Hey guys. Sorry for not posting this on the educators forum, but I need help quickly as this is for a school project and threads here get answered faster than the ones on the educators forum.
Anyway, my character walks into her room and stops. She places her portfolio on the floor and teleports to her bed, and places her art box on the floor beside it. Right now I am on the placing her portfolio on the floor and teleporting part. I have a frame with her placing the portfolio on the floor with her art box in the other hand. She hasn't let go of the portfolio yet, so it's still standing up. I am stuck here because I dont know how to get from that frame to the teleportation frame I want her to teleport the same way that Nightcrawler from X-men Evolution does, with the smoke puff and everything. I just dont know how to get to the smoke puff. Do I make her gradually fade away or suddenly disappear and become replaced with the smoke? I want it to be as close as to Nightcrawler's teleportation as possable. Any help with this is greatly appreiciated.
Here are links to the two frames before where the teleportation sequence should be. http://www.angelfire.com/ab3/PlanetPichu/stop2.jpg
http://www.angelfire.com/ab3/PlanetPichu/stop3.jpg
Please excuse the quality of the pictures, I had to use my pc camera since I dont have my scanner.
"Animation isn't about how well you draw, but how much to believe." -Glen Keane
I never saw the movie but like any effect it sounds like it's time to learn a thing or two about compositiing. If you want the character to fade away you will need to render him separately and manipulate the alpha channel to make get the effect you are looking for.
And oh by the way your images aren't showing.
ed
Department of Computer Animation
Ringling College of Art and Design
Sarasota Florida
Sorry about that. I dont know why angelfire acts so dumb. Just dont worry about the pictures for now. I found a gif of Nightcrawler from one of the old episodes from X Men and I watched it frame by frame in ImageReady. I saw how they faded Nightcrawler as the smoke started to appear. After sitting and thinking of how I can make my smoke effects different from his, I got an idea. I'll post it once I have the sequence together.
I have the first part of the smoke effects done and right now I am working on getting her portfolio to fall through the smoke. I've never done anything with smoke before so it'll probably look crappy. Already the smoke looks more like fire. >_< My roommate says it should be fire since my character is a demon, I might leave it as fire, I might not. Anyway, once I finish making the portfolio fall through the smoke and making the smoke disappear I'll put the animation together and post it.
Oh, by the way, this is in 2d, not 3d. I'll remember your advice Ed, for when my character model is finally ready to be animated. I'm on the weight painting stage with her. Thanks for the info, Ed :D
"Animation isn't about how well you draw, but how much to believe." -Glen Keane
I wasted and hour last night taking pictures of the frames w/ my pc cam and putting them together in Image Ready. They looked terrible, so I didn't even bother to save them.:( I plan on visiting the comp lab today, so hopefully a scanner will be free.
"Animation isn't about how well you draw, but how much to believe." -Glen Keane
Here's what I have so far. I'm proud of it, I think its the best animation I've done so far. The perspective of the art box changes some and her arm in frame 5 is weird, but other than that I think it's great.
www.deviantart.com/view/11548588/
"Animation isn't about how well you draw, but how much to believe." -Glen Keane
No one has any comments? :(
"Animation isn't about how well you draw, but how much to believe." -Glen Keane
The walk in is readable, the setting down the briefcase is semi-readable but once he goes into the teleport I'm lost. It pops over to screeen left and after watching it over and over again I can see that the case opens but I really couldn't tell you what is happening to him. It seems like you are trying to give too much information or cover too much ground with too few frames.
Remember as a viewer I can't be looking at two places at the same time so once you start having him transform I need enough time to process that and before you go on to the next idea.
ed
Department of Computer Animation
Ringling College of Art and Design
Sarasota Florida
Thanks Ed! I'll hold the teleportation frame for a bit longer and then have the portfolio fall through. I was thinking about that yesterday and wondered if you guys would say the same thing. Do you have any suggestions on how I can make her putting the portfolio down more readable? I made more frames last night, I will scan and include them later today if I have time.
"Animation isn't about how well you draw, but how much to believe." -Glen Keane
If you just hold that pose longer it would help, we hardly see it before you go into the teleport.
ed
Department of Computer Animation
Ringling College of Art and Design
Sarasota Florida
but i'm partial to jerky tail movements. it vacillates in opposites arcs almost every key. you need to tone it down as it easily steals attention. (unless it was the intention in the first place.)
your handling of the horned hood is more like it-- restrained and weighty.
also flames could be oriented at the other direction if you like, from where the action originated.
having the same pose as he teleports is ok if you don't plan to have the effects quicker. if you do it slower, as in the line test, you can continue his movement as he teleports.
this http://www.chaosgroup.com/aura/ has good 3d effects of someone turning to smoke. look for the smoke-alien.avi.
i'd say good work mightymew1.
Don't worry. All shall be well.
Thanks for the responses guys! Ed, after reading your response I went into Imageready and held the extreme aniticipation pose for two frames rather than one. I held the smokey "poof" pose for four frames. Once I make the inbetweens, ink and color it I am going to use the smudge and blur tools in PS to make the smoke gradually disperse and disappear. The final frame of the portfolio falling through the smoke will be copied and gradually panned to the right so that more of the bed (I didn't include the bg in the pencil test) can be seen, since she reappears over the bed. I think that should give the viewer more time to recognize that the portfolio had been standing up all of that time and finally fell down. I also want her whole "poofing" process to go quickly. I wanted it to be like she's there and then she's suddenly gone with just a smokey version of her left behind. The "fire" was supposed to be wisps of smoke to indicate that she was still in motion when she teleported. I included it for the reason above and because I had no clue how the timing for the smoke thing should be since I've never done it before.
Kukut, thanks for the response. I agree that the tail moves alot. That's because I wanted it to be an active part of her body. I want it to move when she does, and I want it to still move when she's standing still. I've seen so many characters with tails and the tail looks like it's basically just something that hangs off of the characters rear. True thats pretty much what it is for most animals but my character is a demon and her tail is prehensile, so I wanted to make it an extension of her. I hope this makes sense, it's hard to explain. Anyway, I haven't done the inbetweens yet, and I thought they would help slow down the movement of the tail. At the same time, I could be wrong, this will be the first animation that I (hopefully) go through with, all of the others ended with the keyframes because something (homework, video games, chores etc.) happened and I never came back to finish them. I think that the movement of the tail also indicates that it's light weight. You mentioned that her "horned hood" had weight to it, well that is because those are her ears. Well...I dont know, I am still trying to decide wether they are ears or horns, but whatever they are, they are meaty and soft. They have more mass than the tail does so I made them heavier. As far as the direction of the fire I disagreed with you at first. I thought about it some more and now it makes sense to have the smoke trails pointing in the direction of the origin of the action. Thanks! I'll be sure to fix it and remember that for my other teleportation frames.
Please correct me if I am wrong about any of the stuff that I said, and/or tell me if you disagree. I'm basically a newbie since I'm only a freshman in art school although I've read/own quite a few animation books, you guy's critiques are most appreciated! :D
Before typing this long response I went back and made the adjustments that I indicated in my response to Ed. The up-dated version can be viewed here:
www.deviantart.com/view/11548588/
Earlier today I made more keyframes and once I finish typing this I will continue to apply the smoke effects to the new teleport sequence (when she reappears). Once I have done that and once I change the smoke trails like Kukut said to, I'll post an up-dated version. Thanks alot for your help so far guys! I really appreciate it!
"Animation isn't about how well you draw, but how much to believe." -Glen Keane
I up-dated the animation! The background is some garbage but I wanted everyone to see that Persistance is teleporting and landing on a bed. The whole thing doesn't make sense w/o the background anyway. Does anyone know of a quick way to get rid of the white boxes around the drawings in each frame? I really dont look forward to go back and erasing the squares one by one...
In the frame before the close up of her face, it is showing the art box on the floor. I wanted to make it look far away and small. I think I failed at that. If anyone has any tips on how to get that effect, please let me know.
Critiques are welcome as always! :D
Here's the link: www.deviantart.com/view/11548588/
"Animation isn't about how well you draw, but how much to believe." -Glen Keane
I up-dated the animation. It's still not done yet. I think it's getting large for a gif file but when I save it as a mov file it plays way too fast. Does anyone have any suggestions?
Here's a link to the up-dated version www.deviantart.com/view/11548588/
"Animation isn't about how well you draw, but how much to believe." -Glen Keane
Yah - stick with the MOV. It's really freaking cool to see him disappear in place like that but one of the greatest things in the universe about teleportation (Nightcrawler style, not Trek) is the POP with which it happens. No sound necessarily, just a POOF-SNAP and there they are. You've got the drawings for it, but the disappear-gone-reappear is to step-by-step and dragged.
Thanks for the reply ScatteredLogical! So, you think I should make the tele sequence go faster? I added more frames because earlier Ed said that it went too fast and he didn't get a chance to see what had happened. I agree about the poof snap, and thats what I was going for, but like I said, Ed said it was too fast. Hmm, maybe I should go ahead and edit the smoke from when she disappears, rather than waiting and doing it once I have all of the frams in. I was going to blur it so that the smoke disperses. Hopefully that will make it look faster.
Maybe if I fool around with it in Flash (I'm using Imageready) then I can somehow get the animation to slow down as a .mov file. Right now as a .mov it's so fast that you cant really see whats going on >_< Should I post the .mov file so you guys can see what I am talking about?
"Animation isn't about how well you draw, but how much to believe." -Glen Keane
I up-dated the animation again. I added the blur effects to the disappearing part of the tele sequence. I think that makes it look faster. Please let me know what you guys think. I also erased the white squares that were surrounding her in almost all of the frames. Lastly, I added more frames. I think it looks kinda weird at the end. I wanted to make the box come out some more, bcecause when I was drawing the frames it seemed like I had a lot of frames of her pulling the box, but not really moving it. Since I've put the frames together it looks strange because I had her take a big step back to pull the box out some more. Are there any suggestions as to how I can make it better? I want the box to seem heavy, but not too heavy, as it's filled with video game consoles and games.
Here's the animation: www.deviantart.com/view/11548588/
"Animation isn't about how well you draw, but how much to believe." -Glen Keane
Well there's a difference in what we're talking about. First off, just to preface, if Ed says something and I say something, go with what he says! The man has a track record of professional work and I'm still a conventional student. But I should explain what I was saying. You had a very DISAPPEARING-GONE-REAPPEARING like I had said before, but there was no reason to have the intermediate "GONE" part. Teleportation means never having to wait more than a split second. So semantically it's a compromise. DO add frames to flourish the movement that's there, just don't HAVE frames when there's no movement. Before you had a delay and I think that was the biggest problem (if you want to call it that).
Incidentally, the timing is improved in this last version and a lot more fluid, but I liked the hard-edged natural-drawing feel of the clouds before, so while the Photoshop/Gaussian-style blur -works-, consider drawing it out so it doesn't pull us out of the whole mesmerization that comes in watching animation. Otherwise my mind won't be around to care about or absorb the last half. I'll be going "Hah, that looks weird, to have all these rough graphite lines and then BOOM smudgy computer effect."
Thanks for the second response ScatteredLogical! I understand now what you ment with the disappearing-gone-reappearing thing. I thought that if she reappeared right after she disappears then the viewer wouldn't notice the portfolio falling through the smoke. I'll test it and see how it goes though.
I would have drawn the smoke disappearing, but I dont really know how to draw that. I'm guessing it would be a bunch of horizontal lines or something...
"Animation isn't about how well you draw, but how much to believe." -Glen Keane
Yah, I have a tendency to phrase things that make perfect sense...to me =) I apologize if it's an inconvenience. I thought before you had done something like the attached GIF animation. Your retained some pieces of the character instead of starkly disappearing into smoke, but I just Flashed this in under a minute because it's close enough to remind you.
As far as the portfolio, there could be a decent gag here, even if it's rehash. Nothing's mesmerizing about the catlike qualities of this thing if it decides it wants to disappear seven inches off the ground. If it decided it wanted to jump, and end up someplace high, but for some reason didn't want to do a -conventional- jump to get to the bed? Why not jump directly up, even doing a slight relaxed rest at the end, and THEN teleport? Whenever I wanted to be a teleporter I always thought I'd do it in style, like jump up and kick my legs out and while in mid-air POOF! FRUMP! I'm someplace new. Nobody's saying you have to be broad and ridiculous, but maybe do something that's in character. And then, here's the rehash part, the whole reason I am making it go higher up: If he's 3 feet off the ground, rather than going ka-flop, the portfolio gets to fall down, into something like, say -- the teleportation cloud, cutting a portfolio shape into it (assuming you'd stylize it and have the clouds just hang there...might hurt the whole teleportation-has-disappearing-clouds schtick though)
Good luck and hang in there. It's wonderful that you're trying this hard. Leaving lots of folks in the dust.
For starters, without wanting to sound pompous, remember that the smoke effect was done in 3D using particle effects. The effect would be much trickier and time consuming to be done traditionally. BUT! BUT BUT!
With things like FX in classical animation...a VERY good tool for studying things that're hard to catch with the human eye is QUICKTIME! hehe.
if you can get a copy of XMEN on your computer...(ie...download it on Kazaa)...then play it with quicktime player. With quicktime, you can frame-by-frame it with the arrow keys. very simple, easy program to get your hands on, and very effective...plus...you can full-screen it to get into the detail.
Smoke, like any particle effect (fire, steam, whisping sand etc...) needs to be studied closely. Sure you can do it in a split-second in Maya, but if you're old fashioned like most of us, then you need to do the homework.
Adam
PS...I don't blame you, that's a damn good effect...and it's dark blue too...which just makes it cooler doesn't it? Yeah, you know what I'm talking about.
Thanks for the replies guys! Scattered, the high jump/portfolio fall idea is good. I doubt I'd have thought of that, cause I'm not good at just coming up w/ funny ideas. I know that I should have her do things that are in character, but the theme of this whole short kind of prevents that. Persistance is supposed to be me, and in the short she has to demonstrate bad time management. Since she's me, she wouldn't normally come home and start playing video games and going out with friends rather than doing her work.
I'll remember your suggestion, for after I present this thing to my class. Its due next Thursday and so far its not even halfway done. >_< She still needs to drag the box to the tv, open it, take out a game console, hook it up, and play. Then her phone rings, she tele's to answer it, then teleports away. Its supposed to be her friends calling and inviting her out. I cant have dialouge since I dont now how to record it, nor do I know how to lip synch and like I said, its due next Thursday. So, the question is, how do I communicate to the audience that she is being invited put by her friends? I wanted to have a screen saying "Two days later..." and then show my character scrambling to do her homework before the weekend is over. Sadly, I wont have time for that, so I'll more than likely have a screen saying something like "After spending the entire weekend having fun, Persistance remembers she has homework to do and ends up pulling an all nighter on Sunday evening." Before I even started the animation, I told my group members not to expect color or anything since there isn't enough time for it. Plus they aren't helping me with it at all since none of them can draw or use the software -_-.
Adam, I have Quicktime on my comp. I dont even use it unless I am trying to watch someone's online demo reel, lol. I never tried downloading movies from websites. I used to download music from cds and it used up way too much memory. I'd imagine that the movies use alot of memory too. Sooner or later I'll probably end up downloading X Men anyway, since I am also working on a 3d model of my character and she'd have to tele in 3d.
Thanks for the advice guys!
"Animation isn't about how well you draw, but how much to believe." -Glen Keane
she can answer the phone with the joypad in the other hand. she's got a bored expression. pause a sec. she lights up with a big smile after hearing the invite, throws the joypad away. next scene she's partying.
or... she throws up her hand in glee, the boring bedroom background now POPS into a lively party scene. she brings down her hands now with cocktails and swings the night away.
to contrast the scenes better if you like, you can make her not play the console but drag herself to study. opens up her small bag, takes out a humongous pile of books and paper, and droops her head in frustration. phone rings, face lights up, and throws the books into the air. falling paper act as transition effect to graffiti in party scene.
Don't worry. All shall be well.
The stills idea is great Monkey girl! Thanks! If I have the portfolio fall over when she looks up, wouldn't that take the viewers attention off of the art box that bounced off the bed?
"Animation isn't about how well you draw, but how much to believe." -Glen Keane
Make it lifeless, and then focus on the liveliness in the character action. Even speed it away if you need to. Whatever comes to mind that you think would be more watchable. Then it can't be a distraction because it's all mechanical versus something organic and interesting.
I uploaded a up-dated version! I haven't redone the tail yet, gotta go to class now!
www.deviantart.com/view/11548588/
"Animation isn't about how well you draw, but how much to believe." -Glen Keane
if you want as much like night crawlers teleport i would sugest a short quick flash covering the character then a mushroom could puf of smoke that fades quickly i can make some example scetches if you would like?
Thanks for the responses, guys! Kutkut, I like both of your ideas. I think the second one would be best but to do that I'd basically have to redo everything and I just dont have the time for that >_< Your first idea has given me an idea. I think I'll have her playing her games, the phone rings, and the camera shows the phone ringing. Then it cuts back to Persistance and she teleports. Rather than showing her reappearing and getting the phone, the camera will stay put and she will reappear in her chair with the phone after a short while. She'll look bored at first and then suddenly becomes happy. She throws down the controller and tele's away. The party scene is a good idea, I hadn't thought of showing what she goes to do. I dont know if I'll have time to though.
Chason, you can sketch it if you like. I'd appreciate it, but I know you guys are busy. I sat here for a good while trying to think of how I could make her tele like the cartoon NC, but at the same time w/o using his exact smoke technique. I came up with have the smoke keep her form when she disappears, and if the smoke is still there when she reappears in the same spot, then I'd have it "puff out" like how it does on the X Men movie. I don't know how I'd draw the smoke "puffing out" though.
"Animation isn't about how well you draw, but how much to believe." -Glen Keane
What I think would make good animation if you're going for smoky is going in OR out, have what smoke is there before it disippates -follow- the character, arcing in a sort of trail.
I love animation but this idea business is extremely engaging.
i knew this hindsight would cost you a rework-- i was just tossing the scene around the walls to see what bounces back.
the whole party scene if you ever decide to do can be just a two key cycle. still would be a crowd scene though - leaves a sour taste in any animator's mouth. (something i would do on last minute on the last day of deadline)
you know a pop need not be just an effect-- it could reflect her spirits. on a lazy teleport-- the puff could be slower and lingering. upon an invite, the puff could be snappier. it could altogether be different, like maybe feet first, then body then head-- poof! poof! poof!
Don't worry. All shall be well.
Thanks so much guys! :D ScatteredLogical, I like that idea, although in a fight the trailing smoke might hint to the enemy where she will reappear.
Kukut, do you have any tips on making crowd scenes? I've never done those before. I really like your idea for having her tele reflect her feelings. I'll try to incorperate that into the next two teles that she needs to do. For the invite tele, I imagine the smoke would appear faster and disappear faster and the opposite would happen for the bored tele.
"Animation isn't about how well you draw, but how much to believe." -Glen Keane
Oh yeah, I found the guy who created the character designs for x-men evolution's website. I had been looking for him for quite some time now, since I had found it before but it was on a different computer. Anyway, he has a walk and run cycle for Nightcrawler on there. I'm unable to save the animation and watch it frame by frame in Flash or imageready, but he has the option to view it in Quicktime on his site. So, I watched it frame by frame that way. I am going to redo the tail animation from when my character walks into the scene using NC's as a guide. Anyone who likes X-men should check out his site. www.stevenegordon.com
"Animation isn't about how well you draw, but how much to believe." -Glen Keane
That's the way to play it. Good for you.
I'm having some difficulties with when she pulls the trunk to the tv. I've never done a walk cycle in the front view, so backing up was a challenge. I decided to save myself four story board panels and who knows how many frames, by having her drag the box for a few steps, get tired, and then tele it to the tv. I'll try to post an up-date either tomorow or Tuesday.
"Animation isn't about how well you draw, but how much to believe." -Glen Keane
could you use still photos of her hanging out with her friend and doing tons of fun stuff, instead of using the two days later screen. It would take only a few drawings. Also, what if she walks in teleports to the bed looks up then the portfolio falls over. She looks down and hops off the bed. Those are my suggestions.
Don't do nothing because you can't do everything.