Moho Forum

http://vimeo.com/12661492

I fell in love with this song and decided to follow in the great lost marble forum tradition of guitar animation after acochran_89 and neeters_guy. Only this is a banjo. ;D As always, critiques and suggestions are welcome. You can see that I had some trouble with the strumming motion.

Hi lwaxana,
the character style you have achieved is the most nice that I've found in the forum. Please keep it that way.
-G

Ha, ha, nice one, lwaxana. Animating to music is good practice since both require a sense of timing, rhythm, accent, etc. Also, music enhances an animation so much, that it makes even bad animation tolerable. That's why I always use it.

For the strumming, try pivoting from the elbow, not so much from the wrist. The fingerpicking and fretting hands are fine by me.

Great funny song. It's kinda old-timey style music. (I play bluegrass guitar, but my kids hate that kind of music. )

Once again, nice charming work.

Genete--Wow. Thanks for the kind words! I'll do my best. :)

Thanks for the pointers, neeters guy! I'll try pivoting from the elbow. How cool that you play bluegrass! This song appealed to me because it mirrored the mood and atmosphere of my cartoon project. I'm going to try to work it into the story somehow. :) I usually like any music that's goofy and fun, but especially if it's earthy or gritty. As for your kids, I think there's a rule somewhere that parents and their kids can't like the same music. :D

Very cool lwaxana.

I want to recommend adding a light source or two. I can see the subtle shadows but don't see the lights.

Very nice lwaxana, I wonder who is more hillbilly, me or you?

Fractured Ray--Thanks for the suggestion! :) The background here is supposed to be daylight from windows. I don't really know how to indicate that. Maybe a window shaped reflection on the floor? But this scene will actually have a slightly different background, probably with lantern light. That's going to be tricky!

Sbtamu--hehe, thanks!

http://vimeo.com/13090531

Here's the latest. I changed the pivot point to the elbow on the strumming arm. I also tried to time the hands more closely with the music. And then I also added some head turn actions. But now that I've seen it rendered out, I see that the head turning is a little out of control. ;) And possibly just too weird looking.

On my first version I tried to make the banjo guy more deadpan, and this time I tried to make him more playful. I'm still not sure which I prefer.

The new version looks great, the picking hand is much more convincing

lwaxana wrote:On my first version I tried to make the banjo guy more deadpan, and this time I tried to make him more playful. I'm still not sure which I prefer.

I suppose it depends on how much you really like sour cream.

-vern

That animation, song and the bar in the background reminds me of of a this little run down restaurant in Virginia where my brother lives, called "the Little Grill" that features live music. A lot of bluegrass, barefoot banjo and fiddle type stuff. My brother has played there a few times. The Little Grill is one of the most popular places to eat but could use a new coat of paint... uh... and maybe some new tables. They don't serve booze though. It looks like a rundown dive but is actually fantastic and there is always a long wait for a place to sit to get breakfast on the weekends. It's very very "hippie" and 60's retro but NOT on purpose. Lots of vegetarian and healthy type foods. Owned and run by the employees. Big college town.

I could imagine a whole back story for that bar scene in your animation. A cast of regulars who hang out there and talk politics, government conspiracies and alien abductions between sets of bluegrass music.



-vern

Haha catchy song! Looks really nice, man.

Fun song and fun animation.

wow, I really like the second one with the head movements. Sorry I havent been checking up on your stuff in awhile. Awesome, I love how clean your work comes across. Marzout!

I like the guy, and the song.

If you're going to have someone playing an instrument to music, it should sync properly. It's just a little off, and it feels strange.

Also, you play on the other side of the bridge (shouldn't see the bridge at all-except maybe during the strumming).

Side notes:

Banjo is generally played in the hand-no arm motion to speak of. You don't really strum, either-it's generally frailing, and it's done by dragging your fingernails across the strings. Look on Youtube at banjo players. Clawhammer/frailing (two words for the same thing), and picking.

OK, so all of that is technical accuracy. It doesn't need to be technically accurate. It's animation. Animation 'accentuates'. Nothing wrong with strumming with your arm if it makes it look better. However, sync was just enough off to notice it. And, I probably wouldn't have noticed it as much if the bridge hadn't been glaringly in the wrong spot.

The second version is certainly livelier. I wouldn't worry too much about a light source. If you put in a window behind him, it might get a bit busy-but you could try it. Shadows do come with an indication of light with direction, and they are coming from nowhere right now. You could eliminate the shadows, or change them to coming from the other side. They're subtle enough to almost not worry about. Mostly, what you end up with is an unsettled feeling in the viewer because something isn't right, and they don't know what it is (not unlike the snyc and bridge issues).

anyway, I do like it. It's nicely human.

Thanks for your feedback, everyone! I was waiting until I had an update to post again, but I probably won't have a chance to really work on it for a couple of weeks, so I might as well say something now. :)

dm--thanks for the heads up on the bridge! After watching some youtube videos for the correct location, I can understand why it is so jarring. That will be the first thing I fix. I think the sync will be tougher because I have no sense of rhythm, but I will definitely work at it because that's really the point of the whole scene. Part of my dilemma is that I don't know if the strings should sound when his hand touches them or when he reaches the lowest point in the strumming/frailing. For visual rhythm it seems like the extreme position would be best. Any thoughts on this?

For the lighting, I've started working on a separate background for a night scene with lanterns. So far I'm pretty happy with the lanterns.

Another thing I want to do is work out an animatic so I can start integrating the other parts of this scene.