As some of you may know, I am working on an animation that reflects legal jurisdiction issues. The animation uses a metaphor of squirrels living in a big tree…

The audio levels need to be messed with, it’s a bit quiet. And the voice will be slightly higher in pitch.

In any case, I have to animate like a madman if I want to pump out 2 and a half minutes this week. So here is my first whack at the animation- The first segment of the film:

I’m fairly happy with it. I’d love to make the branch shake and such, but I may have to go back and do it later. For now I need to get a bare-bones version done for next week.-Tom

This is a cover of Tumble and Fall by Feeder.

It’s not the best cover, but its a really fun song to sing.

Here is the video:

Lalalala…
-Tom

I’ve been really interested in After Effects lately. I animated the following piece in After Effects using the push-pin tool in about a day. It is a fairly intuitive tool.

Here is the vid- no sound- (It is a freelance piece for some online show about losing weight):

-Tom

So I’ve picked up the guitar again. It’s been about 3 years since I played… and even then I was casual at best.
I thought I’d throw this up here because I’m too shy to actually play in front of anyone. Singing is a really nice stress release for me…

In any case, the song is “Run” by Collective Soul. If you want the chords send me a message.

The guitar might be a little out of tune… hehe
Hope your ears don’t bleed,
-Tom

This is my timing for a weight-lift, roughed out in flash. I’m probably going to scratch the facial expressions, and do a new face later… I sort of stopped doing the face halfway through anyhow. I’m still getting used to 2-D… and I’m not very good at drawing. But I am determined to get better, so I’m devoting this school year to it (at the least). I’m going to take this into Photoshop CS3 and hand-render it… once I figure out how I want to do that.

Anyway, crits are welcome. I don’t know how much longer I plan to spend on this particular peice, but if your suggestion is minor I will probably give it a whirl. If you have some major adjustments in mind, I’ll probably just jot them down for next time.

Hope you enjoy it!
-Tom

I like to check CGsociety’s forums fairly often. Every now and then I come across something there that is fairly inspiring. (Although I must admit, I come across a lot of uninspiring things there as well.)

 In any case, I came across a film made by Tim Marchant called “Tidy Monster”. I think what really inspired me was the simplicity of the execution. You can watch it on Tim’s site and the film is on youtube here.

 Before I go on, I’d like to clarify what I mean by “simplicity”. I guess the term could be interpreted in many ways. I certainly do not mean that the film was simple; I mean, rather, to emphasize the fact that the visuals did not try to overpower or convolute the idea behind the film. Given the dialog in “Tidy Monster”, I think many animators/filmmakers would tend to try to cram as many insane visuals into the piece as they could. It is this kind of thinking often leads films deep into the ground. Humor me as I indulge in an analogy:

Let’s say we were making soup. First we should probably decide what kind of soup we want to make- we may call this the idea behind the soup (I know… reaaaaally subtle). There are numerous possibilities as far as types of soup, but for the purposes of this metaphor, and because I am a vegetarian… we’re going to make some delicious broccoli cheddar soup. Now we heat up some water, we prepare the pot and we put in the basic ingredients- essentially we give the soup a basic structure and context. So far so good…

Now its time to really make it taste gooooood. So what do we do? We find EEEEverything we like and we toss it in!! You like hot-dogs? In they go! How about some pancakes with loads of syrup? Throw’em in! I know, FRIED snickers bars… they’re all the rage- what the hell- toss a dozen of those in! And ice-cream goddammit… loads of ice-cream. Oh man oh man oh man oh man YEEEESSSSS!

Anybody want some soup?

The point I’m trying to make is putting a lot of “cool” stuff together does not make a good soup… errr… film. As much as we love those fried snickers bars, we need to cut them out if they do not point the audience toward something vital to the film’s idea. The idea is key… and sorry, no amount of technical goodies will ever replace the idea. At least not for me.

Anyway, I’m going to go vomit.

Our labs at school got the updated Adobe Suite (which now includes Flash), and I finally had a chance to really mess around with some of the new features in Photoshop CS3. One feature in particular really got me excited: Timeline Mode.

For those who edit video, timeline mode will probably look like a lame iteration of After Effects. However, coupled with onion-skinning and video layers, the timeline mode in PS CS3 presents some 2-d animation opportunities that could arguably induce salivation.

Basically you can import video as a layer and create empty video layers in much the same way that you would import an image and create regular empty layers. The main difference between a regular layer and a video layer being that the image on video layer is linked to the position on the timeline (no more making gif animations with a layer for each frame!!). So now hand-rendering animation, video, 3-D animation, or even other rough 2-D animation is easy- all of those familiar photoshop tools functioning over a timeline.

Here is a quick ball-bounce I made using the timeline mode in Photoshop CS3:
Download link 

I’m fortunate enough to be taking an amazing course in Economics with Dr. M. N. Browne (author of- among countless other publications- Asking the Right Questions). I’ve been scribbling notes furiously in class, but I thought I’d put them up here as well so I can reference them more easily in the future.

I want to clarify that I have not studied Economics extensively, and I am simply putting forth my current comprehension of what was said in my class.

As I have come to understand, Economics assumes that the following is a generalization of human nature:

Humans are

1. Myopic (make decisions based on immediate benefits- do not see into the long term)
2. Egoistic / selfish
3. Insecure / in search of external acceptance
4. Affiliative / desire to associate themselves to a group (which can be used to combat egoism)
5. Inert / lazy without stimulus or incentive
6. Rational/ Cold and Calculating
7. Aquisitive (People want STUFF- and everything is stuff)

Apparently, the above generalizations are held tight and sacred by Economists… Whether they are true or not is temporarily beside the point. To understand how Economists think, the description of human nature listed above must be accepted (or at least humored).

With the Economics view of human nature in mind, the following describes the world as seen by Econ:

1) There are Limits-

• SCARCITY * is the gap between human wants and finite resources. (It is important to note here that Economists believe human wants NEVER SUBSIDE- the thirst for STUFF is unquenchable; and without this assumption the field of Economics would make no sense).
• Because there is Scarcity, there is always a cost to an action (Trade-offs).

2) Conflict is inevitable-

• Because there is Scarcity AND because human wants are endless, there will be clashes of interest and inequality. Economics is said to be a “dismal discipline” because it is the study of finding who we will say “NO” to.

3) Economics becomes a study of Conflict Resolution-

• Overwhelmingly, Economists point to THE MARKET to solve these conflicts.
• Political Power is another means utilized to resolve Econ conflicts.

Here is an illustration of conflict, political power, scarcity and human wants in action (all in 8 seconds):

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/Bkhtgjt_VYc" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

*The term Scarcity, as used in Economics, can never refer to something specific (ie: You cannot say “There is a scarcity of good boots”). Scarcity refers only to the abstract limit to all things.

To be continued…

I came across some clips from this British Series on Youtube. I haven’t had a chance to actually watch an episode, so I don’t know how consistent the show is as far as acting and humor. Never-the-less, the following sketches are pretty fantastic (despite the odd title of the program). Some great timing and subtle acting, really good stuff for animation reference.

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/_Eng-pRT9uA" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

I find it very difficult to explain how to make acting decisions. All I can muster here is that there is some quality the actor possesses in this clip that I find very appealing and believable. In animation, I often feel as if I am witnessing some really lazy acting- For instance, when an animated character twitters his fingers before picking something up (an overwhelmingly overused action) I almost wonder why the animator even bothered. Why not just have the character look at the audience and say “Anticipate my next action!”.

To be fair, I struggle with acting decisions a whole lot; And I am sure there are some very good uses of the “finger twitter”. I guess it just seems sometimes that many animators do not even consider making acting decisions. Do we really want to just be movers? I would much rather be a performer someday as well…

In any case, enjoy a few more clips from Man Stroke Woman:

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/jThcc5lbfOs" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

and here is a particularly silly one:

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/PlGHLWuYDR0" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

-tom