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At 6/11/12 03:03 PM, Luwano wrote: Congrats to all the animators so far. I love the match-ups, it looks like there will be some close decisions.

How did you decide who is paired against each other? Random? Based on the points of the previous round? Or a combination of both?

Oh I remember! After the open round, judges decided on their top 32 favorite submissions and each artist got points accordingly (Whoever got ranked number one got 32 points, number two got 31, and so on). At first, the idea was to pin up the one who ranked number 1 agains rank number 32 and such, but that would've been unfair and not that entertaining, so instead it was split on the middle so that the highest score came up against the middle score, number 2 went up against number 17, number 3 against 18 etc.

The rest is just based upon this setup: http://nata.munchymedia.com/

Sooo many numbers ~ I have no idea if any of what I just wrote made sense ~

Yay, just wrote a ton of irrelevant stuff! Assum! Anyone bored? :D

Generic must-comment:

That's quite an interesting topic! There should be a lot of different possibilities for this, can't wait to see what approach people will take.

Is it just me, or are the topics getting less and less specific?

Good morning!

Well it looks like I didn't make it through, no surprises there. Think I'll stick around in this and the upcoming thread just for moral support and annoyance though.

I'm really pleased with my artwork score (holy magarolie, why is it so high, whyyyy!?), but it also goes to show the flaw with my entry. It's not like I didn't put a lot of effort into it, but I believe that I did it on the wrong terms. Though it is part of my dream to make my own movies, I was so focused on becoming an animator that I forgot about everything else that makes up a good short. The idea seemed to make sense at the time, so I rushed forward on the first day, making the storyboard and completely neglecting the planning process. Of course it was because of the nonexistent planning, that I felt the need to change some of the story at some points, and in the end the goal and motivation became unclear.
Maybe I should've chosen story over artwork at some points, or maybe I should just have taken that extra day for setting things up. Improvisation is fun, but there has to be balance, and with such a time limit, good story and structure may even end up meaning more in the end, who knows?

I think that I'll try to expand my horizons on these matters in future projects. The only question is where to start. I'll try to improve on the many aspects that makes up a movie, and not rush things as much as I have so far.

It's been fun, being in this tournament, but I'm also glad to be able to relax now and do things on my own terms.

Good luck to everyone, wether it be in this contest or in life! :D

Yup... I'm in the same time zone. Glad to hear that that there will be comments to read. That's gotta be the greatest reward possible for entering this.

Thanks for the nice chitchat, people. Good night!

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.........

At 6/10/12 04:50 PM, francisyfl wrote:

At 6/10/12 04:10 PM, Hikarian wrote:

Also, if anyone here is interested in further character animation, I can also recommend the 11seconds club. It's quite a fun challenge :)

Looks like a place for pros D: i would have to work on my timing if i want to enter in one of those montly challenges someday :(

It's just because they are only showing off the best of the best. This isn't exactly a place to find prestige and fame, but the site is made for improvement. Not only are the sound clips just begging for character acting, but the first prize is also constructive criticism from a professional. A lot of prof animators are entering, so it's difficult to even make it to the top100, but even without a great ranking, chances are still very high to get some real good animation advice. No one will ever blame you for trying :)

At 6/10/12 04:16 PM, Pahgawk wrote:

At 6/10/12 04:10 PM, Hikarian wrote: Have you guys heard of TVPaint though? My teacher tells me that that's what they use in much of the 2d animation industry. I just got the student version about a month ago, and I'm really having fun with the many possibilities. It is recommendable... Though, just like with toon boom, it takes some time getting used to.

I ran into it when first researching software that lets you scan in drawings, although I haven't tried it or anything. Is it set up similarly to Toon Boom and Flash? Also, out of curiosity, is it vector like Flash, or raster? I've always wondered what id would be like to make each frame more painterly than simply cell shading, but I've never gotten around to it.

Also, as a side note, if anyone did decide to do an entry in programs other than Flash - i.e. TVPaint, Toon Boom, After Effects, etc, would we be able to upload movies using the new Newgrounds video player?

Also, if anyone here is interested in further character animation, I can also recommend the 11seconds club. It's quite a fun challenge :)

I'm going to second this recommendation. It's a fun way to practice :)

I believe that TVPaint is bitmap-based. In the setup, it is pretty similar to flash and especially toon boom. It didn't take very long for me to figure out what was what and how to make a frame by frame animation. The real challenge lies in getting around all the extra features that the product offers :P

I've been trying out a few different animation softwares and I really like the brush there. A downside though, is that it is very difficult, if not impossible to make a full, proper movie in it. It seems to be good for character animation, but you'll have to use a lot of different programs to make things work.

Have you guys heard of TVPaint though? My teacher tells me that that's what they use in much of the 2d animation industry. I just got the student version about a month ago, and I'm really having fun with the many possibilities. It is recommendable... Though, just like with toon boom, it takes some time getting used to.

Also, if anyone here is interested in further character animation, I can also recommend the 11seconds club. It's quite a fun challenge :)

At 6/10/12 03:02 PM, BobyB64 wrote:

At 6/10/12 03:02 PM, NATA wrote: We are still waiting on the final judge to submit scores. Deadline for judging is 10:00 PM Eastern Time, which is 9 hours from now.

What happens if that judge doesn't deliver?

Ragnerok?

At 6/10/12 02:42 PM, BobyB64 wrote:

At 6/10/12 02:35 PM, Hikarian wrote: 5 % power left :O

When does these kinds of things usually get published? Tell me of your ways, American people!

Lower your brightness!

I think for the last round the results were already up by now. I guess since this round involves actual points it's going to take longer to calcualte than the open round results. It says the NATA account isn't even online right now, so it might not be for a while.

My brightness is always at its lowest! But yeah, I guess I won't last till the results are up. I'll probably be asleep by the time they are published....

4%! I'm fading away! Oh why, cruel fate, whyyyyy?

5 % power left :O

When does these kinds of things usually get published? Tell me of your ways, American people!

- And so began the NATA fart collab of 2012. Next stop: world domination

Well i was hoping we could arrange a "NATA tribute collab" with everyone once the tournament is over ;D

Count me in :)

We could decide who's fart will go off when, and then sync together the timelines for each submission to orchestrate a minute long concerto in B flatus. :)

- And so began the NATA fart collab of 2012. Next stop: world domination

At 6/10/12 01:51 PM, BobyB64 wrote:

At 6/10/12 01:38 PM, Hikarian wrote: Each time I refresh the NATA novice/open round I hear that farting sound. Who is to thank for that absolutely ingenious idea? XD

Hahaha that was me. I put it on my open round entry too. I was afraid people would think it's annoying.

That's what makes it fun! Forever the NATA 2012 tournament shall be remembered for its farting sound :D

At 6/10/12 01:05 PM, Lankie wrote: Please say I'm not the only one here who is constantly refreshing this page in hopes the results will magically pop up.
Because BLAAAAGH this tension is killing me.
I want to find out how badly I looooost. D:

Sitting in a bus with a 4 hours trip ahead of me, with the excact same feelings. My iPad is almost out of battery, so I'm really hoping that the results will be up soon :(

Each time I refresh the NATA novice/open round I hear that farting sound. Who is to thank for that absolutely ingenious idea? XD

At 6/9/12 05:47 PM, francisyfl wrote:

At 6/9/12 03:00 PM, DuDuL wrote:

For a while you could see Tom Fulp's scores hehe ;P

Really ? they should post it like that ahahahah, would get the tension higher

Now is the perfect time for me to post the scores that I remember and make people extra nervous! >:P (maybe fake a few while I'm at it)

..........................meh.

Anyways, looking forward to seeing the results tomorrow (?). If there are any judges out there reading this: I'm sure that I'm not the only one who would love some constructive criticism... and maybe an advice or two...?

Of course, if any of the contestants would like to share some tips and tricks as well, I'm all ears :)

Thought I needed some change, so made myself a new profile pic! Just made it through the first of five exams with the highest grade possible, so I'm really relieved right now :D

Anyways; a lot of great entries so far. Even those that aren't finished looks awesome! I don't think I'll make it through to the next round with this level of competition, but I'm really looking forward to seeing some great animations in the future. Everyone here has their strengths and their weaknesses, so there's no telling who'll win this year :)

http://www.realityrefracted.com/2012/06/making-characters.ht ml

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3959205/speech/charAnalysis.zip

Here are some of Anthony's other articles (These deal more with tabletop RPGs, but character building and storytelling fundamentals apply to different media):

http://www.realityrefracted.com/2010/01/bringing-your-charac ter-to-life.html

http://www.realityrefracted.com/2010/02/fleshing-out-your-ch aracters.html

http://www.scriptfrenzy.org/node/3590368 ( http://www.scriptfrenzy.org/eng/howtoguides )

http://www.realityrefracted.com/2011/12/protagonist-driven-v s-antagonist-driven.html

http://www.realityrefracted.com/2010/12/what-hot-fuzz-taught -me-about-running.html

This is awesome, thanks for the articles! Now, I don't want to take too much of your time, but I do have a request:
Would you be able to write or find anything about concept and delivery? Just how to set up a story and tell it in an interesting manner...

Anyways, this will be useful for future reference, not just for NATA :)

At 6/5/12 12:12 AM, ExtremeFudgeMaster wrote: Cool, I got daily 5th again :)

I put a lot more effort into this animation than I did into my last one, so I was disappointed to see it not doing as well. I'll have to keep making more and maybe I can get higher than 5th next time :)

It sure was a close run! I even think that your score is better now, so guess you should've gotten 4th.
Anyways, I too had hoped for a little better score, since I really pushed my limits with this one. Then again, what should one animate for? The viewers or ones own self improvement. The thing is to find the golden middle way and still find happiness in what you do...

I think I'll have to work on concept and delivery, and then, hopefully, people will come to like my work someday.
Thanks for the daily 4th!!

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/596668

Done! Hope ya' enjoy!

...Hello...?

Dang it, time zones!!

At 6/3/12 08:48 AM, Pahgawk wrote: Aaaaand here's my video.
http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/596625

Oh, and awesome entry by the way! Can't wait to see how far you'll go :D

At 6/3/12 08:29 AM, Pahgawk wrote:

At 6/3/12 03:29 AM, Hikarian wrote: I wouldn't mind linking either, but in that case, can anyone give me a quick reminder on how to make a working replay button in AS3?

So, draw your button, select it, hit F8 and convert it into a Button symbol. Then, select it on the stage and give it an instance name in the properties panel. Then, I usually make an empty layer (also not necessary, but helps for organization's sake), click on the keyframe to make sure no other objects are selected, and open up the actions panel (F9). Then add this code:

import flash.events.MouseEvent;
import flash.net.URLRequest;
fund_button.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, Fund);
function Fund(e:MouseEvent):void {
var movieURL:URLRequest= new URLRequest("http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/808395439/ne wgrounds-the-forsaken-city");
navigateToURL(movieURL, "_blank");
}

Of course, you would need to change fund_button to whatever you made the instance name of your button, and you could always change the URL to something else, but I put in the link to the kickstarter page.

Hey, thanks for the help! ...Though, isn't this just a link button? I learned how to make such in my last entry, but what I'm looking for this time is a replay button that stops the movie in the end so that you can put links and credits there and give the viewer the option of replaying the movie. Anyways, I'll probably come up with some simple alternative.

...I'm such an Action Scripting-noob T_T

At 6/2/12 07:35 PM, JerrodStorm wrote: You know what we should all really do? We should put all put a link to the Newgrounds: The Forsaken City Kickstarter at the ends of our videos. Tom's probably pretty worried that they won't make their goal. He's even got an advertisement for it on the top righthand corner of the website.

He'd really appreciate it, don't you think?

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

I wouldn't mind linking either, but in that case, can anyone give me a quick reminder on how to make a working replay button in AS3?

Oh, and almost done now, but think I'm gonna wait with uploading for a day or two to work on some CBB... exciting :)

At 5/24/12 08:36 PM, ExtremeFudgeMaster wrote:

At 5/24/12 08:00 PM, ExtremeFudgeMaster wrote: Got just over 35 seconds done. Hopefully I can keep going at this rate.

Just realized that I'll have to finish about 2 full scenes every day until the deadline in order to finish on time. This, on top of having to catch up on my actual job, is going to be a lot :(

I too made the mistake of diong the math about how much I had to accomplish every day... Originally I had to do 2 scenes per day as well and then I would be done in 21 days. Then I realised that I didn't like the ending of my storyboad and that I would much rather want an open ending, so I had to cut out a lot of scenes...

It's not really fun if one stresses it too much, so I guess this is where the ABC comes in handy :)

Before this, the only real projects that I had worked on took me 6-12 months. I really wanted to see how much I could accomplish in a matter of 25 days, and this was the perfect way to motivate myself. To be honest, while working on the animation for this novice round, I've been forgetting that I'm actually in a tournament. I've had fun studying movements and trying to improve every little scene. And it's the first time I'm active in the forum, so that's a plus as well!

I've forced myself to finally try out a lot of new things during this competition, and I can see that I'm not the only one. I feel that I'm part of something great when I see the people around me improve so much :)

At 5/22/12 07:05 PM, McBinkles wrote: anyone else thankful that they're too broke to buy diablo 3?

Waiting eagerly till in a month when vacation begins... Wish I had that time travel from the first round :(

At 5/19/12 11:49 AM, Emrox wrote:

I've decided to use this year's tournament as a means of expanding my horizon. That said, I'm hoping I can still pull off these drastic changes without being slaughtered in the first round. *picture*

Noooooo, it seems like you've chosen the same title for you flash as I have :O ... I wonder how that can be?

Anyways, I'm also using this tournament for learning. Trying to push the limits for how much I can accomplish in 25 days. I'm focusing mostly on fbf character animation. It's difficult to master, but I feel like I've learned so much in this competition already, especially with the thing I'm working on right now :)

Is anyone else here doing somewhat fbf?

At 5/14/12 02:35 PM, Monsieur-Monsieur wrote: And it's the time fooooor useless prognosism (i've got no fuckin life).

Pahgawk vs. Hikarian Hum, both have an awesome art style and are great in animation...But I think the winner will be Pahgawk for some reason.

Awww, he said I have an awesome art style, how nice:)
I actually kind of agree, Pahgawk has much more expirience when it comes to animation contests, and his style is much more stable than mine. I won't give up without a fight though! I'm guessing that I'll be experimenting once again. Foooor science!!!

At 5/13/12 04:21 PM, NATA wrote: Congratulations to the 32 who have successfully made it into the Novice Round, which will begin later tonight!!

Pahgawk
VieRickend
Coughing-dog
Fungasm
Test-object
EmRox
JarrodStorm
BPremo
LazyModeComics
JagonDudo
digsBot
terabiter
DuDuL
Cenaf
slackman
CatFat
Hikarian
Lankie
Neeko
McBinkles
LumpyPenguin
BananasFoster
JoHobo
MihaP
ExtremeFudgeMaster
Sandwich-eater
TeamTomago
Catoblepas
BobyB64
DannX3
koit
francisyf

Oh my, I made it to the next round? I am of course happy to be able to participate in another round, but on the other hand, it's gonna be a veeeeery busy month. Well, I guess I'm not the only one. This is going to be very exciting, looking forward to it.

Anyways, it's late at night where I am (damn time zones), so I'll just have to wait till tomorrow with seeing the theme and such.

Good luck to all the 31 other contestants, as always, I can't wait to see all those great animations!

Nighty, night! Zzzzzzzz....

Judgement day! There has really been some great animators and storytellers in this contest, I would hate to have to cut some of them away if I were judge. Last year, I only learned about TOFA during some of the final rounds, but it's been a great expirience to follow it from the very start this time.

On behalf of me and myself, I just want to say thanks to all those who've entered, for all the amazing stories that I've gotten the chance to witness :)