Moho Forum

Hello --

I'm making a 40-minute animated 3D "video album" for my band, The Simple Carnival. This is the opening track to the album, titled "Smitten." You will need red/cyan 3D glasses to see the effect properly. (The red filter goes over your left eye.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHlx_F--btc

I created this video using Anime Studio, Paint Shop Pro, Sony Vegas Movie Studio, and some custom software that I wrote to facilitate the 3D workflow. I'm using a combination of hand-drawn and computer animation. Some of the hand-drawn artwork is rotoscoped onto paper from video footage that I've shot. I went through a *lot* of paper and black Sharpies!

I would appreciate any feedback you might have, especially anything that sticks out as unclear or confusing. Thanks!

Very nice. I really liked the scene where they're flying over/through the city. The 3-d effect works well for the scene. Also liked the geyser effect at the end. Good job.

Bravo! I didn't have the glasses, but still loved the animation. Nice tune too

I like the music and the 3D effect is good in places, especially when they're flying. I don't like wearing the red and blue glasses. Have you looked into outputting this for the modern 3D format? Especially since you seem to be planning to release a whole album on DVD/BlueRay.

Thanks everybody...

2ner wrote:I don't like wearing the red and blue glasses. Have you looked into outputting this for the modern 3D format? Especially since you seem to be planning to release a whole album on DVD/BlueRay.

Yep, I've written some software that can output the result in whatever format I eventually need it in. (I'm not using Anime Studio's anaglyph output, but rendering separate camera passes that are later combined to anaglyph.)

I would love to do a Blu-ray release, but it depends on how many people (who might want to buy the movie) have the ability to watch it.

At the rate I'm going at, this is probably a two year project... will home 3-D Blu-ray viewing be common by then? I hope some non-anaglyph format is

You write software too? What don't you do?

I used to think I was multitalented!

LOL!

Wow.

Very impressive indeed.

The bists that stood out and getter extra mentions are

The zoom effect with the couple zooming past the buildings.

You are to be congratulated with the hands playing the keyboard effect. The visuals there are very impressive, and your timing (I have a musical background ), was perfect with the fingers hitting the keys in perfect syn with the music. Even the hand position was acceptable, with the right hand a few time playing a diminished chord

Could you tell me please how you synced the hands so perfectly to the music? Thank you.

Paul.

Thanks for the kind words, Paul!

paulcopeland wrote:Could you tell me please how you synced the hands so perfectly to the music?

The short story: I videotaped my hands playing the real chords to the song on a fake paper keyboard, then I traced my hands for every frame with a black Sharpie on paper. I videotaped my hands playing the keyboard while the music was playing, so I was "hand syncing" my performance directly in time with the music and could later sync things up (more about that in a moment).

The long story: I had to videotape each hand separately because I was playing on a fake paper keyboard and could not 'feel' where the keys were. Because the chords were fast and my hands were far apart, I couldn't look at both hands simultaneously to make sure I was hitting the right notes on the paper keys.

Then I brought the left and right hand shots into Sony Vegas Movie Studio and did a split screen (and sync'd up the soundtrack from both shots) so both hands appeared on the screen at the same time.

For the rotoscoping, I built a simple plexiglass contraption that fits over my laptop screen. I don't have a photo of it, but I should probably post one sometime. It's just a rectangular piece of plexiglass that is exactly the same dimensions as my laptop screen with a rubber edge around it so I don't cut myself or scratch up the laptop. There's also two small cut up wooden dowel rods that are glued to the piece of plexiglass -- they hold the hole-punched paper in place so the action in the rotoscoped images doesn't jump around.

I'd put my laptop screen all the way down -- so it's nearly flat -- and put a bit of support underneath the screen so I don't break the laptop in two. I'd turn off the lights and play the video one frame at a time, putting a new sheet of paper on top of the piece of plexiglass and tracing the relevant details of the picture. I cranked up the contrast a lot, as printer paper isn't especially transparent. Also, when I was videotaping, I wore a white long sleeve shirt so it would make it easier to determine where to stop drawing my hands.

Then I scanned all the images in with a automatic feed scanner, cleaned them up in Paint Shop Pro, exported as PNGs with transparent backgrounds, then imported them into Anime Studio and used a switch to animate between layers.

The keyboard in the video was drawn in Paint Shop Pro, and I tried to set it up in Anime Studio so that it was at the same angle as I had set it up in my live video shots (which were set up in the same angles as the animated storyboard that I was working from).

Hope this explains things!

Hey Jeff.

Another wow!

Thank you for that thorough explanation.

What a lot of work involved. You know, I sensed there was something special about the keyboard playing and I was right

Best wishes and I look forward to seeing your next animation.

Seeya,

Paul.

simplecarnival wrote:Thanks for the kind words, Paul!

paulcopeland wrote:Could you tell me please how you synced the hands so perfectly to the music?

The short story: I videotaped my hands playing the real chords to the song on a fake paper keyboard, then I traced my hands for every frame with a black Sharpie on paper. I videotaped my hands playing the keyboard while the music was playing, so I was "hand syncing" my performance directly in time with the music and could later sync things up (more about that in a moment).

The long story: I had to videotape each hand separately because I was playing on a fake paper keyboard and could not 'feel' where the keys were. Because the chords were fast and my hands were far apart, I couldn't look at both hands simultaneously to make sure I was hitting the right notes on the paper keys.

Then I brought the left and right hand shots into Sony Vegas Movie Studio and did a split screen (and sync'd up the soundtrack from both shots) so both hands appeared on the screen at the same time.

For the rotoscoping, I built a simple plexiglass contraption that fits over my laptop screen. I don't have a photo of it, but I should probably post one sometime. It's just a rectangular piece of plexiglass that is exactly the same dimensions as my laptop screen with a rubber edge around it so I don't cut myself or scratch up the laptop. There's also two small cut up wooden dowel rods that are glued to the piece of plexiglass -- they hold the hole-punched paper in place so the action in the rotoscoped images doesn't jump around.

I'd put my laptop screen all the way down -- so it's nearly flat -- and put a bit of support underneath the screen so I don't break the laptop in two. I'd turn off the lights and play the video one frame at a time, putting a new sheet of paper on top of the piece of plexiglass and tracing the relevant details of the picture. I cranked up the contrast a lot, as printer paper isn't especially transparent. Also, when I was videotaping, I wore a white long sleeve shirt so it would make it easier to determine where to stop drawing my hands.

Then I scanned all the images in with a automatic feed scanner, cleaned them up in Paint Shop Pro, exported as PNGs with transparent backgrounds, then imported them into Anime Studio and used a switch to animate between layers.

The keyboard in the video was drawn in Paint Shop Pro, and I tried to set it up in Anime Studio so that it was at the same angle as I had set it up in my live video shots (which were set up in the same angles as the animated storyboard that I was working from).

Hope this explains things!