Animation Forum Lounge

[CloudEater]

Welcome to the Animation Forum Lounge!

The Animation Forum Lounge is intended to be a place for Animators of Newgrounds to openly discuss animation related topics, the animation forum itself and how it could be changed or improved and any other topic that people might find interesting.

Rules & Guidelines:

1) Do not spam. Spam posting will not be tolerated. Use common sense, try to be reasonably intelligent and coherent with your posting.

2) The lounge is not to be used to showcase any users animations or to ask for help with animating, that's what the forum is for so create a thread for such things.

3) Respect your fellow forum goers, do not flame or belittle them. You can kid around with each other but if things get really bad then force and pepper spray and small explosives will be used.

4) Like everywhere else in the BBS, all normal Rules apply.

Thank-you.

(Thread creation has been approved by mod)

[RPGShadow]

At 1/7/12 01:13 AM, Mark-er wrote: First response, LOLOLOLOL.

So how about them mo-cap movies lately? It has generally failed in past movies like the Polar Express and Mars needs Moms but it seems to have been nailed in The Adventures of Tintin. Do you think future human CG animators will be replaced by this in the same way hand drawn animators where (in the movie industry)? Funny how when CG animation is getting it's mojo on that already there seems to be a future threat to it, friggin' technology won't slow down.

not really, unless we want only to see boring realistic action scenes. for as long as we want OVAH DA TOPz action scenes we will always need a 3D animator. Also a thing I learned in class is that
NO ONE ESCAPES THE GIMBLE LOCK

[RPGShadow]

At 1/7/12 12:48 AM, CloudEater wrote:

you should have made that image an animated gif. , just to make it more....official....

:P

[CloudEater]

At 1/7/12 01:54 AM, RPGShadow wrote: you should have made that image an animated gif. , just to make it more....official....

Haha, yeah I was going to fbf all the letters coming in or appearing in different ways but it was taking too long and so decided to just do some neat effects but Flash is terrible at exporting to animated gif and screws up the masks I was using and so I just decided to go with a static image.

The first page wont really be noticed too much once people start posting a lot though.

[GamekrazzyProduction]

Well, this seems like a cool place to hang out. Anybody here seen chuck jones final works that were done in flash? Just curious, and seemed like a good topic to bring up. :P

[spammer4life]

there where lots of over the top action scenes in tintin!!:D

[BlackMist75]

At 1/7/12 05:18 AM, spammer4life wrote: there where lots of over the top action scenes in tintin!!:D

I just went to see that movie. The effects were great and the animation so smooth, what did you think of it?

[Emrox]

We didn't already have a lounge?

How peculiar.

[Jom]

I like how shitty our lounge is we don't even have any furniture T.T

[spammer4life]

At 1/7/12 09:05 AM, BlackMist75 wrote:

At 1/7/12 05:18 AM, spammer4life wrote: there where lots of over the top action scenes in tintin!!:D

I just went to see that movie. The effects were great and the animation so smooth, what did you think of it?

i thought it was AWESOME!! I even brough my littlebrother whos a big tintin fan and even he loved it.
i love the way the characters both look real an cartoon like:)
the scene with the burning pirate ship was really amazing!

[CloudEater]

At 1/7/12 10:08 AM, Emrox wrote: We didn't already have a lounge?

There was one made back in 2010 but it was locked.

At 1/7/12 10:20 AM, Jomillex wrote: I like how shitty our lounge is we don't even have any furniture T.T

You know we can't afford things like that Josh. We're struggling to even feed ourselves here in the animation forum and you're thinking about furniture.. ; __ ;

[RPGShadow]

At 1/7/12 10:38 AM, Otto wrote: I actually did a lot of coursework on motion capture, so I can safely say that motion capture is in no way a threat to real animation or to anything, really. It has a time and a place, but the truth is only a small fraction of the movements are used and animators have to top it up anyway. It's not far from rotoscoping, which I'm sure you're all familiar with.

yeah there's also that, but like I said before the Gimble lock is always gonna be a problem for mo-cap animation and you need a competent animator to solve the problem, I'm sure that the Tintin movie had those same problems, but since they had animators, it surely got quickly solved..........

[RPGShadow]

At 1/7/12 10:29 AM, CloudEater wrote:

At 1/7/12 10:20 AM, Jomillex wrote: I like how shitty our lounge is we don't even have any furniture T.T

You know we can't afford things like that Josh. We're struggling to even feed ourselves here in the animation forum and you're thinking about furniture.. ; __ ;

I'm sure that we have at least some good food...

oh god...

[spammer4life]

im working on some simple frame-by-frame..
does anyone know how to make the shakey feel on your drawings like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWpbBYOt-
HU

??
thanks in advance?

[TheBodaciousAdmiral]

hey guys im kinda new like
i was just wondering how far one is allowed to use an actor's likeness

cause im animating something and basically every character is based on a hollywood actor but i obviously own none of the rights to their faces - could i be sued potentially? for the record it is supposed to be in a humorous context

[RPGShadow]

At 1/7/12 12:42 PM, spammer4life wrote: im working on some simple frame-by-frame..
does anyone know how to make the shakey feel on your drawings like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWpbBYOt-
HU

??
thanks in advance?

draw another frame of the same frame. on a still shot you just draw over it once or twice, then use these drawings of roughly the same image to animate. it will give the effect that you seek, because when you draw over it you don't exactly retain the same consistency........

I'll go sleep now on the floor of the lounge..........

:don't eat me, I'm not good enough to eat :P

[spammer4life]

At 1/7/12 01:09 PM, RPGShadow wrote:

At 1/7/12 12:42 PM, spammer4life wrote: im working on some simple frame-by-frame..
does anyone know how to make the shakey feel on your drawings like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWpbBYOt-
HU

??
thanks in advance?

draw another frame of the same frame. on a still shot you just draw over it once or twice, then use these drawings of roughly the same image to animate. it will give the effect that you seek, because when you draw over it you don't exactly retain the same consistency........

I'll go sleep now on the floor of the lounge..........

don't eat me, I'm not good enough to eat :P

oh ok, that was the answer i was fearing:P seems like alot of work:)
im going to try it out in some shorter animations i guess:)
thanks!

TheBodaciousAdmiral: im pretty sure you can do what ever you want. if you wanna be extra sure i guess you could add a
"All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental." in the start of the movie:)

[RPGShadow]

At 1/7/12 01:19 PM, Ilssm wrote:

I'll go sleep now on the floor of the lounge..........

don't eat me, I'm not good enough to eat :P

*Nibbles at RPG's leg*

stop it *mumble**mumble*you're going to wake my*mumble**mumble*

(%u25C7m%u25C7) BOU MOFO!!!

[Jacob]

At 1/7/12 02:31 PM, spammer4life wrote: oh ok, that was the answer i was fearing:P seems like alot of work:)

Typically, it's actually done by adding and removing the extra smoothing, but it's best to only be done when the character is standing still, to give an illusion of nonstop frame-by-frame. Otherwise it just gets redundant.

[fluffkomix]

I'd just like to share with you guys some of my favorite animations and why i love them. I'll start with my favorite:

Thought of You
This one is done by Ryan J Woodward, who is an amazing effects animator, his work seen in osmosis jones, the iron giant, and quest for camelot. The reason i love it is because he decided to use life drawings for every frame (or drawings based on life drawings) you can really see the force and the structure behind each pose, and can dissect them easily. You can also really feel the emotion in all the characters' movements and he even adds those little subtle things that really make the animation feel alive. This animation is my main inspiration and if you haven't already seen it i beg of you to go watch it right now! I've only been able to catch 3 problems in it, one major one being the obvious tween towards the end that really pulls me out of the animation unfortunately.

Keep Drawing
This video i love because it really shows you how easily your eye is able to follow the movement provided the movement is there and it's good. The face that the drawing style keeps changing is a good show of different sketches, styles, and ways you can represent people, and i find it fun to just pause randomly every so often to see what they've done for that frame. Almost each frame is a completely different person/drawing. It shows you what animation really is. Not the quality of line, not the character design, but the movement. And it will always be about the movement.

Proteigon
This is my favorite stop motion animation. For starters, i love the music as it really adds to the absurdity of the world they character is in. Secondly, the fact that they used an actual human for the main character prop is a really good show of how your eye perceives movement differently when presented with the principles of animation, as well as the frame rate and natural inconsistency that comes with it.

http://vimeo.com/29368401
This is a 3D animated video in which they made characters designed to look like puppets, and man they really pull it off. The animation has some flaws (mostly intentional to follow the style of puppet shows), but the animation really is well done and quite complex. I love the impact shown by the smaller man as he throws his shovel over his shoulder and hits himself over the head. The thing that he does with his hat right afterwards really brings him to life as well. Gives him this really human feel.

12 Drawings a Day
This one was made over the course of three years, and it really shows! You can easily see his progression over the years in his quality of line, animation skills, and drawing style. The animation is all quite good and has a certain surrealism that i would really like to see more of.

going to the store.
This one is just silly. The guy (who was the lead animation director on Tron: Legacy) made a video full of walk cycles that are all completely terrible while still showing amazing skill in animation. What the fuck. Oh and he uh, made a cool music video too

[fluffkomix]

At 1/8/12 03:07 AM, fluffkomix wrote: http://vimeo.com/29368401
This is a 3D animated video in which they made characters designed to look like puppets, and man they really pull it off. The animation has some flaws (mostly intentional to follow the style of puppet shows), but the animation really is well done and quite complex. I love the impact shown by the smaller man as he throws his shovel over his shoulder and hits himself over the head. The thing that he does with his hat right afterwards really brings him to life as well. Gives him this really human feel.

Haha, totally messed up that link. For anyone too lazy to copy and paste, the link is here. The name of the animation is Gawper

[spammer4life]

At 1/8/12 02:07 AM, Himynameisjacob wrote:

At 1/7/12 02:31 PM, spammer4life wrote: oh ok, that was the answer i was fearing:P seems like alot of work:)

Typically, it's actually done by adding and removing the extra smoothing, but it's best to only be done when the character is standing still, to give an illusion of nonstop frame-by-frame. Otherwise it just gets redundant.

arh okay thanks! sounds like a great way of doing it! im gonna try this out!

[Nae]

At 1/8/12 03:07 AM, fluffkomix wrote: I'd just like to share with you guys some of my favorite animations and why i love them.

I would think this would be a better topic for its own thread. Or is there one already? (inspiration thread or something) I dunno!

Anywho...

I'd like to address the topic of people coming in here asking/looking for animators... and the way some of you are responding to them.

This thread ...particularly the last post by RPGShadow kind of sums it up for me... if you're not interested, why do you post?

I think it's pretty obvious that if the opening post is short, vague, detail-less, etc... that the person making it has no clue. They can't/don't understand what animation entails and probably aren't worth getting into a discussion or argument with.

I get that it's annoying to some... but since this is such a huge, recurring issue (the requests), maybe we need to think of a better way to handle these ...without insults and flaming. Redirecting them to the collab forum probably isn't the best option... since this is where animators would most likely be.

Does anyone have any ideas, suggestions, thoughts, input... whatevers?!?

[Sacros]

dear nae

you seem to suggest that animators expressing their frustration in "looking for animator" threads was the problem, we do that because we are powerless, tired and annoyed

my opinion is that those kind of threads are harmful to the animation bbs ans should be prohibited, closed with extreme prejudice when appear

you seem to think the absolute opposite for some reason, so why dont we open a thread for people looking for animators and make it a sticky so its always visible? those looking for slaves for making mario vs sonic fights can ask there instead of littering our precious forum

or maybe we can make it mandatory for people looking for animators to go ask in the collaboration area

im glad you are willing to adress the problem but i dont think its the regulars who come here to discuss animation who should change behaviour

also, most "animator wanted" threads are made by recently created users and that is ussually their first post, that means we are dealing with random delusional oportunists so they are hardly part of the newgrounds community

you are the batman of the forum, please help us

[RPGShadow]

@Sacros, you cannot talk for everyone here, I understand that you are, quote:"frustrated, powerless, tired and annoyed" of these "animators wanted" threads, but you could have gone into it more civilly.

you could have just redirected them to the collabs area or just let it be ignored, to which you can see that most of these are beginning to fade away quite quickly.

also these threads doesn't harm anyone, the internet was made for these kinds of new projects, the new ideas. Youtube was made for new aspiring writers to make their work a reality. Newgrounds was made to have new animations, it started with a kid wanting to have his Ideas shown to the world.

this guy made animated this entire movie on his own, but he still asked for Voice actors on craiglist and searched for another guy to do a thing (that I don't rememberDX) on the internet.

And more than that you cannot start to closing threads with extreme prejudice just because you don't like them, it's called being "power hungry", i've been on a forum where we had those mods, banning everyone who was being "mean" to there friends and for no reason than "I don't like it". It's harmful for the community.

:P

[Sacros]

quite an attitudo, RPGdude, you are blind if you dont see the pletora of unreasonable request threads littering an area destined for something else. those kind of thread just use up space and 90% of the time they dont have a clue asking for unreasonable stuff

plus as i said earlier, most of the time people making those threads arent even from the community, makin an user just to drag someone into animating for them out of a retarded idea, i think thats an important remark

but i cant help to think you are asking the community to be nice as if the problem were the community...then im sorry but thats just plain stupid, the problem is not people being mean but WHY people is mean

so i think its natural to close threads that arent supposed to be here, or make room somewhere else for them ( and the collaboration forum is not the place )

i hope to avoid a heated debate by saying this is the last i comment on the matter

[leocartoon1]

Hello fellow newgrounders and animators.
This does seem a nice place overall to talk about pictures showed at fast rates giving the illusion of mo-

At 1/7/12 11:22 AM, RPGShadow wrote: pic of empty fridge goes here

Dammit I thought you guys had food here.

[fluffkomix]

At 1/8/12 09:22 PM, Nae wrote:

At 1/8/12 03:07 AM, fluffkomix wrote: I'd just like to share with you guys some of my favorite animations and why i love them.

I would think this would be a better topic for its own thread. Or is there one already? (inspiration thread or something) I dunno!

I was thinking about that but i figured i might as well post it here. Maybe another time though

[spammer4life]

At 1/9/12 02:46 PM, fluffkomix wrote:

At 1/8/12 09:22 PM, Nae wrote:

At 1/8/12 03:07 AM, fluffkomix wrote: I'd just like to share with you guys some of my favorite animations and why i love them.

I would think this would be a better topic for its own thread. Or is there one already? (inspiration thread or something) I dunno!

I was thinking about that but i figured i might as well post it here. Maybe another time though

i dont really understand the "going to the store" movie, is it stop-motion?

[PigeonOnAStick]

At 1/8/12 09:22 PM, Nae wrote: This thread ...particularly the last post by RPGShadow kind of sums it up for me... if you're not interested, why do you post?

I think it's pretty obvious that if the opening post is short, vague, detail-less, etc... that the person making it has no clue. They can't/don't understand what animation entails and probably aren't worth getting into a discussion or argument with.

I get that it's annoying to some... but since this is such a huge, recurring issue (the requests), maybe we need to think of a better way to handle these ...without insults and flaming. Redirecting them to the collab forum probably isn't the best option... since this is where animators would most likely be.

I know you're going to hate me for saying this, but these problems lie in the newer forums: animation and collaboration. It would be grand if we could put a sticky up.

I think if we put up some carbon-copies of the rules found in the Kongregate forums, we might be ok, with some suggestions to what they should include and their chances of success.
I tend to put off this problem since I don't know how we could apply Batting Averages, what features are coming in the redesign, or just over-thinking and giving up on the problem. Hopefully these decisions will be easier soon.

I don't really have a problem with people suggesting more info, provided that it's done politely and the hopeless requests are not given anymore posts. The problem I find is with the collab forum, where hopeless requests are responded by hopeless collabers, and the threads dance for weeks on end until they collapse in a hopeless mess. At least (most of) the users in the animation forum can spot a still-born project early.