What do you think of these characters? (WIP)

capricorn33 · Post by **capricorn33** » Fri Jun 08, 2007 3:57 pm

JCook wrote:I really like these characters. And the animation is excellent. I haven't tried out this method yet, but I'm going to look into it. Can't wait to see more of this character (or characters!).

Jack

Jack! Heh! That's the name of the boy who is the voice of little coney junior, too! I'll tell him next time I see him that someone else named Jack liked (t)his character. I know it will make him smile...

I don't know what you people out there think, but I feel I have discovered after 15-20 years of television making how important the sound and voice is in audiovisual storytelling - of all kinds. I didn't quite get it the first 7 or 10 years, I think, but now I'm absolutely convinced that the soul or the experience of a character, the feeling you get, the identification, the belivibeality (how do you spell that word??) is 80, no, 90 percent voice and sound... what the ear recognizes as true the eye will believe.

It would be nice to hear other people's view on this. Am I right? ...or do I think so just because I'm an "audial" person who is living more through my ears than my eyes?

Thanks for the kind words on my animation BTW. I am on a steep learning curve here, MUCH to learn - but I do really enjoy those moments every now then when it feels like a character is coming alive on the monitor in front of me

Now I have to find a mother for little Coney...

(the old hag in the previous post will maybe get a part as the lady in the tobacco store who - in coney junior's vivid imagination - turns into a chinese dragon.

cheers
cap

capricorn33 · Post by **capricorn33** » Fri Jun 08, 2007 6:39 pm

Is this coney's mum?

I kind of like the fact that she's a little more muscular than her husband... She probably has wrestling, boxing or something like that for a hobby, I think.

jahnocli · Post by **jahnocli** » Fri Jun 08, 2007 6:52 pm

looks good!

donnie · Post by **donnie** » Sat Jun 09, 2007 1:40 pm

These are excellent capricorn33!!!

I think your dead right about the voice thing- Coney's voice is so belivable and 'true' that you totallly accept that its coming from the character- of course your excellent animation helps too!

I currently have a short animation to produce where I have been given Script,Storyboards, Character Designs and the voices already recorded.
Unfortunately as I had no say in the casting and was not present at the recording stage the voices have come out a bit,well, bland and uninspiring. The very least you get with a good voice is a solid foundation to work on and a bit more enthusiasm with creating the animation.

Well done Cap,
I look forward to see the rest of the story unfold!

D.

capricorn33 · Post by **capricorn33** » Sat Jun 09, 2007 5:34 pm

donnie wrote:These are excellent capricorn33!!!

Thanks, Donnie!

I currently have a short animation to produce where I have been given Script,Storyboards, Character Designs and the voices already recorded.
Unfortunately as I had no say in the casting and was not present at the recording stage the voices have come out a bit,well, bland and uninspiring.

Yes, coming from live action TV - and directing live action - I have learned the hard way that good casting makes ALL the difference.

I'm still at the very beginning of learning this very demanding and difficult (but rewarding!) animation art but I think I can clearly see the same rules in action here, in animation. Bad voice equals bad / not believable (did I spell that one correctly) character.
Doesn't matter how long I sit in front of the monitor trying to get the face to "live" if the voice is wrong. It just won't.

I look forward to see the rest of the story unfold!

Well I see this little conehead-project as a pure exercise for myself and I will continue developing it for as long as I find that it's helping me to grow animation-wise and as long as it's still FUN to do.

Maybe it will be completed some day or maybe it won't. Doesn't matter. It's just an exercise.

(But please, tell me about all the mistakes I'm doing here too. I am trying to learn and critique is necessary.)

cheers
cap

donnie · Post by **donnie** » Sat Jun 09, 2007 6:08 pm

Yes, coming from live action TV - and directing live action - I have learned the hard way that good casting makes ALL the difference.

I think I need to show the Director of he project this quote as he thinks that my animation should 'fix' the voice performances to make them more expressive and characterful!
Unfortunately my animation skills only go so far and having a good and characterful voice performace as a solid foundation would have really helped.
The fact I have to do a minute a week of animation, on at least three characters in every scene, does'nt help in my cause to produce good animation that would 'fix' these deficencies in the voices.

However im going of on a tangent, I do think your character designs and animation technique are lovely and so far don't have any meaningful critique for you other than keep up the good work!!

cheers,

D.

capricorn33 · Post by **capricorn33** » Sun Jun 10, 2007 8:19 am

Thanks again, Donnie, and good luck with your project. I hope your Director smartens up!

New sketch of the coney family...

I think I like this version of Coney Jr:s mother.
But I have a real problem drawing her face from the front.

How do you draw that kind of up nose from the front anyway?

Everything I have tried looks just wrong.

(As I mentioned earlier, I am not that good at drawing to begin with.)

cheers
cap

capricorn33 · Post by **capricorn33** » Sun Jun 10, 2007 5:33 pm

So...
...now I have started rigging jr:s mother... front with 3/4 turning head

Jr:s mother - without a nose

(Note: what you are hearing is NOT her voice. It's just some file I had in my computer that I used to try out the mouth shapes...)

Anyway, her nose is damned hard to get right...
This is what I would have her to look like...

So far I have mostly solved the turning of heads and bodies with combinations of "scale-rotating" and simple bone translation.

This walk cycle, for example, is a combination of those ideas...

junior walk cycle turning profile

But now I find that this upnose I want Coneys mother to have seems a little hard to get right using only those techniques...
Of course I could point animate it, but my aim is to get these rigs to do basic turns without too much point animating. I want to leave that to the final fine tuning, details and nuances.

So, my plan is now to borrow a little "3D" magic from Genetes and Heyvern's project - just enough to get the nose shape exactly as I want.
I'll use a little of that "Elsa the giraffe"-thing and see if it suits my way of working.

- - If the screwdriver won't do it maybe the hammer will. - -

...So soon maybe my 2.2D rig will have a 2.7D nose.

cheers
cap

Genete · Post by **Genete** » Sun Jun 10, 2007 5:40 pm

Excellent work cap!
Just for learning. Can you share the anme file for junior's head on that las walk cycle? His head turn is pretty well done!.
Hope any of that crazy 3D stuff helps you to put the nose in the proper place.

-G

capricorn33 · Post by **capricorn33** » Sun Jun 10, 2007 5:48 pm

Sure, here it is.

junior_9.anme

If you were wondering about that last bit of the turn, into full profile, I simply switched off the right eye and right mouth half layers...

EDIT: err.. LEFT side, I mean.

And BTW, anybody's comments on the walk cycle are welcome. I can see that there is *something* wrong with it. ...But what?

Genete · Post by **Genete** » Sun Jun 10, 2007 6:55 pm

I hope You don't mind I dared to draw a nose for your conic mummy. Also the drawing was rigged following the point to point 3D rig technique.
I have put the nose inside a switch layer to be able to turn to right or left. just with a simple switch. also take care with the extra points that control the curvature of the ends of the lines of the nose. They have to be animated by hand but should be part of your final tunning.
The bones were created automaticlaly only based in the front and side views. Automatic up and down rotation is also automatically enabled. If you want to do by yourself go to the mentioned thread and download the ge_auto_3Drig.zip file.

The 3Dgrid script must be embedded to the switch layer to make the nose work.

Please be free to use it if you like.

Enjoy!
-G

http://www.darthfurby.com/genete/Other/mummynose.zip
http://www.darthfurby.com/genete/Other/mummy-nose.swf

donnie · Post by **donnie** » Sun Jun 10, 2007 7:05 pm

Hey Cap, Mother looks great!! Really liking her!

Hmmm....about Coney JR's walk I would maybe suggest that he needs a bit more 'up and down' movement, so that when he plants a foot you translate his body down a bit to feel that he has a bit of weight (he's a fairly chubby guy!), then have him back to normal on the mid way position.

You also seem to have some kind of back and forth rotation on the body, which is fine, but the rate in which it moves isn't perhaps 'even' which gives him a bit of a 'limpy' feel.

The only other thing I noticed was a wee bit of 'jitter' on his Left foot just as he plants it (it seems to jump up for a frame before settling down).

Other than that its a great start and your head turns are way beyond anything I could accomplish!! Well Done!

Cheers

D.

capricorn33 · Post by **capricorn33** » Sun Jun 10, 2007 7:09 pm

Hahaha! Hi, Genete!

That's why I love this forum!

I will see if I can get it integrated with the rest of the rig...
I'll post back soon!

Genete · Post by **Genete** » Sun Jun 10, 2007 7:20 pm

Sure, here it is.

Thanks!!

A hint: just delete the extra keyframe automatically inserted before the walk cycle. They are at frames 23, 46 and 69. They just copy the frame 0 again what is not necessary most of the times. If you were inserted a copy of the action instead of a reference that small stop at those frames wouldn't happen. I have commented that in one post in General Anime Studio Discussion forum. That automatic keyframe is sometimes very annoying.

Very smart combination of use bone scale for layer, bone scale for translation and bone scale for bind points.
Also very intelligent to hide the eye and the mouth half at the proper time.
I have learned a lot!
Thanks!

-G

EDITED:

The only other thing I noticed was a wee bit of 'jitter' on his Left foot just as he plants it (it seems to jump up for a frame before settling down).

This is what I have noticed and can be solved just deleting those keyframes

capricorn33 · Post by **capricorn33** » Sun Jun 10, 2007 7:20 pm

donnie wrote:Hey Cap, Mother looks great!! Really liking her!

Hmmm....about Coney JR's walk I would maybe suggest that he needs a bit more 'up and down' movement.../

Yeah, that's it! Simple to see when someone points it out.

You also seem to have some kind of back and forth rotation on the body, which is fine, but the rate in which it moves isn't perhaps 'even' which gives him a bit of a 'limpy' feel. /.../ D.

Yes, you're right again.

Thanks Donnie, I'll keep your notes in mind later when I return to the walking rig.