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Get Down From There! - Animation Showdown Entry


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  • Hash Fellow

Last night's Animation Showdown topic was "Get down from there!"

 

Our characters had to carefully get down from a high spot.

 

I had the character animation going at four hours but the version you see here adds three hours of work to animate the boxes all the way to the ground. :rolleyes:

 

QT Sorenson 3 204KB

GetDown30.mov

GetDownFromThere.gif

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Looks good! Llooks like you (and your character!) are getting good exercise in these animation contests.

 

Can you vary the camera angle in these contests? or are there rules that limit your option?

 

I guess what I'm saying is... you look like you've got the animation down to a science... adding things that don't increase your rendertime past the deadline could improve your results in the contest and hone your skills even more.

 

I don't know what is allowed to be prebuilt- such as decals, shaders, props etc.

I assume that pretty much *everything* must be built within the 4 hour timespan.

 

As you can find time maybe you could render out a few patches using shaders that could be applied as image maps.

 

Maybe set up a camera rig with multiple camera from a variety of angles.

When rendering, pick the angle that works best for that scene or theme.

 

Just a couple suggestions.

Your doing fine just as you are though. :)

 

Keep it up!

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My suggestion for the future is to make a quick action which makes his eyes blink at (seemingly) random intervals. This would give him some good character. And I think his face could use some work animation wise, for example he should smirk and smile more often. I know it's extremely limited time wise, but I think a few minor changes would just make it so much better.

 

Really great stuff.

 

Zachary Taich

p.s. This animation is already 10,000,000 times better than anything I could ever make so take my constructive criticism with a grain of salt.

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I think Zack is absolutely right (gosh, that's a sentence that should be said more often) about the blinking, especially since, as far as I can tell from looking at the other entries on digitalrendering's forum, you're one of the only participants whose character actually has eyes. Why not use 'em?

 

And completely OT: Grubber, I love the evolution of your avatar! I remember when it (like mine) was just a stock drawing... then it was 3D... then it had a baseball cap... and now...!

 

:lol:

 

Zach

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Good job, I think you achieved a real sense of weight and balance, probably one of the harder things for people to get their head around. P.S. Very nice touch having the char gripe the block with his left foot I missed it the 1st couple times through.

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That's awesome. I love all your animations from the showdown. The weekly challenge (really just 4 hours, no doubt) has definitely got to be helping you with honing your animating skills. I am in awe. :wacko:

 

Now was that an action that you repeated in the choreagraphy? Or was it all animated just in the choreagraphy?

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  • Hash Fellow

Thank you for all your comments!

 

Can you vary the camera angle...? or are there rules...
You can do just about anything you want but the main item on the table is always the character animation. These clips are so short that if you pick a good one, more camera angles shouldn't be necessary. It's that good staging thing that Frank Thomas & Ollie Johnston talk about and that I attempt to use in practice.

 

I assume that pretty much *everything* must be built within the 4 hour timespan.

And you can use pre-built anything, but the topics are always such that props or sets aren't major factors. I like it that way since the character motion is what I'm most into right now.

 

My suggestion ... is to make a quick action which makes his eyes blink...
He blinks in frame 71. ;)

 

...10,000,000 times better than anything I could ever make...
According to my calculator that means that even if you get 1000 times better than you are now, I'd still be 10,000 times better. Ouch! You better get animating right quick, Zack!

 

you're one of the only participants whose character actually has eyes. Why not use 'em?
Ok, I'll admit it... he has no eyelids! I made this character in 1998 to be a "help angel" in a CD_ROM project. He only had to do three things and blinking wasn't on the list. I tried a few more things with him but rigs were so primitive back then I gave up.

 

He's really supposed to be a toon rendered character so i never planned any texturing for him:

02.jpg

But I may upgrade him with eyelids and a mouth when I finish Jason Osipa's book.

nice touch having the char gripe the block with his left foot
Result of my experiments on a crate in the living room. :lol:

 

was that an action that you repeated in the choreagraphy? Or was it all animated just in the choreagraphy?
It is an action. In the contest forum, several people criticized it for being too repetitive. (Geez, I managed to bore them in only five seconds! :D )

 

I added one block as an "action object" to animate the feet around and to figure out the intial movement of the block. The block in the action helped me to align the character with the real blocks in the choreography (which were individually animated). I match-moved the choreography blocks to the action block, then deleted the block from the action. Hmmm...I bet I could have saved myself some time if I had just constrained the chor blocks to the action block.

 

Thanks again for all your comments! I'll keep them in mind on my next attempt.

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Good work. You hit all the "bases"; weight, aniticipation, recoil and mystery orbs. ;)

 

Your Top Ten is hilarious. I think it would be a good premise for a bluegrass song. "Greenbluegrass"; if you will. I'm thinkin'...."Them Alien Men Sure Can Love" or "Alien Holler Breakdown".

 

Mike Hart

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  • 9 years later...
  • 10 years later...
  • Hash Fellow

A new render of my March 4 2004 entry in the Animation Showdown, now with scenery and sound.

The animation is an Action cycle, repeated three times. I was excited when i got that to work.

 

I made the sound effects of the foot thumps and the cubes landing by hitting a cardboard box in various ways and shifting the recordings down an octave.

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  • robcat2075 changed the title to Get Down From There! - Animation Showdown Entry

Follow up question ...can those changing clouds cast shadows on the ground? ..or are they just projected on a plane without the ability to interact with the rest of the scene?

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  • Hash Fellow
On 3/7/2024 at 10:46 PM, Tom said:

Neat... looks like you are using your cool cloud effect!

Yes, dressing up these old animations was what got me on that track!

22 hours ago, Tom said:

Follow up question ...can those changing clouds cast shadows on the ground? ..or are they just projected on a plane without the ability to interact with the rest of the scene?

Yes, they could cast shadows on the ground, although you'd need the camera to have a much higher angle to see that and I'm not sure about the scale they would have.

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Cool ...thanks!

It might be interesting to have a view from an airplane window looking down on a checkerboard of farms and then the clouds build and rollover the whole scene. Like a storm is coming...

 

just a thought..😉

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