Moho Forum

Niiice (c) THe movements reminds me this one a bit http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1KVy3LGIIQ

This is going to be great.

May I suggest something? Right now you have the fish walking steadily as well as the camera moving. You could bring more contrast in the scenes if you leave the fish as it is (it might need a bit of squash - I don't know, it feels a bit weightless to me?), but move the camera more dramatically. Like: Stay on the bowl for a moment, then swish to the fish in 4 frames, move with it, but a bit slowlier than the fish, then swish to the window shot and stay there. That way it would be like two melodies in counterpoint: the steady, four-to-the-floor fish, and the more freely camera, like a saxophone solo ... Also in doing thoses fast swishes you could incorporate small zooms, so you don't have the exact same field size everytime.

Right now the beat and the feet are out of sync, but I think this is youtube's fault.

Ooh, nice. I think the camera will be cool moving around like that. Also the small zooms so that the field of view changes every now and then.

Also not mad about the timing in the sample, nor the walk cycle, so I took that sample down.

Got the radio-edit so now I'm timing it all out for an animatic. A bit anxious about packing so much stuff in 3:33 minutes of music but I think it will work out ok.

I plan to animate it all in black & white first, then replace the .PNG black and white files with coloured versions and re-render.

Kiff.

I plan to animate it all in black & white first, then replace the .PNG black and white files with coloured versions and re-render.

Wouldn't do it like that. Since you need to use a video editor afterwards anyway, it's easier to animate in colour, render that, and apply some b/w filter in the video editor - it's a standard feature.

Hey Mikdog, this is great! I love the fish chap and the whole idea of putting this anime music video together. I can't wait to see the final product.
I thought I would just share with you another funny anime music video to watch for an ironic laugh.

It's the music video to Flipron's "Raindrops Keep Falling on the Dead"

http://raindance.tv/watch/film/raindrop ... n-the-dead


good luck and I'll wait to see how yours ends up!

Here's the animatic timed out to the music:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_6RIBJ4OI0

slow> Hmm. Still have to decide about that. Perhaps you're right. I'm using iMovie, so hopefully it will be ok for my needs. I'm just going to have to go exactly according to my animatic so that when I import the individual clips in everything lines up perfectly to the beat.

Still deciding whether it would be best to do all the character animation first and add backgrounds in later, or do each clip in its entirety separately.

london> thanks I'll check that out sometime.

Oh wow. There's a lot going on there. Even the animatic is very entertaining. Can't wait to see the final.

I've been really impressed with the development of this, I'm really looking forward to the final version, the animatic is sweet, so many cool little ideas!

The song's pretty funky too... reminds me a bit of !!! (also known as chkchkchk)

Still deciding whether it would be best to do all the character animation first and add backgrounds in later, or do each clip in its entirety separately.

If you have some compositing program at hand (iMovie won't suffice) it's a good idea to render the characters and background animation separately. Why? Because in that case you can easily adjust their colours and brightness so the characters stand out clearly - or even combine some character with a different background. Also different FX yould be applied.

Don't forget to choose Quicktime with PNG codec to export animation with transparency ... or use the PNG sequence option.

But of course you could get the very same result by building all effects in AS. For doing colour FX over a whole background and its animation I'd just insert some layer with one coloured shape (or with a gradient) and apply some layer transfer mode. (If you animate that layer, like with alternating shapes (replacing each other without movement) in different colours, you could easily mimick some disco light effect.) It only needs more planning that way, and of couse some colour tests.

(I was just remembering some postings about Disney films elsewhere, and how their colour concept was already planned in storyboard stage. You could print out your storyboard, or work with a dope sheet, and compose some "colour music" ... each sequence with its own theme ...)

Thanks slow

Yep, I only have iMovie. Now I'm seeing the benefits of having a proper compositing program. Man, I understand FCP is pretty expensive. May have to drop some tom on that. Any idea if there are freeware alternatives? I hear Hyper-Engine AV is ok. Maybe I'll try that. Also, Final Cut Express is much cheaper than Pro except it doesn't have keyable keys for the effects which is a major bummer.

Anyways, I tried doing the animation really cleanly, but it looked a bit whack. Been trying loads of different approaches to actually animating it. I'm half-colour blind (red-green, blue-purple, kind of bleeds into green-yellow, pink-purple, red-brown...) so a lot of the time I struggle with colours. I rely on a colour palette I still use from years back that a guy I worked with made.

I think having the colour scheme sorted out before-hand would be awesome.

Here's my latest effort:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7w9faUyDEo

A bit concerned with how to approach this. May have to redo these parts if I find a more appealing look. I'm really considering ANY suggestions at the moment. Otherwise, I just continue on until something 'clicks'.

lmao... nice eye jiggle
just watched the animatic with the music... its awesome! (almost doesnt need more animating in a lot of place - maybe just cleaning up the drawings, i think in the bits where it changes every beat you might lose the timing if its too smoothly animated, so quite juddery cuts might work (with a bit of squash and stretch to make the different cuts not look dead)... i like the timing of your editing, so i would try to keep that rather than clean up the flow too much

That's already great! Keep that style and you have a winner.

Two small remarks (as usually from me ...): the headphone could already appear falling in the last frames of the first cut. And the transitory expression of the fish when he grabs the phones is a bit short to be read.

I like the colours very much. They're intense and deep. Reminds me of those famous Tom Tom Club clips from the 80's:
"Genius of Love" http://youtube.com/watch?v=ypVLtlXy_No
"Pleasure of Love" http://youtube.com/watch?v=joB2-baMCBg

As to bopping to rhythm: I've found that "Bathtime in Clerkenwell" video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0PGK7a2IFo& so great because his way of shaking things (in the background) is very nice: it's just a small jump, and very short, therefore delivering much energy.

One should always have a little variation in this: a floating fish cannot jump, he just flots up for one beat, down for one beat. A walking fish could easily walk right to the beat. Bigger characters could do half as many steps, smaller ones might even try a double-bounce (difficult at higher speed). (Why do I imagine a flowerpot doing a double-bounce while its long leaves sway slowlier?) Background characters may hold a pose for three and a half beats then switch into next pose in half a beat - very effective.

But these are just mere suggestions. You're already on the right track!

Hey slow, thanks for the 'bathtime in clerkenwell' video link. Awesome. Might definitely use that quick bump to deliver a visual 'beat' when things get cooking.

Thanks also for the suggestion for background characters. Nice. I am keen to play around with the timing for various characters. I play drums so I have a basic understanding of beats and time signatures. When I listen to the song I get a whole bunch of cool ideas for timing, just need to write them all down because I forget them. Anyway, I'm playing it pretty much to the animatic I made. Kind of fell into place with funksaname's suggestion that it basically needs some animation and cleaning up. Thanks fsn.

Been tinkering around some more. Think I've settled on this style:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b45K4km_31o

Everything's drawn freehand with personality, then coloured and shaded, then I put a colour layer over the background with 'COLOUR' (I spell it with a 'u') blending mode. Kind of separates character and background quite nicely. Then I put a vignette over everything with 'MULTIPLY' blending mode to break up the solid colour. I like it.

Still have to see if it stands the test of time over a day or two. Also some squash 'n stretch issues where the 2 shots aren't matching up.

that's looking nice now dude
I think if you put the bulk of your animating energy into one or two shots the whole thing will shine.

Good work.

Great! (Imagine me sitting in front of the screen clapping my hands in delight like a 3-year old.) Perfect scene!

Your handling of colour is good. And it's also a very practical setup in case one has no compositing program. The vignette is a clever detail, I always like it in other people's films but forget to use it in my own.