Please excuse the bad audio. I've been told that it is a little difficult to understand. I was rushing to turn this in so i didn't have time to re-record it.
basically, this is what's happening:
rowdy rabbit is upset because he saw kermit the frog on jay Leno. He has this thing about puppets and he's angry that they even consider him an actor so he decides some action needs to be taken
this is the first half:
http://celshaded.dying-breed.net/art/animation/rowdy_rabbit.swf
I did this in flash MX with a wacom tablet. Any commets or suggestions would be appreciated.
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http://ben-reynolds.com
Animation and Design
The panting that pads the larger secondary rabbit's dialogue is really distracting. You can make him sound fat and/or raspy without the huge over-the-top gasps. It actually messes with the timing.
On the plus side I like the distortion of the drawings, especially in the main character's face, and the simple cartoon conventions like pulling things from off-camera.
I have to agree with Scattered, the heavy breathing is distracting, esspecially when the mouth doesn't move. I really like the skinny rabbit's hand motions when he says "actor" it's a nice little gesture. I also like when he presents the bucket of barf, nice posing on that one. I think when he slams his fist down when saying "Kermit the frog..." could be faster. It doesn't look like he slams his fist down, it looks like he eases into that pose. maybe have the table jump up a bit as a reaction to his fist slam might help.
Over all, a nice little bit of animaton. The worst part is the audio.
Aloha,
the Ape
...we must all face a choice, between what is right... and what is easy."
acetate assassin: Your animation is good. I think you should move the ears and the eyes also, because you animated just the mouth. Remember he is angry. When you are angry, you are about to explote.;)
If you're looking for a quick fix on the clarity (the big rabbit will just have to re-record his dialogue - are both of them you? Are either? Just curious) download Audacity if you don't already have it. RupertPiston mentioned it once before and I use no other audio software. It's completely free, always being upgraded, and has great full-featured functions that you either pay for or get crippled elsewhere like multitrack recording and editing.
The reason I suggest it here is because higher sampling plus the noise reduction plug-in (also on that site and also free) can provide studio or near-studio sound when teamed together, just out of my 10 dollar Labtec mic that I bought at Best Buy. Because of the low sampling rate and the distance from the mic, it almost puts the sound behind the visuals in 3D space so it feels like they aren't speaking them. It could almost be a device if that were intentional, as if people from off-camera were feeding them the lines for them to sync.
Like Animated Ape said though, this is a very good start and very focused in its style; just a few technical difficulties being tightened up would seal the deal.
thank you all for your taking the time to look at my work,
the voices were done by two of my friends that went to school with me at the time. The excessive panting was the main reason i wanted to redo the audio, because i really think it kills my animation.
we were forced to record in my friend's bathroom because he had a lot of people over at the time, and i think that maybe that may have contributed to the crappiness of the audio as well.
scattered: wow, i was just about to ask if you knew of any good audio programs. thanks a lot.
i wanted this animation to sorta have that ren & stimpy feel to it, and it just sounds like i'm just missing that extra push, animation wise.
would you suggest exporting the frames and compositing in after effects as oppossed to exporting as a swf? I notice exporting as an swf gives the audio this wierd echoing distortion
http://ben-reynolds.com
Animation and Design
You can go ahead and do that, I personally don't have experience with AfterEffects (as much as I'd like to) but know that it's more than likely a bug that's causing that. I've never had audio export issues with Flash, and I've used everything but .ogg and Mac sounds... sometimes I think it butchers the timing, but most of the time I realize it's just me lol
Is there a chance two copies of that sound exist on the timeline or stage? I know it sounds retarded but when I first had a class in Flash I had gotten so involved in my one idea I wound up leaving redudant or unused crap in there. With a visual it's harder to notice because if you don't see it show up it's not going to be a nuisance, but if there are two versions of your audio you can't help but notice it.
On my end I don't notice any echoes -- am I misunderstanding what you're referring to?
And I think it's pretty on-par with Ren and Stimpy style wise. There were a lot of holds in that show...all or part of a character would remain still or just creeeeep along, and then slow undulating floppy or snappy movements. But it was never fully limited and never fully...er...full. At least in how it felt. Your rabbit reminds me of the LucasArts game Sam and Max. That was my first thought.
As an aside, try recording your voices in a slightly slower, slightly deeper register and then change the speed in the software (say from 5-20 percent). Original Daffy Duck and Eric Cartman went by this - it gives them a distinct quirk and also helps blur background noise mentally, at least for me.
I also recommend Melodyne. Not that anyone can afford it, but if you can find something like it, in the demo they have controls for what's called a formant. I don't know the science but it basically changes the modulation of the recorded person's voice so that when you mess with pitches it can actually become gravelly or whiny to match the tones instead of seeming computerized too much.
the animation itself is good, but...i wouldnt make it into an actual show or anything, its good for a test but the story is boring.
I don't think it was a show idea...
I think it was an assignment at his school just to get things moving...
well, when i recorded the audio originally, it didn't sound as muffled. I just noticed when i exported to flash, it did something to the quality of the audio.
hehe, my rabbit had a lot of invader zim influence. I've never heard of that game until now. I googled it and it's almost uncanny how similar my design is.
oh yeah, this was a school assignment I did a couple months ago. Also this is just the first half of the animation. It sets up for the next scene where the rabbit, "kidnaps" kermit the frog and stuffs him with ground hamburger and throws him off a building(this is where a lot of the ren&stimpy influence really shows). I still have to wait to get the second half back from my instructor.
http://ben-reynolds.com
Animation and Design
I noticed when I attempted to use the Flash stage as a video conversion utility, it suckified it. So did AVI conversion utilities too, though...
Maybe there's something to this audio filleting...
Flash converts audio to a very low bitrate mp3 format at export and it doesn't do it well. Use some external app. to downsample your audio to the rate flash uses at export, there are plenty of free alternatives to use. You can also set Flashs compression setting in the "publish settings" menu.
I liked your animation.
Rylander Animation
Striking Animation