At 11/20/09 05:27 PM, Nemo wrote: I used to be a regular in the Flash forum years ago...

Hi, everybody!

I know i've seen you around ;3 Welcome back

I'm killing myself over the fact that I decided to animate a close up of my character hooking a worm on a fishing rod. Animation is so brutal >:|

http://www.swfcabin.com/open/1258752720

Thanks guys, that was really helpful. Time to unplug from the net.

Hey NG,

I've got this three minute animation due December 15th and I'm starting to feel the stress. I think quite a few of us know what an approaching deadline can feel like when you've got other projects you would rather do.

So what your methods for getting work done?

At 11/19/09 02:42 PM, Rustygames wrote: It's impossible, it's been baffling scientists for generations. Flash is only good for making animated intros to your website

It's also great for crashing and giving you a headache.

At 11/19/09 05:42 AM, TaraGraphics wrote: NO FACE VS TOTORO

That was such a good idea.

At 11/8/09 02:48 AM, PBass wrote: You need to put in the work and SELL it better than telling people to 'look at the mother fucking idea'.

Totally agreed. It would be nice if you actually gave us a shitty looking demo. It can even be one feature in the whole game.

I'm a little confused.

Are you trying to upload a quicktime file to newgrounds, or a movie file you imported into flash and exported as a .swf

At 11/1/09 10:48 PM, 7IsUnlucky wrote: I don't wanna put it there because no one ever replies in those things

Go sign up on the boards at http://voiceactingalliance.com/ There are plenty of flash projects and other media that post casting calls there. I've always found them to be very reliable.

I knew Shad's would win.

At 10/31/09 01:29 PM, Flashsoldier wrote: Where the hell did you even get the idea that it's tweened?
What you see is pure FBF.
Take a look for your self...

It's absurd that people are whiling to call this frame by frame animation. You may as well have tweened the whole thing.

If you would stop being lazy and actually took the time to draw each state of the run cycle then it would look 10x better than it does now. The reason why I thought it was tweened is because it appears as if you have merely segmented your soldier into symbols and pasted them into something like a run cycle.

You're missing out on all of the subtleties that could make this really work, like the twisting of the torso - some cradling of the rifle, etc.

That's my advice.

Yeah, it's sort of like you're making an art thread in the flash forum.

Not that it's going to kill anyone,

I guess you did a decent job for something that's tweened, but you'll never be able to make a convincing run cycle without FBF.

Koolmoves looks terrible, just by glancing at the featured work in their gallery I can tell that you should look for another alternative.

At least give master chief some credit, dude. He got one shot in before being cut in half.

At 10/27/09 11:17 AM, chimpskylark wrote: "no villain", really? Pretty much every pixar fim has villain...

But cool, thanks for sharing!

It's suggesting that there isn't one central antagonist responsible for the hero's dilemma.

I think you should come back to us with a complete idea. I'd like to see you make an animatic (a moving storyboard) of something 1 - 2 minutes long.

So Andrew Stanton came to lecture my animation class yesterday, for those of you who don't know him by name, he is responsible for Toy Story 1 & 2, A Bug's Life, Finding Nemo, WALL - E, Monster's INC etc.

Epic guy.

In short it was extremely inspiring and I thought I would share some lecture notes since a portion of us here are animators interested in telling good stories. Hope it helps in some way ;3

FORWARD:

- Storytelling is joke telling
- Attempting to build the telling of that story - (circumstances) towards a satisfying conclusion - (punch-line).

WHEN ANDREW WATCHES A FILM, HERE'S WHAT HE WANTS TO SEE:

- Make me invest in a character
- Infect me with their want - GIVE ME THE HINT OF A PROBLEM
- Promise me a potential fulfillment
- Move me with every action towards it.
-Satisfy me with a worthy punch line

PIXAR PRINCIPLES:

- No politics
- No creative execs
- Director Driven Studio
- Only In-house original Ideas // Stanton mentioned that PIXAR had to turn down more outsourced talent than he could coun't because of this value. Big talented individuals were ignored because of this dedication to artistic integrity.
- We live in Fairyland

PIXAR FILM PHILOSOPHIES:

- Opposite direction from disney // Infact, when PIXAR was comissioned by Disney to do Toy Story - they were adamant about what they did not want to do (be like disney). Stanton believed in doing something else with animation and breaking conventions set by Disney's golden age films. So the thing to take form this is that you can start a story not necessarily knowing what you WANT to say.... but what you DONT WANT to say.
- no songs
- no i want moment
- no happy village
- no love story
- no villain
- Not for kids
- Film goers first; Film makers second
- No formulas
- If formula appears - stop doing it.
- Animation is a medium, not a genre
-Dare to be stupid; go out of your comfort zone. Endeavor to be as dumb as you were on the first movie.
- Be wrong as fast as you can (SO THAT YOU CAN BE GOOD SOONER)
- just make a good movie
- For Stanton, film is his attempt to pass on the magic he has felt from watching other films. It is an attempt to share feelings he once felt as a viewer.

SCREEN WRITING IS:

- not writing
- an intermediary form, not end product but a transitionary middle step.
- cinematic dictation
- It is the best way to describe whats going on visually in your head
- "write what you know" "know what you write"
- We know Stanton breaks this rule, he mentioned he's prone to heavy researching.
- Have an opinion about what you want to see on screen.

THE MEDIUM AND THE MESSAGE

- The art centered piece must by nature be interpretive, not realistic
- Just say NO to flash backs -> unless they provided much needed context
- Only tell what's vital, and tell it linearly
- Based on when you need to know that information
- music
-a guide for tone.
- a character
- 2+2, never give the audience 4.
- Just 2+2. The audience can conclude that the answer is 4 themselves.

STORY PHYSICS:
- Like your main character
- does not mean they have to have redeeming qualities, just empathize
- put us in their shoes
- life is conditional, a scenario may bring out the worst in people
- woody is selfish disguised as selflessness
- opposing goals, unity of opposites
- looking for conflict between two people, pushing for gold

- writing is rewriting
-storeeboarding
-the sooner you accept that the sooner it wont frustrate you
- Abandon crap
- Kill in hopes to make something better live
- Be ruthless about what's good,
- failure is a big part of success
- Record and get rid of alot of crap before you actually get to something special
- Spend time rewriting plot to figure out who the characters are.....
- After the characters are known, then it's easy to rewrite the plot
- initially, plot is a means to define character.

- Bugs life was the hardest story to put together
- Key image or key moment to remember what the point of the movie is
- in toy story, woody off the bed woody on the bed
- toy story 2, ventalation shaft
- monster's inc, monster's hand holding a little girl's hand
-overcoming fears of being a parent
- Nemo soul surviving fish egg in the sand
- Bugs life was hard to write, had no image
- Wrong guy as main character
- casting
Monster's Inc.
- know your world
- fantasy = rules
- Inner not outer conflicts
- cant always do everything in a movie, can you structure it in a way such that no one asks questions?

-----out of student Q and A-------

ANDREW'S EMERGENCE STORY:
- Tried to get into Cal arts
- rejected the first year
- got to cal arts
- not one of the most talented
- couldnt stand out but held his own
- realized that the students who were the most talented didn't work the hardest
- "the only thing I could take control of was how hard I worked"
- could be fun to work with
- "film making community is small, animation community is even smaller"
- After school,
- couldnt get jobs
- met john lassader at a festival
- never lost hope
- Eventually opportunity arises with Lassader
- Worked at pixar
- hired most of his colleagues at cal arts
- Moral: "WHAT YOU CAN CONTROL IS YOUR PERSEVERANCE"

FILM / BOOK SUGGESTIONS:

- Huge david lean fan
- Ryans Daughter
- holds an audience's attention even with the simplest beats - knowing what not to tell, what to tell, and when to tell it
- Specimen of effective use of audience participation
- Spoonriver Anthology

At 10/27/09 06:55 AM, AronKong wrote: stupid macs >_<

I think Mac's have a screen capture software that allows you to record a section of your screen over time. It also records any audio present during the session.

It was a while since I had to use it, but it saved my ass for college applications. A few years ago, there was no such thing as a SWF to AVI conversion that wasn't sensitive to Action Script and Movie Clips.

This is what I use, works like a charm http://www.swftovideo.net/

It's free, but you get a watermark on the top left hand side of your screen if you didnt pay for it. Not a big deal.

I really wish you gave us a synopsis of some kind.

I can't make that deadline, but I would be interested in working with you in the future.

my portfolio: www.jsandart.blogspot.com

current flash project: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQGdU36N5 -A&feature=player_embedded

Sounds good.

I'll surely be going over the poses a few times.

Hey bbs, i'm starting a new project spanning 2 to three minutes long. Take a look at this shitty animatic and let me know if it was discernible to you.

If not, let me know where you got lost! I'd like to have the entire film roughly down this week.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQGdU36N5 -A

At 6/16/09 03:14 PM, Nekow wrote: "Garruk Wildspeaker" Original by Aleksi Briclot.
My poor version

That's one of my favorite magic card illustrations. Good job.

an hour or two in

starting something for this band http://www.myspace.com/orderofennead

That is an improvement, nice job.

At 10/16/09 03:10 AM, Angelus-Mortis wrote: Well, that's not an issue with digital painting, is it? Because it's really customizable, unlike most traditional mediums. I'm not saying redrawing an image helps you learn stuff about your art; only that it might help you fix a problem in the original drawing, possibly because you started it off badly.

Its a non issue with both mediums, but if I were finished with something and posted it on a forum only to find out people hated the piece - I would just rather move on to something completely different. I mean, I've personally done repainting a few times - but the reiterations are months if not years apart.

I think it's way better if you give yourself time to grow between problems that you couldn't yet solve.

Like there is this one painting that I have done over once each sequential year since 2007.

2007

http://fc08.deviantart.com/fs17/f/2007/1 89/2/a/The_Infallibly_Dirty_Deed_by_Neol ight.jpg

2008

http://fc08.deviantart.com/fs29/f/2008/1 10/1/1/Cashel_by_Neolight.jpg

2009

http://fc07.deviantart.com/fs40/f/2009/0 41/0/3/Fasner_Alleys_by_Neolight.jpg

I would have been way happier if I could have had what I eventually made in 2009 back when I was a bumbling idiot of a high schooler in 2007. But there's just no way I would have made anything remotely like that at the time - because 50 drawings later I started to understand bounce lighting, gesture, etc. in a deeper way that only experience could have allowed.

But you know. It's all opinion and personal preference when it comes down to it.

pose is looking stiff due to the fact that his clothing falls pretty close to him.

The way the composition is working right now I am really inclined to think that he's falling - as if he's doing this epic flaming kick down on some helpless individual.

So I think it would help if you were a little more regal and flowing with what he's wearing - singe hte edges or even have it dissapear into the flame. No need to have such a clean cut between character and environment. I would let it bleed into each other and be painterly with it - if you get what i'm saying.