

Mikdog · Post by **Mikdog** » Sat Mar 31, 2007 4:02 pm

Still my favorite: Bunny Love.

That was great. It was inspired. (Waiting for it to load again so I can watch it. I have a pretty slow line)

I agree that you guys make great use of Z-depth.

Out of interest - how many staff do you have working at Greykid, or do you farm out a lot of work (sound, etc...)

Ta

Freakish Kid · Post by **Freakish Kid** » Sat Mar 31, 2007 4:19 pm

Mikdog wrote:Still my favorite: Bunny Love.

That was great. It was inspired. (Waiting for it to load again so I can watch it. I have a pretty slow line)

I agree that you guys make great use of Z-depth.

Out of interest - how many staff do you have working at Greykid, or do you farm out a lot of work (sound, etc...)

Ta

Hi Mikdog,

Bunny Love has a sequel that we are putting into production at the end of summer. It's a great little twist - we hope to do a whole bunch of those movies.

Staff - It depends on the job, our main core is 10 people and we usually don't need more than that, everyone in the studio can do a number of things. Keeps the focus tight and centered - and we don't outsource our work - AS enables us to work in a small team with high quality output.

We haven't had a job that is too big for us - when we do we're sure we'd expand. The brand and reputation of the company is a very important thing for us.

GK

byanfu · Post by **byanfu** » Sun Apr 01, 2007 11:00 am

GreyKid,

I was wondering, what program did you do your backgrounds in, they are really beautiful. Also where they imported in vector format for as a raster image?

AmigaMan · Post by **AmigaMan** » Sun Apr 01, 2007 12:38 pm

Byanfu I was going to ask the same thing

Also...as your animators need the voice track to animate to how did you deal with being unable to shift the sound clip in AS? Did you have the animation timed so perfectly at the storyboard stage that you could cut the track into exactly the right length for each shot?

Freakish Kid · Post by **Freakish Kid** » Sun Apr 01, 2007 7:28 pm

byanfu wrote:GreyKid,

I was wondering, what program did you do your backgrounds in, they are really beautiful. Also where they imported in vector format for as a raster image?

Hi byanfu

The backgrounds were done in Photoshop. As a studio we use a varied amount of software, Anime Studio is only used for animation. We comp in a different program.

GK

Freakish Kid · Post by **Freakish Kid** » Sun Apr 01, 2007 7:34 pm

AmigaMan wrote:Byanfu I was going to ask the same thing :D
Also...as your animators need the voice track to animate to how did you deal with being unable to shift the sound clip in AS? Did you have the animation timed so perfectly at the storyboard stage that you could cut the track into exactly the right length for each shot?

Hi AMigaMan.

Animation is an extremly expensive business. Before going into any animation the timing has to be exact. The sound recorded and signed off on. Each scene is exported from the animatic as a .wav file and impoted into AS. The animator acts within the time frame available for that scene. Everything is pre determined before you get to animation.

Sometimes a scene requires a different approach but 9.9 times out of 10 everything is nailed down and perfect.

GK

Brent Lowrie · Post by **Brent Lowrie** » Wed May 09, 2007 3:09 am

Fantastic work! I have a LOT of respect for your work at Greykid. Love it.

How do you guys approach music videos and other projects that use a continuous track? Do you animate everything in a single file with the whole track or do you segment the scenes into separate files with the corresponding music clips and then composite everything into a final file with the full track?

Do you create custom libraries for each project so you can re-use actions, cycles and elements? (Most likely but had to ask.

Either way, a daunting task for the production manager I bet. Great to see the new work. Cheers!

Freakish Kid · Post by **Freakish Kid** » Fri May 18, 2007 7:03 pm

Brent Lowrie wrote:Fantastic work! I have a LOT of respect for your work at Greykid. Love it.

How do you guys approach music videos and other projects that use a continuous track? Do you animate everything in a single file with the whole track or do you segment the scenes into separate files with the corresponding music clips and then composite everything into a final file with the full track?

Do you create custom libraries for each project so you can re-use actions, cycles and elements? (Most likely but had to ask.

Either way, a daunting task for the production manager I bet. Great to see the new work. Cheers!

Hi Brent,

You sent me an email a while back, sorry for the delay in replying we've been immensly busy - I really should start to think about getting an assistant! anyway I will get beck to you shortly regarding your email but to answer your questions...

Every film, including music videos are broken into different scenes - it makes it so much more easier to tackle a project that way. Even the first scene of Bunny Love, which is a continuous shot in the forest and up to the screen was brocken into 3 parts to make it more managable. I think there were around 60 scenes in Bunny Love.

Sometimes though a commercial will be one long shot, like the one we are doing at the moment for MTV, within it are different shots that are produced in a seperate composite - then a final composite is needed. Sometimes a comp of a shot or sequence can be produced 5 or 6 times, sometimes you can loose track of a complex shot which is why planning is so important.

Custom libraries: It really depends on the size of a job, Bunny Love had the dance cycle of the rabbits repeated over and over with the camera being different everytime. Usually the projects we work on require new animation in each scene. What we do re use a lot and plan in the storyboard phase are the models.

If anyone has anymore questions feel free to ask and we'll answer them the best we can.

GK

Genete · Post by **Genete** » Fri May 18, 2007 7:24 pm

If anyone has anymore questions feel free to ask and we'll answer them the best we can.

I don't know if you have had a look to one of the topics some forum members have been developing in Tips and Techniques area (here).

I cannot resist to ask you (as one of the best animators that uses entirely Anime studio) if we are in the "good path". I mean, do you use some similar kind of technique to perform the turns of your characters? or in fact, you and your team use the traditional frame by frame animation style to perform head turn and / or body turn?. Do you play with bones as much as we do? (Heyvern, me, lately DK...), or simply use them as a reference for moving group of points like one day artfx pointed in his "Ad so it begins" thread?

Thank you very much.
Genete

Brent Lowrie · Post by **Brent Lowrie** » Fri May 18, 2007 8:12 pm

Thanks GK, I appreciate the response and also your workload. No worries on the timing...

I look forward to your reply to my email when you get to it. Cheers!

Genete... GK has stated before that they use point animation for their turns.

DatBoiDrew · Post by **DatBoiDrew** » Sat May 19, 2007 1:43 am

GreyKid, your work is amazing! I was looking at the site 2-4-2 and the behind the scenes section of Gone in 60 Seconds and I'm still kind of confused on how exactly you guys managed to do so much with anime studio. the talking is what i was confused with because your characters dont seem to talk with bones. i was wondering how that worked if you dont mind taking the time to answer. thanks alot!

Freakish Kid · Post by **Freakish Kid** » Sat May 19, 2007 8:27 am

@Genete

Brent is correct, point animation is used for most of our work.

@Brent

Cheers man, I'll be in touch soon.

@ DatBoiDrew

We use point animation for the lipsync. It's our main technique for animation, we come from a 2d traditional background so we apply those same techniques we have learnt over the years to production with Anime Studio.

GK

jahnocli · Post by **jahnocli** » Sat May 19, 2007 9:22 am

DatBoiDrew, I know everything is bigger in Texas, but that is the biggest footer I have ever seen!