Moho Forum

Hi, this weekend I had a very weird job. People from HP -the computer brand- contacted me because they were participating in the new version of Lollapalooza (a very famous and huge rock concert... or at least that was what they said in Chile) with a technological stand, close to Windows7 and Xbox360.
They wanted I use a touchscreen computer to make caricatures of the people around. I propose them to make, instead of caricatures, animations with the faces of the people. They accepted that not very convinced, actually.
I prepared for around a week the base animation and a fast way to change the faces for personalized animation.
I worked around six hours each day of the concert. The rest of the day I dedicated to enjoy the bands. They payed me pretty well and I took my girlfriend as an assistant, so we both went to the concert for free (it was very expensive).
The work was actually very fun to do and I think it demonstrates how versatile is Anime Studio. You can work with it even as a show. We produced 50 animations with different people in the two days. People was impressed and happy to receive each animation. To cut each head I used Corel Photopaint and Corel Knockout, both fantastic softwares.

Here you can see a video of me working. The snow in the ground is styrofoam from bean bag chairs which were broken at the very beginning of the show
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/54411/Lollapalo ... esktop.mov

Here you can see one of the animations
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/54411/Lollapalo ... er/009.mov



PD: Chevrolet was also hosting the concert. It was fun to find Roberto, a character I animated, printed in many cars.

How accurate is to work with a touch screen for an animation program like Anime Studio? Do you have the same sensibility than with the mouse or the tablet?

Very funny video!
-G

Thanks, Genete.

Genete wrote:How accurate is to work with a touch screen for an animation program like Anime Studio? Do you have the same sensibility than with the mouse or the tablet?

If you want to impress your friends, it's ok. If you want to work, I recommend you a cintiq or a tablet pc, even a normal wacom. It's not too accurate, several times I had to touch two or more times to get a tool. It's hard to click a very specific point of the screen and the drivers aren't too clever.
For little movements (as accommodate the heads to the body) it's awful. It's hard to move or rotate something without getting it crazy. When you finally get the position you want, you lose it when lifting the finger from the screen.
For drawing or photoshoping works nice, but it doesn't detect pressure (or I didn't figure out how to get it). Many times (many more than with a pen on the tablet pc) your hand and finger covers the area you are working, so that makes it much uncomfortable.
At the end of the second day I had a little pain on the fingertip, similar to when you play a guitar for awhile (anyway, I don't know to play guitar).

So, my verdict is not very good. If you have a wacom and want something better, get a cintiq or a tablet pc. If you want to impress people, get a touchscreen, but anyway, it doesn't work to attract pretty ladies.

Wow, that's very cool! Thanks for sharing.

Interesting gig! CGs on the job.

I was just wondering why they wanted you to use a touch screen. Were they 'pimping' that technology at the show?

That sounds like a fun job!

So did you pre-make some animations and then pasted their faces in? I would imagine it would take a while if you made custom animations.

Looks awkward animating this way, thanks for sharing man!

Poopee

That sounds like fun... I really like the animations that you did for the ford commercials too!

Unusual job, but it certainly looked like a lot of fun.

Many benefits also; you got paid well and got to the concert also.

I liked the animation.

Well done.

Paul.