Moho Forum

Ok here's my 3rd attempt at animation. It was pretty ambitious after the mug of beer animation.

First I'd like to mention that I made it look as vintage as I could with the very limited knowledge I have of Anime Studio Pro 6 and After Effects. If anybody has any other hints and tips please share as that's what I'm going to be pursing.

I really love the Switch Layers in AS Pro 6 which I used for the eye blink, the glow and the energy field. I also like the Noisy filter option for the keyframes, I used it on the glow and Energy field to add some randomness, also added a wee bit to the Alien Head Keyframes. In After Effects I added Grain, and a wee bit of Turbulent Noise to make it look like film stock and less sharp. Also added the Posterize Time effect which really helped it look less flash like and more like frame by frame animation. I wanted to give a bit of a scratched film look in After Effects but could figure it out. I even attempted a background painting but couldn't get the look I was after in Painter but will attempt it in the next animation test.

Again if anybody has any other hint and tips please share.

thanks, Betamax.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEKBNDic2d4

Great looking alien!

Come On! My 3rd animation doesn't suck this much to get only one reply and no hints or tips. No offense to you lpbaker but "Great looking alien" is hardly any tip or hint let alone any creative criticism. I'm so proud of myself cuz this is my 3rd time coming back to AS and giving it a real go. I've found it really hard and have struggled with AS alot, I seem to struggle with most Apps though think I have some learning difficulties. Anyway give me something pretty please. I did edit the original post and changed the audio to something more ambient.

thanks for your time,

betamax.

Well -- there isn't a lot there. And sometimes people hold back because 1) there's usually a dozen ways to skin a cat, and 2) it can be hard to know what kind of effect the 'film-maker' thinks is important.

Here's one suggestion, anyway: look at the possibility of using Noisy Outlines and/or Noisy Fills on the "shimmering" effect around the creature. These are Layer properties (if you don't know), under the 'Vectors' tab. Could help with the effect (assumung you are using vectors for this, of course).

betamax wrote:No offense to you lpbaker but "Great looking alien" is hardly any tip or hint let alone any creative criticism.

Sorry it wasn't good enough for you - I'm new to AS and animation myself so I'm hardly in a position to offer more detailed feedback, and frankly, a head moving around a little isn't exactly a lot to comment on, is it?

Didn't mean to offend you lpbake, didn't come out the way I meant about your comment. Like I said no offense and meant it, I was just hoping for a bit more from others not you. Your comment was just fine with me, thanks.

There's was actually alot going on there for a 3rd attempt at animation, sometimes it's in the small details, like the pulsating veins, the gentle floating, rocking and zooming in and out, the blinking eye, the glow and energy field pulsating on switch layers. I added lots of small details to individual layers like adding different levels of noise to keyframes to give to give it a more organic look, vintage, film like.

Hm, this is more or less a still image with some effects animation. In the right context it could work, like in a 50's style comic animation. Nice choice of colours.

But I'd do it different.
1. The overall floating effect should be smooth, otherwise it's not floating.
2. The orange outlines should flicker frame-by-frame, each image only shown for 1 frame.
3. The eye is too slow. OK, it's an alien, but try again with having him look in a certain directions for a while, then move the ppil very fast to the next (fast = 1 - 3 frames).
4. Careful with randomly changing size and proportions. Have a concept behind it, like inflating/deflating in a steady pulse, or bounce it in sync with the floating.

Thanks for the feedback and suggestions jahnocli and slowtiger, I'll try to apply it in future learning. I'll probably try a few more floating heads, I need to do a few more to have some of the ideas I've already learned sink in.

betamax wrote:Didn't mean to offend you lpbake

We're all good, I think it's the problem of text not always conveying tone.

Having read your explanation of what else was going on, I went back and watched again (several times) looking out for what you mentioned.

I see the pulsing veins now but it's very subtle and I think gets lost with everything else going on. The fact I didn't even notice it before you pointed it out perhaps says it all. Rather than a slow pulse, perhaps you could try animating them with a definite, fast, *throb*, that expands their size a lot more but for a lot shorter time with long pauses in between, and perhaps just in some sections rather than the overall structure. That might be a lot more obvious to the viewer? You could even consider adding a sound effect for it to accent it.

To be honest even with very close inspection I can't see any evidence of the film grain effects - perhaps they get lost when it's compressed for Youtube?

One last thing: I like the sound bed and the alien voice too. I've got a long interest in sound manipulation so however you made this, it's great

~ Lindsay