Check out my first animation!

[barnyarddawg]

Here's the animation I worked on this semester at school. I used Photoshop to create the character, and After Effects to animate it. The character design is kind of crude, because I didn't know how hard it would be to animate. I also didn't want to spend too much time designing the character when my focus for this project was the actual animation. The movie is just the character walking and moving around, there's no plot or anything. The file is 18 seconds long and 3.5 MB in Quicktime format. It was a lot of fun to do, and I would have gotten a lot more done if the stupid computers at school would stop freezing up. (It got so bad that I had to abandon the project with a week left. The computers were literally freezing every 15 minutes or so. ) Anyway, click this link http://www.geocities.com/chalmationcraig/animation/ , right ckick where it says charctermovie.qt and save it to your computer. It is in Quicktime, but I know my parents played it on Windows Media Player, so anybody should be able to use it. I hope y'all like it. Any criticism good or bad (especially bad) is encouraged.

[barnyarddawg]

No comments? :(

[Thad Komorowski]

Looks very nice! Pretty kooky animation! :)

Keep up the good work!


Thad

[Matthew Hunter]

I like when he does the "stretch"....well done!
-Matthew

[Daffyfan2002]

No comments?

I'm sorry, Barnyarddawg, but this isn't working on my computer. Some sounds and videos just won't download.

[barnyarddawg]

Thad and Matthew, thank y'all :) I appreciate that. I'm glad you liked it.

Daffyfan, do you have a Quicktime player? You can get one free athttp://www.apple.com/quicktime/ . It's wierd, my parents' computer was able to play it with Windows Media Player, but mine and yours (I'm guessing) couldn't. So I don't know what's the deal there.

[Daffyfan2002]

No. I don't have Quicktime. Maybe I'll look into downloading it sometime this weekend.

[Daniel P]

Hey, that's neat! :)

How long did it take to make?

[barnyarddawg]

Originally posted by dacp3
Hey, that's neat! :)

How long did it take to make?

Thanks! It took roughly two - two and a half weeks to make. Buliding the character in Photoshop took about three hours. I bulit a full rotation, even though I didn't use all of it. Every view in the rotation (front, back, side, and 3/4) gets its own set and each moving part (eyes, pupil, neck, torso, hands, ect.) gets its own layer within the sets. All of that is imported into After Effects. I moved the character every four frames, with the settings at 30 frames per second, and used the various effects in the program to achieve the bounciness and stretchiness (are those words? :bosko: ). It seems like a lot of work, but it's a lot of fun and it's very rewarding when you see your character come to life.

[Boy Wonder]

Barnyard, are you a George Carlin fan?

[barnyarddawg]

Originally posted by Boy Wonder
Barnyard, are you a George Carlin fan?


Yes, I'm a huge Carlin fan! I've got all of his CDs, and I'm looking into buying some of his HBO specials too. He, by far, has the most twisted imagination of any stand up comedian ever. There's a lot of things he's said that I'd like to use as signatures ("most of the people who are against abortion", "five twos", "Rice Krispies", ect.) but, of course, I could never print them here. I'd especially like to use his take on Mickey Mouse's birthday from Back in Town ,or his mention of the Bugs Bunny suit in the "maniacs and crazy people" segment from the same show. Maybe I could use his his Elmer Fudd and Porky Pig thing from Parental Advisory .... naaaa.

[Jack]

After trying to view this for the past few days (I had to download quicktime, but was having a ton of weird problems doing it), I finally got it to play! I wasn't at all disappointed, it's a very nice little cartoon. I was surprised at how smooth it was. Do you plan on making any more of these?


Jack :bosko:

[barnyarddawg]

Originally posted by Jack
After trying to view this for the past few days (I had to download quicktime, but was having a ton of weird problems doing it), I finally got it to play! I wasn't at all disappointed, it's a very nice little cartoon. I was surprised at how smooth it was. Do you plan on making any more of these?


Jack :bosko:

Thanks Jack :D. I don't think I'll be doing anything exactly like that, but I'll be learning Maya (a 3D program) next semester. I hope to be able to use that style of animation using 3D software. I'm going to experiment a lot, because I don't think 3D animation and modeling has not been pushed as far as it can go. While I like the photorealism that you see in most 3D animations, I just think 3D can be a whole lot more. Does anybody else agree with me?

[Boy Wonder]

Originally posted by barnyarddawg
Yes, I'm a huge Carlin fan! I've got all of his CDs, and I'm looking into buying some of his HBO specials too. He, by far, has the most twisted imagination of any stand up comedian ever. There's a lot of things he's said that I'd like to use as signatures ("most of the people who are against abortion", "five twos", "Rice Krispies", ect.) but, of course, I could never print them here. I'd especially like to use his take on Mickey Mouse's birthday from Back in Town ,or his mention of the Bugs Bunny suit in the "maniacs and crazy people" segment from the same show. Maybe I could use his his Elmer Fudd and Porky Pig thing from Parental Advisory .... naaaa.

Slowly, but surely, I am a Carlin fan. Remember This: No guys are named Lefty anymore, Release 10-15 percent of your fart to test, and :rolleyes: let the government poison you once in a while with water.

O.K, never mind about the Fudd and Porky thing. The Rice Krispies ain't as bad as the others, but it is still nasty.