Gracie and the Birdie

[grimble67]

This is my first Moho project, and probably my 4th animation (previous were authored in Flash).

Love The Moho, but darn, animating is time consuming, even with Moho's time-saving tools. I can't even imagine frame-by-frame animating, unless it was my full-time job.

This cartoon was inspired by my 18 month old daughter (Gracie) who looked so darned cute in her bunny hallowe'en costume (yes, it's taken me that long to finish - but much of that time was spent familiarizing myself with Moho's tools), and her fixation with her little stuffed friends (Pooh in particular).

All character animation was done in Moho; some characters were drawn in Expression 3 and then retraced in Moho; and post-production (some cross-fades, sound effects, credits, etc) were done in Sony Vegas.

You guys and gals seem really smart, so I wanted to post a link to it and garner your opinions, suggestions and comments if I can. I hope you enjoy watching it as much as I enjoyed creating it.

Gracie and the Birdie (Windows Media)

[Toontoonz]

Lots of creative work in that animation!

I guess the suggestion that caught my eye was with the shadows. Some things have a shadow, some don´t. Sometimes one tree has a long, full shadow, however the other trees and characters don´t.

Keep up the good work!

[bupaje]

Nice and cute grimble67.

[jorgy]

Wow! There are so many things to like about your cartoon. I liked the story. I am at work, and I think I let out an audible gasp when she pulled the bird's tail. I also liked the visuals, particularly the 3d movement, and the changing depth of field effects.

[Agent]

heh really cute animation, just keep up the good work

[Benvindo]

Reeeeeeeal nice work

Parabens !

Benvindo

[grimble67]

Thank you all for your kind comments thus far. This is a really constructive forum, and a breath of fresh air compared with some of the stuff you find out there.

I guess the suggestion that caught my eye was with the shadows

I agree. I was learning Moho as I created this cartoon, and now that I have some good ideas on how to create shadows on my characters easily, it's a bit late to go back and change it now. However, for my next cartoon, I can start off on the right foot with shadows. I did change the big flourishing shadow on the tree with the nest, though, as I think it made the other simple shadows stand out more (or less - if you know what I mean).

[rylleman]

but darn, animating is time consuming, even with Moho's time-saving tools. I can't even imagine frame-by-frame animating, unless it was my full-time job.

I think you need to to take your time with animation nonetheless. You need to put more acting into your character and you need to find out how people walk.
An appealing design is important but it can't work on it's own, you need characters that move and act believable to get a good film.

[stephen]

I think you need to to take your time with animation nonetheless. You need to put more acting into your character and you need to find out how people walk.
An appealing design is important but it can't work on it's own, you need characters that move and act believable to get a good film.

I agree that you need to take your time, but I wonder if what you say about making the characters move and act believable can come down to a question of style. I hate to use South Park as an example of anything, but don't you think those animators know how people move, yet look at how their characters move, and South Park is quite successful.

There is similar to a question in art in general. Some people think that the only real art is practically photo-realistic, yet others accept child like scribbles as art.

By the way, I really enjoyed this animation in question. One main reason being that it actually had a story, and a good one. I also liked the use of bluring and focus to direct the viewer to the important part of the action.

Stephen

[rylleman]

but I wonder if what you say about making the characters move and act believable can come down to a question of style.

Crude animation can be believable, as in SP that very limited animation is believable for that style, you can not get much more animation with the material they are working with.
I've animated childrens drawings, in a crude style beacause that is what fits the design.
What I'm saying is that you don't have to animate in the disney golden age manner for it to be believable, but it has to be blievable for the design you are working with. You should not excuse non believable animation with "style".
(This post is a response to Stephens question and not a judgement of your animation grimble67, in my first post in this thread I tried to give you some creative critisism)

[JCook]

grimble -

Very nice work! I think you're off to a good start here. I agree with most of the comments others have made. I think the "acting" aspect is very important in animation, but I also think it's probably the hardest part. As I said, you're off to a good start, so I'm sure the next animation will be just that much better. You've got a lot of creativity there, some great ideas. I really liked the overhead shot and the way you used the technique of racking in and out of focus for the different planes (the eggs in the nest, and then the little girl walking below). Very cinematic. I would like to see more expression in her face, ie., more eye movement. For example, when she's walking over to the egg on the ground, she's looking straight ahead over it. You could make her eyes move down to look at the egg while she's walking towards it, and that would make a world of difference.

Overall, I really enjoyed it, and it made me smile, and laugh. Good job!

Jack

[grimble67]

Jack: thanks for the kind comments.

I had intended to go back through the cartoon, adding various facial expressions, etc, but after several months working on it, I became impatient to get it finished. Considering the comments in this forum, I think I will spend another week on the cartoon, doing just that.

For example, when she's walking over to the egg on the ground, she's looking straight ahead over it.

Actually, I had tried to tilt her whole head toward the egg as she approached, but my walk action kept snapping the head forward on every frame. I imagine what I did was inadvertantly include head rotation in my action? Does this make sense? Had I left her head alone in the walk action, maybe this technique would have worked. It's a shame you can't drill down to individual bone's movements in the action edit display, which would have allowed me to cancel out the head movement without having to redo all the other bones (that walk took a couple of days).

Thanks again to all for taking the time to comment and make suggestions. It really helps us all improve.

[stephen]

Jack: thanks for the kind comments.

I had intended to go back through the cartoon, adding various facial expressions, etc, but after several months working on it, I became impatient to get it finished. Considering the comments in this forum, I think I will spend another week on the cartoon, doing just that.

For example, when she's walking over to the egg on the ground, she's looking straight ahead over it.

Actually, I had tried to tilt her whole head toward the egg as she approached, but my walk action kept snapping the head forward on every frame. I imagine what I did was inadvertantly include head rotation in my action? Does this make sense? Had I left her head alone in the walk action, maybe this technique would have worked. It's a shame you can't drill down to individual bone's movements in the action edit display, which would have allowed me to cancel out the head movement without having to redo all the other bones (that walk took a couple of days).

Thanks again to all for taking the time to comment and make suggestions. It really helps us all improve.

You should be able to select the head bone and then see all the key frames in the "selected bone ..." channels, those are the channels with the red colored bones to the left of the timeline. Then you can delete all the keyframes for the head bone.

Stephen

[grimble67]

Thanks for the tip, Stephen. Now I understand what the "selected" channels are for! I'll give that a shot.

[grimble67]

You should be able to select the head bone and then see all the key frames in the "selected bone ..." channels

Stephen: that technique works like a charm, except for the 1st frame of my action. I've cleared all the head bone keyframes from the action, but in the first frame, it still snaps to the front. Further, when my timeline is at the first frame of my action (in "Mainline"), it seems that the head bone is unmovable using any bone tools. I have to remove that one errant frame from the cartoon in my post-editing software, which is a pain. Any ideas?