AND SO IT BEGINS...

Genete · Post by **Genete** » Mon Dec 04, 2006 3:58 pm

Hey! nice movements!!! AWESOME!
Did you put bones to her ... mmm ... err ... aaahhh.... mmmmm..... tits?

Jus_Me · Post by **Jus_Me** » Mon Dec 04, 2006 4:25 pm

Flash version seems to play ok for me.
But then again, I dont know how fast u inteded it to be.

bupaje · Post by **bupaje** » Mon Dec 04, 2006 6:42 pm

@artfx - cool stuff. Get use to hearing that.

ulrik · Post by **ulrik** » Mon Dec 04, 2006 9:19 pm

Really cool stuff, nice moves!!

artfx · Post by **artfx** » Mon Dec 04, 2006 9:25 pm

Genete wrote:Hey! nice movements!!! AWESOME!
Did you put bones to her ... mmm ... err ... aaahhh.... mmmmm..... tits?

That... um.. those... it's... uh... point animation.

heyvern · Post by **heyvern** » Tue Dec 05, 2006 1:22 am

Hah!

I have tried that with women but they never go for it.

"Excuse me miss, may I study your breasts for point motion?"

Perfectly innocent question if you ask me. I don't see the need for the police to get involved.

-vern

Gnaws · Post by **Gnaws** » Tue Dec 05, 2006 5:21 pm

heyvern wrote:I don't see the need for the police to get involved.

Agreed - restraining orders can get SO tiresome.

BTW -- great work Art. Love seeing your test anims.

LittleFenris · Post by **LittleFenris** » Tue Dec 12, 2006 8:04 pm

slowtiger wrote:If anime TV series were of this quality no one would speak so badly about it ...

I think if the stories in anime made ANY sense people wouldn't speak badly about it. There is a lot of amazing looking anime out there...but the stories are either so off-the-wall or they just don't make any sense, or they just plain suck. The artform is fine, its the storytelling that needs to be rethought (at least for more mainstream American audiences).

artfx · Post by **artfx** » Tue Dec 12, 2006 10:19 pm

Up until very recently many anime directors and creators had no thought of markets outside of Japan. Previously they created their content solely for the Japanese audience and some outright didn't want their material shown in the west.

Now the money coming in from international markets has become very influential in the creation of Japanese animation, a great example being the Fuji TV, Gonzo and Warner Bros. production of Brave Story.

LittleFenris · Post by **LittleFenris** » Tue Dec 12, 2006 11:29 pm

artfx wrote:Up until very recently many anime directors and creators had no thought of markets outside of Japan. Previously they created their content solely for the Japanese audience and some outright didn't want their material shown in the west.

Now the money coming in from international markets has become very influential in the creation of Japanese animation, a great example being the Fuji TV, Gonzo and Warner Bros. production of Brave Story.

I have tried my hardest to get into anime but just can't do it with the current stock of "pop" anime out (Pokemon, One Piece, etc...). I have even tried feature anime like Samurai X, Kenshi, Appleseed, Ghost in the Shell, etc...and just get lost 2 minutes into the film. Nothing makes any sense and doesn't seem to have any coherency to itself. The animation itself is outright amazing on some stuff (Akira, Princess Mononoke and a lot of others) but the stories just leave me wondering "WTH" I just watched. There are 2 "anime" that I have actually watched all the way through and like and that was Princess Mononoke and Avatar:The Last Airbender. I'm guessing "true" anime fans consider these too Americanized, but I actually really like them. They combine the excellent animation and style of "anime" but have a more coherent (at least to me) storyline and characters.

Shaun

Rasheed · Post by **Rasheed** » Tue Dec 12, 2006 11:57 pm

I think like any art form, you need to learn to appreciate it.

Classical music may sound awful to some youngsters, but to people who are of a certain age and have more life experience, classical music actually makes sense. And then there are pieces of classical music that are so complex, that it has only a niche audience within the already small audience of listeners to classical music.

I think something similar applies to Japanese anime, which seems to be tied to the oriental culture of that country. If you don't understand the culture, it's going to be tough to understand the artistic expressions of artists living in that region. Japanese people live in a highly structured society, so their artwork seems to be more the opposite of that (wild and extreme, and not always logical). Popular art is often a form of escapism from the values of society, but still more or less acceptable to the general public. It isn't like real life, but some values are never broken.

American anime will be more inspired by Western (read: Christian) values, which are ingrained in our believes and ideas (that is, if you are living in a Western country and participating to its society).

And then there is the popular culture. Anime is a direct descendant of manga (Japanese comics), which has its own sets of rules. These rules are less strict than the unwritten rules for popular comics in the Western countries. Monsters in the West have to be fierce and destructive. In the East they must also make fun of themselves, so they are not so scary.

You can read more about the difference in popular culture in the excellent graphic novel by Scott McCloud, called "Understanding Comics. The invisible art."

artfx · Post by **artfx** » Wed Dec 13, 2006 12:49 am

LittleFenris wrote: There are 2 "anime" that I have actually watched all the way through and like and that was Princess Mononoke and Avatar:The Last Airbender.

This I find surprising since Princess Mononoke didn't test well with American audiences which led to it getting only a very limited release theatrically. Most people said they just couldn't understand it. The tests were done in Middle America somewhere, as opposed to New York or L.A. where I suspect the audiences would have been very different.

Avatar: The Last Airbender isn't just Americanized, it's a totally American creation, done at Nick right down the street from me. When I first watched it, I was amazed. Big name Asian American voice actors, higher frame rate animation and great acting... As an anime fan I thought, "Many anime wish they were this good."

The key was how they worked with the Asian outsource studio. Having learned from many bad experiences in creating Invader Zim at the same shop in Korea, they let the studio do what they do best rather than try to conteol every little facet of it. This freedom gave them great results.

artfx · Post by **artfx** » Wed Dec 13, 2006 12:57 am

Rasheed wrote:American anime will be more inspired by Western (read: Christian) values, which are ingrained in our believes and ideas (that is, if you are living in a Western country and participating to its society).

Since Japan really has no accepted national religion, I find it very interesting that in anime they make liberal use of symbols, texts and ideas from all major religions to create their stories. This has resulted in some interesting edits (removal of crosses or manji [which we call swastika] etc.) being needed for anime shown in America.

Touched · Post by **Touched** » Wed Dec 13, 2006 3:14 am

LittleFenris wrote:I have even tried feature anime like Samurai X, Kenshi, Appleseed, Ghost in the Shell, etc...and just get lost 2 minutes into the film. Nothing makes any sense

Personally, I think the problem in this case is that the ones you mention here were features made after a long, successful manga or TV anime series, and viewers most likely were expected to already be familiar with the characters and situations.

artfx wrote:Since Japan really has no accepted national religion, I find it very interesting that in anime they make liberal use of symbols, texts and ideas from all major religions to create their stories

Well, there's Shinto, an entirely Japanese religion from what I understand, and Buddhism, an Indian import, but yes, Japan is overwhelmingly atheist. But their use of foreign religious symbols and concepts is really no different than Western stories that borrow "eastern" mysticism and concepts. Both their and our use of foreign religious concepts is just to add an exoticism and mysteriousness to stories, or in some cases, to mine a rich field of folklore for new story ideas.

artfx · Post by **artfx** » Wed Dec 13, 2006 4:07 am

Touched wrote:Well, there's Shinto, an entirely Japanese religion from what I understand, and Buddhism, an Indian import, but yes, Japan is overwhelmingly atheist.

I didn't mean to imply that Japan was largely atheist, which very few in Japan are, especially in the sense that we use the term. The percentage of atheists is less than 0.01%. But at the same time, most of the population doesn't follow any particular religion, attend any regular shrines, churches, temples or anything. Many people, even some of the most highly educated of doctors, lawyers and businessmen believe in a wide variety of ancient superstitions and spiritual things. Belief in ghosts, nature spirits and any manner of folk tale concepts is very common. A lot of this is out of tradition. I have been told things by people, when I was there, and when I asked why, they would explain that that's what their grandmother taught them and no explanation beyond that was considered necessary.

As far as animation goes, I think their programs show that they feel a freedom to use concepts from many religions without offense to anyone, and this has resulted in soe very odd things, to western sensibilities, appeating in anime. While western progrmas, especially recently, have been more into eastern style mysticism, much of it centers around martial arts concepts and creators seem very careful of how such things are portrayed. This, of course, has a lot to do with a melting pot audience versus a mostly homogenous culture audience.

Getting back to the gist of the thread though, I think anime in general, especially the smaller studios in Japan could really benefit from Anime Studio 5. I have some new ideas I have been meaning to test and having a break coming up soon, I am going to show some more exciting things right here soon!