Pardon our dust...

http://vimeo.com/37989417

Up on vimeo this time! I just don't like/trust the embedded youtube doohickies blogger automatically puts videos in. What can ya do...

Met with composer again today. Talked a lot of stuff out. Excited to see the next pass of music. Will have it together with another new animatic after spring break.

Speaking of spring break....

I will be in Mexico. Well, off the coast of Mexico. On a boat. With my wacom tablet. Animating. Probably with a margarita... but animating nonetheless! This weekend I set up a few scenes to be fully fleshed out during spring break, namely the running sequences and their backgrounds and the rest of 5-1. The Flash files are there with layers already set up waiting to be filled in, kind of like the end of a game with Solitaire: the cards are all lined up, you just need to get them in suited piles behind their ace. That's a really bad analogy if you don't play solitaire actually... well, just know that everything is falling into place.

color chart, fyi...

No, the characters will not be just outlines. I just haven't colored anything in yet because I think it's more pressing right now to finish the animation first and color later after picture lock. But just to put your minds at ease... enjoy these informative doodles:

You guys...

I have been an inbetweening BEAST today. Intro will be done tonight. I can't help saying that it's beautiful. It is. Had some tricky issues with getting a camera move + rotation of character + zoom all at once so I just cut it. Do that later on in a few shots anyway (which is what I was working on on Wednesday night to get rid of a nasty jump cut), so it's not a total cop-out.

There are very few actual Flash-made "tweens," but I did put one in the intro. There just wasn't any avoiding it. I actually like the wobbly lines that come with manually inbetweening, gives a little more life to the world/characters. They're supposed to be doodle-creatures anyway. so it makes it even more fitting they should shake a bit.But really, doing the big pan/zoom reveal by hand was just not something I was looking forward to and I decided is time better spend working on another scene.

I'll render out a quick clip after dinner. Time for some well-earned tuna salad!

EDIT: here we go! still need to put the title over the city and animate the mask that will make it seem like it's being drawn in front of us, but I have early class tomorrow so am going to call it a night. You'll also see the redone transition where the jumpcut used to be between 2-2 and 2-3.

birds that swoop and fish that... bloop?

pieces from 5-4. man that bird was fun to animate! it's tricky coordinating all of the pieces in this scene. lots of layers of characters... been alternating throughout the day going to the gym and working on this scene. maybe that's why everything's so dynamic :P

still in progress:

how very purple of you

Thought I'd show you one of the final BGs. This might be my favorite shot. Very moody even though there's basically no animation. There's a very slight and slow zoom, but I'm a fail at having backgrounds in Flash so I'll probably just do that it AfterEffects.
So here's a frame from 3-1:


As far as animation goes, all of Act 2 is roughed, there are just a few awkward frames that I sorely need to touch up. That'll be my Tuesday.

Act 1 is still the same mechanically as it was before. Not worried there.

Act 3 is underway. You saw a frame from that above.

Act 4 has bits and pieces done. I should start putting that together.

Act 5... is daunting. But I can do it. I can! Definitely a weekend project. Needs a good few uninterrupted hours. If I keep it well organized it should run smoothly, I just know that one shot will have A LOT of layers...

gettin' TEXnichal

Let me tell you what synapses in my brain I had to reactivate to pull off a Tex Avery take AND a smear in the same second of animation. Whoa nelly.

Need some inbetweens still, but here's a taste:





Since tonight I have a chapter meeting I'll hang at the house (I get creeped out biking around late at night so it's hard to get to the lab) and work on the cityscape scene since it's background-heavy.

bloomin' inkblots, batman!

Well I had a super musical weekend! Met with my composer/musician/all-in-one awesome guy, Will Sturgeon. You should check out his music. It's amazing. When not laying down all of his own tracks on his computer, he performs around campus with his two bands Brightener and The Miracals (formerly The Smiles). Check them out on Facebook/YouTube/Bandcamp/iTunes, they're just all over the place. You won't regret it. Really. Don't believe me? CLICK!

I also dropped the new edits and reframed shots into an animatic. Hopefully that's the last of the timestamp-alterning changes I make. Some of these shots have really gathered momentum and are screaming to be animated, especially running through the city with the ink trails rising through the buildings. SO FUN.