Comics & toons

The Spirit - Teaser trailer

noreply@blogger.com (Comic_Toon) — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 07:12:00 +0000

Hi,

Again to post something besides actual doing animation work.
The Spirit, movie scheduled for next year, based on Will Eisner comic character, has been given a teaser trailer.

I cannot describe how enjoyed I was to learn that movie would be made, and while Frank Miller was not as bad choice as it could be I was a bit worried.
During the wait, Miller promised to honor the character, but now after seeing the teaser, I'm a bit disapointed. You can watch it here:

The Spirit teaser

Why? Because, although it looks cool, it screams Sin City. I don't want another Sin City episode (featuring Spirit, anyhow) I want noirish, campy, light, 30-50s comics Spirit.
Although Eisner did use latest 'technology' while creating the character as Miller states, in look it was noirish version of Superman.

I hope that the movie will in look honor Eisner and Spirit. As for characters, all major characters from Spirit comics are here, so it should make a entertaining movie.
Still visually I hope it moves nearer to the actual comic.

Your comments please :)

Vintage Oskar shorts

noreply@blogger.com (Comic_Toon) — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 08:29:00 +0000

Hi,

I'm latlely missing from my blog for which I'm sorry.
Situation is that I'm redecorating my flat, working, and having trouble with financing, so I have no time and energy for anything else.

Still, I was surprised today when I found out this link.
It's a collection of Oskar short animation winners from 'Three little pigs' on to today.

I thought you would appreciate it.

http://porphyre.livejournal.com/669473.html

Thanks to the original poster, I can now enjoy vintage animation :)
See you soon with some new animation I hope!

Book resource

noreply@blogger.com (Comic_Toon) — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 20:16:00 +0000

Hi guys,

I just received 'Illusion of life' through mail last week and I am so delighted by this book that I decided to put Amazon recommend widget on the blog.

I intend to put all literature that might help and I find interesting.
You can use the widget or just get ideas for later. Ether way, if it helps I'm happy.

In the next few days I'll post another animation exercises, until then I'll read upon my new book! :)

Walking .. again

noreply@blogger.com (Comic_Toon) — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 20:03:00 +0000

Here are some videos of walk I showed in the post before.
First is shot from the side, and below it is almost frontal shot.
Walk seems a bit jerky from the side, so I'll check and try to repair it.

See you soon, with new post

Walking.. The process...

noreply@blogger.com (Comic_Toon) — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 13:02:00 +0000

Hi,

I thought to give some examples of drag, but I ran into some problems. While I figure them out, I thought to make my first video of how I do things.

Maybe some could give some pointers, or I could help some one else. Anyhow, I thought to give it a go.
This is video of my first walk. I did translating of the body from one end of the screen to the next, showing only body and the legs.

Arms and head would come next as a secondary motion.
Feel free to watch :) and comment (please comment)

You can download SWF file here (just choose save as... option)

Refinement of the process will be following, hopefully very soon.
This is Low-max rig for the 3ds Max with head, hands and instructions hidden. Many thanks to the author!!!

Stretchy and squashy

noreply@blogger.com (Comic_Toon) — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 16:21:00 +0000

Well, first of, I wish you happy holidays, and happy New Year.

I've been rather busy with Christmas and holidays in general so I practiced a bit with squash and stretch.

As you can see in the example with bouncing ball, there is no sense of weight and ball seems to float up and down.

In this example I introduced squash effect and motion is more believable, IMHO

Now, to summarise squash and stretch is an exaggeration effect, used in animation to describe mass of an object. Light object don't stretch too much. Also, since it describes mass, it is used to describe all properties of mass, primarily inertia.

Inertia is a property of a body to continue in state it is in, until force is introduced to the body.

Squash and stretch are used to describe inertia when speeding-up (stretch) a body or slowing-down (squash).

When body is still and there is no speed to the body, S&S effect is not needed.

Well this is all for today. Now I'm off to welcome a New Year! All best!

Different dimension?

noreply@blogger.com (Comic_Toon) — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 14:35:00 +0000

When I started this blog I intended to do series of examples in principles of animation.
These examples are aimed to improving my skills and developing new that I don't have.

I wanted to do it old school: 2D animation and 3D as an upgrade of skills.
I from start in my animation, used 3D, and never tried doing 2D animation, since I found scanning lot of drawings tedious.

But, with tablet in hand, I dared explore animation from its foundations up. At the very start I'm at a theoretical question:

What is the difference in process between 2D and 3D animation?

Yesterday I watched Jason Ryan's video and seen 2D process.

Cells are drawn in, on one's, two's or with any timing you see fit. Spacing of objects gives the speed to animation, as well as spacing between in-betweens :)

Ease-in/out is done by placing in-betweens, without changing the exposure time of each cell. If need be, you can adjust exposure later.

So, can this be copied to 3D as is?

In 3D, Ease-in/out is done by changing property of objects' curves (keys). Computer does in-betweens.

So only timing decision is where to put the keys and what frame rate it will be. There is no question, will animation be on one's, two's or three's.. Or is there?

Well I think its interesting question, I will try and find the answer to. As always any help is appreciated.

How to ease-in the animation?

noreply@blogger.com (Comic_Toon) — Sat, 15 Dec 2007 20:35:00 +0000

This week I thought a lot about stretch and squash, ease-in and out, timing. All this thought s were pointed toward exercise I should do first in order to get things right.

I thought to do this by 2D and 3D, but my Genius tablet is acting up, so I didn't do much 2D as I planned.

At the end I read through some books, and done few animations.

Ease-in and Ease-out

In following example I tried to put linear cycle of the falling ball and eased in cycle together so I could see what impact difference it makes.

My initial observations, as well as prior knowledge were that to every organic motion there is a rhythm, slow-ins and slow-outs if you will. We don't walk linear, and our joints can't stop in place. So easing-in and out of motion is what makes motion believable.

In this example, first two motions are linear, while other two are eased. First ball would be appropriate for a elevator or some mechanical contraption, but it certainly is not a real ball.

Linear motion, in this case fall, disregards gravity, so that is a further fact that makes motion less believable.

Other two balls I tried to display mass quality as well. If ball has a great mass, then it would take more time for it to pass extreme position (in this case, highest or lowest position). Inertia would bind it and hold it for a while.

I tried to do it by flattening out the y position curves in peak spots.

To summarize:

Easing-in and out of motion is a process in which speed of a motion is either increased toward the finish of the motion or decreased. This is done by in/decreasing number of different in-betweens or by adjusting the type of curve in more of an S shape in 3D software.

It helps convey natural motion, mass of the object or external forces that act on an object (gravity)

Lack of ease-in or ease-out can convey mechanical nature of the motion, when appropriate.

My next post will deal probably with stretch/squash and timing

My little public animation school

noreply@blogger.com (Comic_Toon) — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 17:35:00 +0000

After a long time I'm finally concentrating on my animation skills.

Frankly I'm not satisfy and I'm determined to develop them from the ground up.

This is my Lesson plan, that I'm going to try and fill in next few years, publicly, on this blog.

I'm going to use this blog to force myself to find the time and do the exercises, although my time is divided between my work and my family life.

So, this is the plan:

Lesson plan

12 principles of animation

Squash & Stretch

Anticipation

Staging

Straight ahead and Pose-to-pose

Follow through and overlapping action

Slow in and Slow out

Arcs

Secondary motion

Timing

Exaggeration

Solid drawing

Appeal

Simple animation

Walk-cycle

Hopping

Physical excurses

Complex motion

Acting

Pantomime

Various emotional states

Analysis of silent movies

Facial animation

Emotional expressions without sound

Lip-synching

Complex acting

11 second club

I'm hoping that some of you who find yourself on this page find the time and kindness to suggest types of excursuses or modifications to the plan that could be helpful on my path of learning.

Also, I hope that you will frequent my blog and comment on the excursuses.

I'll try and do 2D and 3D excursuses as much as possible, at least for 12 principles. But if it gets time consuming I'll orient toward 3D.

Ok. I guess this is it, no turning back now. Wish me luck :)

Bit of overdoing

noreply@blogger.com (Comic_Toon) — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 16:52:00 +0000

I tried to add a jump when the mail is open. I added body follow-up when pointing and did some tweaking.

I don't know.. it seems a bit rushed, like its too much going on.
What do you think?

this is more alive approach to the material. He's not so much laid back, as before.

Little refinement

noreply@blogger.com (Comic_Toon) — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 20:18:00 +0000

I did a bit refining in the animation curves area. Some things are little smoother, I think.
I also rendered silhouette and noticed that I had no good pose at the end. So I added this 'Alright then' pose that translates feeling rather good I guess.

I've seen some floating in the spine area, but it's getting late so it will have to wait a bit.

this is it:

Second pass

noreply@blogger.com (Comic_Toon) — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 17:35:00 +0000

I finally reserved some time to adjust the animation.

I simplified hand movements, added some brow and eyelids.

Hope you like it

Refined first pass

noreply@blogger.com (Comic_Toon) — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 06:51:00 +0000

I thought I wouldn't post anything until I do second pass rigt. But after much favorabile and motivating C&C at 11second forum, I decided to do what I can and post ahead.

This is a bit refined first pass with head movement, blinking and lip sync.

My rig is abe only to open mouth so I tried to do some 'teeth acting'.
Maybe it's too much jaw work, but....

I also tried to simplify final two poses after the snip sound.

Without further ado:

Second part added

noreply@blogger.com (Comic_Toon) — Sun, 08 Jul 2007 18:07:00 +0000

I thought I will have no time today to do this, but I managed.
Here is whole animation. I added the props so it's not as it was.

Remember: put props before animating!

anyhoo, here it is:

11 second club - half of the first pass

noreply@blogger.com (Comic_Toon) — Sun, 08 Jul 2007 12:49:00 +0000

Wow! This is a big one for me. After all this time my second post. And what a post it is.
I'm entering July animation competition on '11secondclub.com' and starting to chronicle my attempts on this blog.
This is first half of the first pass I managed to do until now. It took me 4 tries until I landed with this. My mistake is to not act it out to the camera, but here it is.
Now, to get back to the second half of the clip, that is to my next post.
Hope you like it and put some C&C.