http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlzEM9I9l4Y

This is by no means a finished product nor intended to be in my next video.
I was merely playing with the props and just trying to get some ideas. The characters
may even change. Hope yall enjoy this little piece, I liked it.
Gene

Click to view attachment
Click to view attachment



just some more ideas.

Ahhhh... tooo bad! That's a fun setup ... I really like the juxtaposition of characters. It's an interesting combo.

Oh you should carry on with that its graet

here is another direction. Looks dark on youtube but looks great on my system.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPUhccKb9t8

Mouse Solo
unfinished, lots of little details and atmosphere yet to go.
But the mouse just was into it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BS5vdDulHPg

That's looking good!!!

Keep it up!!

Thanks!
adding smoke to leaking pipes now.

For Jeetman


Bruce Lee wrote:

Hey that is looking great! Great fun idea, nice animation too. Definitely lighten it up and I hope/assume you'll get the rat's tail in on the rockin'.

Another great looking character!

more ideas.
[/qujust some ote]


what ah rat, I really like him, put him, or her to work. cool character

Intro title screen
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAtwxglpGHk
Trying another render now with the steam going by faster.

the steam and title & sound looks, sounds GREAT! Very effective.

Yay!

Very Cool, Gene! Builds intrigue!

Intro title screen
awesome opening

Nice work, Gene!

opening scene maybe. Needs work.
Click to view attachment
(the conversion to quicktime made it dark!)
It is not that dark!

Looks very promising.

But yes - dark.

Conversion? to QT should not make it dark.

What are your rendering settings, process steps from A:M? (compression, file type, gamma, etc). Are you rendering to QT from A:M. What version QT?

When you say conversion to QT - do you mean you are compressing in QT pro in order to upload to forum?

Nancy,

Gene prefers to render to AVI for posting to u-tube. He sent me the AVI and I used "AVS Video Converter 6"
to convert it to QT format, then sent it back to him. I don't know why but the QT vid played a little darker than the AVI for me on my computer as well. I believe Gene is experimenting with lighting as we speak. I also noted that the file size is quite different. AVI> 14.3 Megs, QT>2.04 Megs

I am not familiar with AVS Video Converter - so you might examine the settings you are using with it to do the conversion/compression and experiment with those. I don't know what settings you have available.

The difference in file sizes is due to the fact that the avi (which came from A:M) is probably uncompressed. Or it could have been compressed some. The smaller QT file size is because it was definitely compressed in AVS.

When one does compression - which is a necessary evil - there is usually degradation in the resultant imagery. This is a fact of life. Some compression methods work better than others for different kinds of imagery, and how much the imagery changes from frame to frame. I use mpeg4 compression, others like h264 for QT. When I now think about it, it is of course possible that the compression made it darker.

One has to play with the compression settings and make compromises between file size, and quality.

A good way to play with different compression methods is to render from A:M uncompressed (either to a tga sequence, or QT mov, or avi) and then experiment in your compression program. I use QT pro - only because I have it and it's relatively simple.

Click to view attachment

Reworked Rat Solo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9dlixhAQm4

Rockin'!
Man, your growing fast!

Thanks!

Surprise coming soon.
Same bat channel, Same Bat time.

Again I say it, Hands on will teach more than booklearning.
I keep pumping videos out no matter how bad and nobody can doubt each one improves.
Quantity will fix qualiity.
Thank you Paul.

I have not been idle.
I just been hogging it all to myself.
I think a pleasant surprise may be in store.

that rat solo is coming great!

I'm so impressed with the improvement my co-conspirator, Mr Spleen , has been making in his modeling and animation. Here are a few images he's allowed me to show you from the video under construction.

That is merely a peek.

great looking shots

You've been busy, Gene! Impressive!

For some odd reason the board isn't letting me send messages direct.

Here's a little inspirational reference for your rat guitarist ...

cool clip!


Thanks everyone!

1/2 the video is now completed as of this morning.

The Spleenster did such a great job with my “Antique” song on his Ain’t No Way video, we decided to collaborate on another.

After seeing the finished video, with a cartoon version of myself, other ways to use this guy began to present themselves to me. I felt that it would be to my advantage to have a more sophisticated model at my (our) beck and call.

Neither Spleeny nor myself are any good at character modeling so I prevailed upon a friend (now a very good friend) for help. So in between changing among his various hats bringing you “The Scarecrow of Oz” (See The Credits) my friend managed to model and rig a new Avatar for me.

So please allow me to introduce, due to the Skill and Talent of Holmes Bryant, my new alter –ego, to be seen soon in the upcoming “Spleen-star Production” - - Two Trains . . . . . . . . (Drum roll Please) . . . . .. THIS GUY:

And here is the WIP
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXkA915eRSM
Holmes modeling and rigging of Myron is incredible!

Wow! Lots of progress in here!
A touch of "Steamboat Willie" and some Chuck Jones too!

Well done to all the engineers on this train!

Myron is fast becoming the most copied man in the music industry. There are two more look-alikes in Fishin'.

It would add a lot of "pow" if you did some detail work on the fret hand of both musicians - doing so would make it feel more like a real jam session. Here's some examples to help:

Electric Blues Guitar Improvisation
BLUES

true, on the wav files peak chart for this song it is impossible to find exact timing on notes. The whole song is one big peak LOL.
I will try to make it look better as I go.
Good advice.

Ah, the joys of being a solo animator - you end up having to learn more than you could possibly want about nearly everything.

Animating musicians is difficult because "finger-synching" music is the direct equivalent to lip-synching speech.

I guess few crits from forum is a good thing.
normally I get alot of them.

Hey Spleen I don't know if this is a problem but your YouTube link from Tuesday doesn't seem to work. I can log onto YouTube, but if I click your link it just hangs, then the error message.

Can I search by your user name or account over there?

username is Spleengene
youtube seems to be having problems today

Got it! That is awesome!

Thank you!