http://www.studentofanimation.com/MouseDeath.swf
http://www.studentofanimation.com/Kotas.swf
Any thoughts to either thread much appreciated....Trying to transition from pencil to mouse and figuring out what abilities make the cut lol........
By the way, I know the top half of the mouse should be rolling too, but the program I used, Flash, to doodle in, was finicky about the way I "sketched" in my frames, so that sorta froze....I'm trying to work as quickly as possible so little time for fixing things like that...and the roll-away physics of the bottom half are for comedy only ;)
Are you drawing by hand then auto-tracing in Flash?
It might look better if optermised a bit less. File-size isn't everything.
Mike Futcher - www.yogyog.org
Some nice work ScatteredLogical. One question though, why does the ax turn into a knife in the mouse animation? I really liked the way the bottom half of the mouse flys way off into the distance too.
The Ape
...we must all face a choice, between what is right... and what is easy."
Now that you mention that, it's unintentionally the funniest part of the whole thing. I was going to say "Well, it's still an ax," but not even thinking about it, you're right -- it changes size and shape. I was trying to be as loose as possible and just wasn't thinking about things like that.
As far as the mouse through the distance, if you can watch it frame by frame he does actually roll (ie, the butt is in different positions skidding across the ground)
Thanks for the kudos...anything specifically you liked?
YOG-YOG => When I said "transition from pencil to mouse" I didn't mean taking it through........I meant taking my pencil-animation-student abilities and using what I know about properties and characteristics of the art (ie squash, stretch, how to do inbetweens) and then doing silly animations using the mouse to draw stuff. It's hard to get anything reasonably anything-looking =) but because you have zero control you also get looseness and interesting effects you couldn't predict. The mouse was actually a sphere-bounce-in-perspective; it was boring so I added teeny mouse-features; that was boring so I did something to the mouse (namely, chopped him up with a magical axe that turns into a butter knife on impact =)
Back in the day, I used to use an old Amiga program where I animated traditional stuff with a mouse, and it is truly a bitch. Nice work all things considering the mouse in the house:)
I don't like telling people what they should do in their animation, but I might make one suggestion about the axe.....Have some suggestion of the axe on screen from the moment the mouse starts to where he lands and have the axe drop on ONE frame. It'll give the audience the idea of what's coming and the chop will reallllly cut the little bastard:)
The dog rolling seems like a real noble effort, but it's all too jerky to get a good sense of what's happening. I don' really like that the tail of the dog pops into full length halfway through the roll, and the legs too....they jerk.
But this scene is tricky tricky. It's definitely a noble effort for tough animation and it shows complex thought. So I gotta give you credit for that.
Keep up the good work
Adam
Atomcloud Animation
I contend that maybe you should LIKE to do that....everyone has something to say, and what you've said is important. And I totally agree. The pop-tail was a spur of the moment decision (it looks better WITHOUT a tail, but I don't abuse my pets hehe)
I am actually going to make the changes to the axe thing and I'll be back in a bit...
It is very jerky. I think the looseness works to good effect, although I'm up in the air whether it's because it's not tight and sharp and oversimplified, or because our brains would accept the positions better because with 47 squiggles, ONE of them has to be right and your brain chooses to understand THAT one as an implied line.
Since the dog one is layered (quick shapeless doodle with less-shapeless color/black marks on top) it'll have that....I should go over both with a nice clean edge and make sure my positions are OK, and consistent.
NOTE TO EVERYONE - If you do this mouser-flasher-mation stuff, do all the main extremes just by what's in your head, approximate the inbetweens, and then with the inbetweens left, you can get by just interpolating the lines and shapes to make the animation smoother. It's a good system especially if you're not constructing/using-solids (which neither of these are because I only wanted to spend a few minutes on the whole deal)
Revised with a double-bounce, hanging axe with a one-frame fall, shapes adjusted, a non-stationary top half, and facial expression
http://www.studentofanimation.com/MouseDeathAdam.swf