Help on preparing my scene for dolly out

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Nicohk92
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Re: Help on preparing my scene for dolly out

Post by Nicohk92 »

Here's the finished piece:

https://vimeo.com/99633178


Thanks again for all the feedback (notice the little shout out in the credits :))
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AmigaMan
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Re: Help on preparing my scene for dolly out

Post by AmigaMan »

Excellent work! It's all come together nicely :D
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exile
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Re: Help on preparing my scene for dolly out

Post by exile »

Awesome presentation - a lot of images in a short time, I didn't want the fantastic art work to disappear so quickly. There's a long black screen at the end. For which NGO did you do this?
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3deeguy
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Re: Help on preparing my scene for dolly out

Post by 3deeguy »

I have to keep your work in mind for my own projects. You have so many variations of color. I'm struck by the subtlety. I'm glad to see the finished product.
Cheers, Larry
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Nicohk92
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Re: Help on preparing my scene for dolly out

Post by Nicohk92 »

I did it for USaids, tho I was dealing only with the prod company.

I realized about the black at the end yes. I'll re-upload it eventually cause I may change the music to something more cheerful.


Thanks again.
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exile
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Re: Help on preparing my scene for dolly out

Post by exile »

I won't mind watching it again! :-)
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Barry Baker
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Re: Help on preparing my scene for dolly out

Post by Barry Baker »

I find the characters to be the weakest link in the film - their basic design and rather stilted movements seem almost like an afterthought - but what is going on behind them is absolutely amazing. The level of detail is staggering, the backgrounds and graphics, the subtle, understated colours, and the great continuous flow of movement are superbly handled. In another film, I would consider handing the character design and animation to someone who has more of a feel for it if I were you - your strengths (and they are considerable) lie in other areas.
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exile
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Re: Help on preparing my scene for dolly out

Post by exile »

I've let similar comments send me completely back to the drawing board - it would be nice to work with a large team, perhaps, but this is the age of DIY and one man or one woman projects. I agree the scenic artwork is the most fascinating part of the project. The characters are generic, they are not individual characters in a story, their movements fit into that concept. I would suggest waiting for Nicohk92 to do a different type of project that calls for stronger story characters before making a sweeping judgement of his abilities with figures.
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Barry Baker
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Re: Help on preparing my scene for dolly out

Post by Barry Baker »

I get what you're saying, Steve (exile), but you only have to watch the film to see where his heart lies, and I may be mistaken, but I think Nicholas himself would have to agree it is not the characters that excited him. That's nothing to do with the characters being generic, or symbolic - that doesn't mean they shouldn't be interesting and engaging symbolic people - it's just a contrast between the amount of thought and care and love that has gone into the backgrounds and graphics and the almost perfunctory way in which the characters are handled.
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Nicohk92
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Re: Help on preparing my scene for dolly out

Post by Nicohk92 »

I must admit that character animation isn't my strong suit. I am still an intermediate level animator and so rigging alone is a big hassle to me.

But fun facts:

- The brief was originally for some generic motion graphic video. I took the initiative to offer much more. So instead of static characters (stick figures would have been fine to them), I wanted to animate them a minimum and ended up resorting to Character wizard since I was scared of rigging from scratch. So on one hand, I think I achieved the best I could with character wizard for my use, and on the other, it is far from what I would have done if I had more time and more confidence with character design/rigging/animation.

- I actually did this project twice. The first time around, it was mostly using Photoshop and apple motion. I was almost finished when, the night before offline presentation, I stood up to quickly and my laptop fell to its death. Since I never foresaw such stupid accident and was in a rush, I had not cared backing up. I took the first plane from Phnom Penh to Bangkok to try having the info salvaged by the most recommended data lab around (under surgical conditions). It was all lost cause I had forced too many shutdowns after trying different DIY techniques (never force shutdown on a failing drive, no matter what diskwarrior, data rescue or whatever you attempt is the lesson I'll remember). And so I found myself having to buy a new Mac, explaining the story to my very patient client (blaming the cat) and starting over from scratch, from a girlfriend's place in Bangkok who took care of me very well for many sleepless days and nights. That time around, I decided on using exclusively ASP Which was a wise choice and it turned out a thousand time better than my previous version. That's when I began to post on this forum (expressing wide ranging emotions from posts to posts) and received great help and moral support.

- I'm glad the obsessive care I took with environment drawing shows. Color scheme was the one most obstacle I imposed myself. Indeed, I made the choice to have my vegetation blue and my sky yellow. But then I realized that in any realistic depiction, the further you are from the eye, the more plate colors must lean toward lighter and bluish tints. But since I had blue trees to start with, I had shot myself in the foot. I obsessed about this but I'm happy that the result works anyway. Then for the level of detail, it all got crazy when I spent one night on the swamp scene, the same very night where I posted this very thread with that screen shot. In the morning I realize with horror that it was way to good and demanded that I either lessened its details, or adjusted the detail level of the rest. And of course I went for the latter.

So I'm very flattered to read you point out qualities in that piece, but I assure you there it is more the product of psychotic obession and stupid mistakes than experience and talent.

Worst of it all, the script's not ground breaking to begin with and I'm not a feminist or anything like that even.

One thing's for sure. Next time I give so much energy into a project, ASP will be my first weapon of choice and it will be straight from my imagination filled with strange realms, surreal creatures and twisted logic.

Right now I am working on a quick 15 sec idea of mine which features a worm. The piece is kind of black humorish and I do stumble upon pbs with character design. My worm must show emotions (fear and panic) but I don't like to resort to big cartoony eyes and anthropomorphic mouth which looks to childish for the surreal vibe I intend to give. I am looking into some more "flying circus" treatment but would not want to plagiarize. Anyway, all this is to say that your comments ring true to me and I can't thank you enough for sharing them.
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jahnocli
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Re: Help on preparing my scene for dolly out

Post by jahnocli »

Two suggestions:
1. Google some Earthworm Jim artwork. Yes, it is anthropomorphic, but you might get some good ideas
2. BACK UP, man! Do it now!
You can't have everything. Where would you put it?
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exile
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Re: Help on preparing my scene for dolly out

Post by exile »

Nicohk92 wrote: So I'm very flattered to read you point out qualities in that piece, but I assure you there it is more the product of psychotic obession and stupid mistakes than experience and talent.
Being able to do all that in spite of huge problems with hardware and software is a measure of talent. That and "psychotic obsession" is what it takes to overcome the mistakes. I'm looking forward to your next project.
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