Dragons and horses and bears, oy vey

Hi folks,

This week, we re-recorded Song 2, "Dragon's Song," at a slower tempo, and it no longer sounds rushed. Malcolm gave a hilarious top-notch performance as the Dragon.

Animation is progressing nicely. Aside from completing the flying segment of Song 3, I'm working on the longest shot of the film, Shot 39, clocking in at just under 15 seconds. This is the shot where Doofus tap-dances with the Bear. It should be complete by tomorrow.

I'll upload the latest animation right after I finish this shot. Stay tuned!

The Money Shot

Hi folks,

This week I finished the most challenging shot of Ladies Knight: Shot 3-19, in which Doofus tap-dances up a tree as it falls into a river, then is joined by a quartet of tap-dancing frogs. This shot took me an estimated 50 hours to animate, and it's only 8 seconds long. Such is the life of an animator. Amazingly, I am still on schedule.

There are, of course, things I wish I could fix about this shot -- for example, the frogs sort of blend in with the bright scenery -- but it looks good enough, and fulfills its purpose, and I'd better get to other shots if I want to finish this film on time.

Just a screenshot for now -- I'll upload a video when I have time for an export...

Song 3 Animation!

Hi folks,

Check out the new backgrounds and animation in Song 3 at this youtube link! So far, about 1/3 of the shots are finished. Enjoy!

Chugging along

Hi folks,

This has been a busy, busy week of animation. I've completed 11 shots from Song 3, including the Busby Berkeley-esque shot pictured. I expect to finish a couple more shots by classtime on Wednesday. Point-wise, Song 3 is 32% done, and that was in less than 2 weeks! I'll bring the new animation to class on Wednesday, and post it here on the blog as soon as I get a chance.

This week I enjoyed an hour of socializing with friends, plus a trip to Yogurtland (which is directly below my apartment). I also enjoyed various fantasies about playing video games or reading books. Finally, I indulged in writing this paragraph exaggerating my intense work schedule. But now, back to work.

Disaster Averted

Hi folks!

This week, thanks to my trusty roommates, I narrowly avoided what could have been a waste of an entire week. My laptop charger gave up and died on Saturday, leaving me stranded. I rushed to RadioShack and bought a new one, but it proved incompatible. Luckily, one of my roommates found me a new, compatible charger online, and while that's shipping, my other roommate is letting me use his computer for animation. This isn't the first time my roommates have bailed me out, and I owe them a big thanks in the credits.

Thus, this week I've been productive. Song 2 has run into a slight hitch (needs re-recording) so I've begun Song 3. Below you'll find the puppets for Tap-Dance Doofus and Classy Sword, as well as several backgrounds. Many of the backgrounds have animated components which I'll show next week, along with any new animation.

New Animation & More Updates

Hi folks!

Here is a link to the latest animation progress!

Hope you had a great break. Mine was mixed. At first it was relaxing and productive and family-filled, but then I got sick for a week, which was neither relaxing nor productive nor family-filled.

However, I got a lot done before then, including the Dragon puppet, several backgrounds for Song 2 (including FX animation), and most of Song 1.

I also found a way to write Song 4, Elixir at Wixor, out of the script. This is a sad farewell, but we all saw it coming, and story-wise and schedule-wise, I think it's for the best. I will try to work one of the Wizard's lines in as an owl at the end of Song 3.

Also over the break I upgraded the RAM in my computer, which has sped up the animation process.

Here is the Dragon's puppet sheet. He's now ready for animation!

These BGs transition from the bright blues & greens of Song 1 to the sinister purples (and later yellows) of Song 2...

Shot 13 has a lot of FX animation in it which, luckily, can be reused in almost every shot of the song.

6 New Shots & Puppet Pondering

Hi folks!

Since the grad screening, I've finished 6 more shots, and 2 more are on the way! It's my goal to have as much of Song 1 done as possible for the faculty review, if not all of Song 1, so I've been animating like crazy.

Here's a link to the latest Song 1 animation on Youtube. As you can see, it's rapidly nearing completion!! (Please excuse the partially-animated shots, as usual.)

 Below are some reflections on the animation process so far...

I'm learning to grapple with the complexity of animating Sir Knightly and the Princess, the two most difficult characters to animate. Aside from reusing as much animation as possible (which isn't much), I've learned that certain body parts, such as the head and torso, can be tweened by the computer, but other body parts, including the neck and, surprisingly, the arms, are better inbetweened by hand.



If Sir Knightly looks simple, he isn't. Here's a list of the layers inside his symbol in my Flash timeline:
Sir Knightly's Body
-Head
-Neck
-Leg1
-Boot1
-Waist
-Shoulder1
-Forearm1
-Arm1
-Body
-Shoulder2
-Forearm2
-Arm2
-Leg2
-Boot2
Sir Knightly's Head
-Eyebrows
-Ear
-Glass1
-Nose
-Glass2
-Mouth
-Chin
-Visor
-Dome
-Feather

That's a combined total of 24 separate body parts to animate individually. You may wonder why I don't just switch to 100% traditional frame replacement animation, but in my experience that takes even longer, plus I'd risk going off-model.

By contrast, here are the layers in the Singing Sword's symbol:
-Arms
-Pupils
-Eyes
-Mouth
-Sword Lines
-Rim
-Pattern
-Handle

That's only 8 layers, including facial expressions, for full-body shots. I've decided my next movie will be exclusively about swords.