[MeanPi2]

Yea, it is stiff in that last flick. I actually put a little more motion into it then intended even but botched it a little (alot actually, right down to the actual rig). Turning away from the kitchen was a kludge because either the rig broke or user error that I can't fix- and in that just noticed both the head and chest turn away at the same time and it's a bit slower then intended (the drunker you are the faster it looks I guess). The only eye work was the dissolves (needs an expression or two- pain in the watch without one) and no brow work was done. Also the hair ends are boned but not dinked with. If I'd actually bothered to do all that, it'd probably still look stiff. Which is good- it turns into this posted shot which I was frustrated with and never posted.

Thanks for the comments and suggestions.

Zeeman, I'll jerk both the head and chest- thanks for pointing it out.

Fallen, I thought a simple character would be easy to animate..it's not. Heh.

[Fallenswordsman]

Well having no knowledge of animation I can't really say much, but I do like the rotating ceiling fan!

[MeanPi2]

Fallen, you have knowledge of animation if you watch television, movies, people on the street and things in general dealing with gravity or lack thereof- that's all animation is, attempts to mimic those motions based on situtations and emotions in proper or improper timing (and some exaggeration I guess) while meshing those movements to fit in a character based in the animators head region (that's personal theory). I personally only care about the end-result motion and if it works or not, not the process involved in creating the motion. If you, or anyone sees something you don't like, even if I disagree I'd still like to hear it because you could very well be right..maybe not instantly but in a day or two..

Thanks about the fan, that was fun to set up.

[puppet]

if your having problems keeping it under 1mb try using windows moviemaker. It took mine from 25mb's to 670.kb with sound
the only problem is it only renders as .wmv

[MeanPi2]

Thanks for the tip Puppet, .WMV (.WVA, .ASF- same stuff internally with a different wrapper) is fantastic- exceds DiVX and XViD in both quality and smaller size in tests I ran real quick- which makes sense considering DiVX's history. Unfortuantly it's unusable in this case due to MicroSoft. Legally anyways. The video is currently 836 frames up to the end of the sigh in the monstercrazy.wav and without textures, sound or shadows it's 1 gig uncompressed and 3.89 megs compressed with XViD at 72% quality. Both look like crap with both the 'e-mail under a meg' option and 'high quality reduction' or whatever (1.4 megs it was anyways). It could be fixed but due to MicroSoft taking on even Freeware authors and not buying (I guess) or simply using (due to open source license) their reduction code and using crap instead, it can't be fixed legally.

.WMV is a great codec, after you turned me onto it Puppet I love it, it's fanstastic so far. Unfortuantly after DiVX Microsoft turned a revolution into simply a tool that will work where it's appropriate instead of a standard like it deserves to be. If my entry wouldn't have bloated beyond control I'd use it.

Sorry, currently suffering from a chronic case of Mesodrunk Syndrome.

[MeanPi2]

Well, I dibbled and dabbled and hum-hawed around till the competition was in it's really late stages, dinking with this and that and in general not doing any work. So this is a catch-up and progress post. This is what has been completed in a day and a half (was only supposed to take a day)- it's a reworked and extended version of the 'StickChick14e.avi' including 3/4 of the speaking stuff with attempted lip-synch, eye work and all that. Everything after the turd camera cut back to the chick is a work in progress (still filling in the pose-to-pose technique stuff- hate that technique).

It's greyscale, 160x120, true DiVX (compresses better by a whole whopping 100K or so) and the audio is recompressed to total crud for space. I should have hosting online tomorrow so will post a link to a larger textured version of the clip then (provided I don't have to work) including the whole video as it is now with some changes added in the last day and a half (not much really).

[kumar]

Looking good there,,, like the turd

[MeanPi2]

Well this is really just a test of linking to a site. The video is the same as the last one except it's 320x240 (the 640x480 crashed overnight 36 frames in) with textures, low AA and the whole 1090 or so frames. Time to start saving as single frame images (sigh).

Anyways, it's 2.3meg XViD with DiVX CC's (.WMV keeps trashing the audio for some reason).

http://meanpi2.dreamhost.com/stXVD2-1.zip

Time to finish up the speaking parts.

[MeanPi2]

Well bugger it all from Hades to Neptune with a slightshot trip around Uranius, LW8 botched my scene file and won't load the latest revision of it- but I can use 'Load From Scene' on the same file and get everything back but the camera motions. Not too bad since I wanted to edit them anyways when/IF I had time but not all of them from frame 1-1029! Well, actually yea I did want to edit all of them..but..buggen frick-frack @%#^# expensive peice of &$#^@&@#%..

Sigh. Time for another beer..

Edit: Whee, fixed it. Sort of. Opened the revision before the last, using the dope track above the timeline turned off Channel Edit and copied all camera keys, created a new scene, loaded the botched revision as 'load from scene' and pasted the copied keys into the camera dope track above the timeline and it's all back and working minus the slight panning camera movement at the end and a reworked cut at the kitchen volumetrics area.

It wasn't supposed to work so time for a celebration beer..soon as I finish the 'this is really farked' beer..and think there's a 'good job Kumar, Colto,Puppet and Noratio' beer in line..not to meantion the 'managed to tie my shoes again in the 2nd try' beer..and the beer celebrating not getting hit by a car walking across the street...and the 'I didn't see a UFO today beer'..and...the thank God for Advil beer...and...

[mtmckinley]

lol, that's pretty cool. I like the acting. The audio and video were out of synch on my player, but not sure if that's just me.

I think the opening might be a bit long, but I suppose that doesn't matter too much.

Might be funny if the pile of... feces popped eyes out or something.

Keep it up!

[MeanPi2]

Sorry for the length, got carried away having fun (and naturally it'll be a few seconds longer in the final..). The audio, according to LW starts at 26.666 secs, but seemed off when I mixed it at 26.666 so mixed it at 26.600 and it still seems off but not so much. Just remembered I rendered from frame 1 on, not frame 0 which is the additional skew. It'll be fixed in the final- have a plan that might work (wringing palms together). Course seems all my plans are half-thought out...course it's also true that a square peg will fit in a round hole provided one has the right sized hammer..

Tried popping out eyes but in LW I haven't figured out or even know if it's possible to morph using an already created morph (it reverts to using the base points each new morph instance) without say morphing in Layout, saving transformed object, using that as a base and using object replacement- so basically the little gorwing stubs had to suffice. What I wanted to do with the turd was really smileable but don't have the time to learn the skills to do it.

Thanks for the earlier 'stiff' comment, it really helped the entire animation.

[puppet]

hahahaha nice work im loving the talking poo it just cracks me up

[MeanPi2]

Thanks Puppet.

Final was posted, unfortunatly turns out when the scene file crashed, lost the updated hypervoxel settings along with the camera movement. Oh well, fixed the camera at least.

[Noratio]

Sorry to hear your crash, I was planning to dive in to voxels next for short period.

Good stuff, except poo, its never good yikes. Unbelievably expressive character to think it is allmost 2D and sticks, good work on that.

Good thinking in that leaning in the wall too.