this is a good example of how gradients CAN work and look good. the trunk is a good example of how shape tweens can look good same goes for the tail (those are shape tweens, right?). i also love jolly big animals with tiny hats but sadly the walk cycle is wrong. look at the second front leg (or what do elephants walk on?). it doesnt look right to me. otherwise the animation is very fine with all its motion.
It looks generally good, but I msut second what mark said: the legs are wrong somehow. For me, it seems that while the left legs are on the floor, both of the right are in the air (of course they are as it’s the same on the left side where it’s more obvious duuh). I’m not sure if it’s right, but I can remember that an elephant has only one leg in the air at any time (when they walk slowly). Ok, sure a cartoon style animal does not have to be the same as a real one.
I think it’s very difficult to make a slow animal fast and that’s what you tried and that’s why it looks (better to say feels) a bit strange. The walkcycle itself is good, but I don’t think it’s the right one for that elephant.
Other thing: shouldn’t that shadow become bigger as the body bounces downwards?
argh, i sound like I hate it, but that’s not true. The trunk and the tail are awesome, same as the face expression, the ears …and the hat, too of course… =)
Thanks guys for the top-notch comments. yeah the legs are a bit off from a real-world elephant walk - I may tweak them for sure. There’s very little tweening overall. The tail is FBF and the body/trunk was animated in Anime Studio, specifically its “Bones” tool. Everything else, like I said, was FBF animation. Thanks again for your comments.
WAIT you can use bones in anime studio and export it as SWF. can you even save as FLA? im a bit impressed about this. also ive tried anime studio but i have to admit i was too stupid for it. also i exported the tutorial that comes with it (the starter file. its some anime boy. the bones work SO GREAT) and it seemed pixellated in the export so it didnt seem like it uses vectors to me.
@milchreis: oh haha I KNOW WHAT YOU MEAN. i often DONT like giving away my opinion about something because when i don’t praise it and point out things that dont seem correct about it it will sound like i hate it while i only want to help and share my opinion. also i had seen the ear before but i just noticed how funny they look like and how wrong they are. they look a bit like wings- funny
@MarkPorter: Yeah, Anime Studio is great for this - just export as an SWF and import into Flash. But you should know:
1. export the artwork from Flash as an AI file.
2. import the AI into Anime Studio (there will be an RGB to CMYK conversion issue)
3. animate it using Bones (not hard)
4. export to SWF/import into Flash
5. Turn on Edit Multiple Frames and change the color across all keyframes in 1 click.
I love all of your comments - very constructive and that is why I put the animation out there
As for the ears and overall style - I wasn’t trying to create an anatomically accurate elephant (obviously), but rather “borrowed” elements from an elephant and created my own take on an elephant cartoon character - something with a little style and attitude. I like when characters are recognizeable but are inventive just the same.
It’s finally nice to see some animation of this guy. The gradients work perfectly and look really nice especially for this design. There are a couple things i think can be fixed to improve the animation.
1) The legs walking at one point, are in the air alittle too long. It sort of looks like there isn’t any inbetween. I think if you just kept a constant walk to it it would look much better.
2) The hat bouncing up and down looks alittle unnatural. The hat looks like it’s popping off his head instead of moving because of the walkcycle. The hat looks almost like it’s moving itself. I think because the body only moves up very little, the hat should only move up alittle bit. It also seems alittle unpredictable. Walkcycles are very predictable since there are only X amount of frames re-repeating over and over. I think the hat is a funny character asset so definitely keep it. Maybe if you exaggerate the body moving alittle more, then the hat bounce will look more natural.
3) The nose is awesome as far as design goes, but the animation seems alittle odd. If you maybe had it move with the walkcycle and to keep in mind the inner biological parts. It seems to be moving not erratically, but when it moves I can’t keep up with at which point it will bend. A swing can rotate as much or as little as it possibly can, but you know the center point of the rotation is at the top where the swing meets the frame.
4) The lower part of the jaw seems to change volume and mass, looks alittle strange.
I’m no expert, but that’s just what comes to mind when I see the cycle. The tail looks great, the design is killer, the ear moving is awesome, just those couple things i think can need improving. Take anything i saw with 2 cents, if you feel I’m wrong, don’t change anything…
In the “may be misconstrued as blowing sunshine” department, one of the reasons I love learning from Chris is that, even though he’s written books, done multiple training videos, lectured at FlashForward… he throws animations out there for the community to pick at, and appreciates the criticism. That’s the sign of a professional, right there.
I tend to agree with my fellow above posters about the legs in the walk cycle… I wonder if Muybridge ever did elephants… I love everything else, great character, great style.
Chris, were you listening to any particular music while you were animating this? Because Bilbo is incredibly in-sync with Lenny Kravitz’s “If I Could Fall In Love” from the Blue Crush soundtrack. Nice. LOL
I think he is adorable as hell. Maybe yeah, the little tick in his walk, but I still love him!!!
@Stephen Levinson: thanks for the advice, appreciate it - I agree, the legs need tweaking. The hat is a little too bouncy for the lack of body movement. The nose has a mind all its own
I spent about 45 minutes on this walk cycle and should have spent more like 90-120. part of my problem is squeezing stuff in between client projects - so I end up rushing things a bit.
@Zebulon: Thanks for the kind words - I honestly regard myself as a glorified hack, riding on the coat tails of the true animation talents before me
@TM: I was listening to music - often am while working, but it was a Tower of Power song (What is Hip?).
Are you asking me what is hip today?? like I know? I am playing a mixed playlist of DISCO, Linkin Park, Whitesnake, Hooty & The Carpenters to name a few. LOL!!! Oh wait, I looked up that name you posted, it’s a real group and song. I listened to the track. wow, now I can boldly admit the Turtles (Happy Together) are on my list. you kill me! LOL
I made some tweaks (reflected in the current animation).
The legs have been re-worked slightly.
The body bounce more exaggerated.
The bouncing hat has been adjusted.
Shadow now grows/shrinks.
For now I think I’m going to move on and do a couple more walkcycles (slow. tired walk, tip-toe on hind legs, etc…).
“he throws animations out there for the community to pick at, and appreciates the criticism. That’s the sign of a professional, right there.”
wonderfully said.
@TM: I was listening to music - often am while working, but it was a Tower of Power song (What is Hip?).
First lessen in Animator’s Survival Kit: UNPLUG! (look it up if you have the book)
Unplug - very true! It’s an obvious difference in the ability to concentrate when there are no sounds at all - but that’s not usually a luxury I have unless it is late at night - I work from home in a very busy house - even with a relatively secluded basement office, the sounds of high energy children can be heard (and often felt) directly above me through the floor joists. Often I am forced to have some amount of white noise to drown out the jarring jolts of kids jumping and bouncing off the walls directly above me.
I usually work in total silence and do not realize it until the end of the day or someone enters the room. I wouldn’t hear it anyway. I happened to have music on the other day because I had a break and needed to PLUG IN!! Hence, landing on your site in addition to music.
I “scanned” over your comment, hence my initial reply. My bad. But thanks for the repeat. No need for me to worry about my A.D.D., you got me covered. LOL
Your comment hei love music- i love music a lot. it means everything to me but i cant animate or work with music on. i used to work in some ad agency and they would often have the radio on- it wasnt even loud but very silent so you would automatically concentrate on the music. you know it was so silent you wouldnt hear it if you were normally thinking so your ears would automatically adjust and you would concentrate on that silent music- VERY annoying. im glad i can work at a company without music but sometimes when it gets too silent ill put my headphones on and work and i am not the only one that does so. when i am at home music is nice to listen to when i DRAW- i cant listen to music when i do animations- especially because most of my animations are about dialogs and i have to listen to the dialogs listening to music would be an impossible task. i love a lot of music but often when i draw music with great LYRICS doesn’t help. i will just automatically sing along if its a catchy song or sing the lyrics along in my head which doesn’t help if you try to draw something or do something else (like code) so I personally think electro (air) and idm (boards of canada) is the best music for ME when i work but also want to enjoy music (maybe we should have a topic about this on the forum and hear everybody’s opinion on that. since im at work i cant recall my password and post on the forum).
oh BY THE WAY i love working at night simply because nobody bugs me then. its SILENT and i know nobody will come into my room. its WONDERFUL. maybe thats why many authors write their stories in some house in the middle of nowhere (canada).
i also love how offtopic the whole thing has become but still people talk- that elephant was a great conversation starter
My only 2 cents on the walk cycle (sorry) would be that its more of a weight issue. His mass is shifting up and down or kinda left and right (pretending you could view him top down) just slightly off to how his weight would be shifting on or between footsteps. I think this might be making the footsteps look a bit off rather than the cycle itself which is not meant to be super accurate but light and fun.
Amazing as always Christ. Especially the tail/trunk an the walk cycle does look good but maybe on the loop it’s a bit choppy? When it first starts? The legs seem to overlap a bit but I’m just being critical. The piece looks amazing, graphically and as an animation, congratulations
Thanks Peter, The choppy start is because there’s no preloader and while it’s loading (only 36k) the rest of the page is loading with other SWFs - so much of that choppiness is bandwith overhead.
Hello Chris,
I am from Bulgaria ( East Europe) . I am delighted with your book “How to cheat in Adobe Flash CS3″.
Thank you for your directions.
My modest opinion for Bilbo ( here ) : The good spirits is it’s the mostly advantage. Congratulations.
I’m sure you did this for a client but, is there any way you could post for download a .fla file and a video tutorial of this type of animation? We’d really appreciate this. Thank you very much in advance.
Chris Georgenes (jor-JEE-ness), started life like most humans, covered in placenta and with minimal motor skills. It was not long before he learned how to use both hands and feet as a groove-oriented drummer in a variety of rock bands. Upon standing fully erect, Chris attended a fine art school and received his B.F.A. Years later someone invented the Internet and then another person invented Flash. Riding on the coat tails of these two individuals, Chris was able to carve a unique niche for himself using both tools. His self-taught animation experiments were the stepping stones of what has become a regular source of income.
this is a good example of how gradients CAN work and look good. the trunk is a good example of how shape tweens can look good same goes for the tail (those are shape tweens, right?). i also love jolly big animals with tiny hats but sadly the walk cycle is wrong. look at the second front leg (or what do elephants walk on?). it doesnt look right to me. otherwise the animation is very fine with all its motion.
MarkPorter at Mar 4, 08 at 4:15 am
I guess the tail is fbf.
It looks generally good, but I msut second what mark said: the legs are wrong somehow. For me, it seems that while the left legs are on the floor, both of the right are in the air (of course they are as it’s the same on the left side where it’s more obvious duuh). I’m not sure if it’s right, but I can remember that an elephant has only one leg in the air at any time (when they walk slowly). Ok, sure a cartoon style animal does not have to be the same as a real one.
I think it’s very difficult to make a slow animal fast and that’s what you tried and that’s why it looks (better to say feels) a bit strange. The walkcycle itself is good, but I don’t think it’s the right one for that elephant.
Other thing: shouldn’t that shadow become bigger as the body bounces downwards?
argh, i sound like I hate it, but that’s not true. The trunk and the tail are awesome, same as the face expression, the ears …and the hat, too of course… =)
good work.
milchreis at Mar 4, 08 at 4:52 am
Thanks guys for the top-notch comments. yeah the legs are a bit off from a real-world elephant walk - I may tweak them for sure. There’s very little tweening overall. The tail is FBF and the body/trunk was animated in Anime Studio, specifically its “Bones” tool. Everything else, like I said, was FBF animation. Thanks again for your comments.
chris at Mar 4, 08 at 10:10 am
WAIT you can use bones in anime studio and export it as SWF. can you even save as FLA? im a bit impressed about this. also ive tried anime studio but i have to admit i was too stupid for it. also i exported the tutorial that comes with it (the starter file. its some anime boy. the bones work SO GREAT) and it seemed pixellated in the export so it didnt seem like it uses vectors to me.
MarkPorter at Mar 4, 08 at 11:09 am
@milchreis: oh haha I KNOW WHAT YOU MEAN. i often DONT like giving away my opinion about something because when i don’t praise it and point out things that dont seem correct about it it will sound like i hate it while i only want to help and share my opinion. also i had seen the ear before but i just noticed how funny they look like and how wrong they are. they look a bit like wings- funny
MarkPorter at Mar 4, 08 at 11:15 am
@MarkPorter: Yeah, Anime Studio is great for this - just export as an SWF and import into Flash. But you should know:
1. export the artwork from Flash as an AI file.
2. import the AI into Anime Studio (there will be an RGB to CMYK conversion issue)
3. animate it using Bones (not hard)
4. export to SWF/import into Flash
5. Turn on Edit Multiple Frames and change the color across all keyframes in 1 click.
I love all of your comments - very constructive and that is why I put the animation out there
As for the ears and overall style - I wasn’t trying to create an anatomically accurate elephant (obviously), but rather “borrowed” elements from an elephant and created my own take on an elephant cartoon character - something with a little style and attitude. I like when characters are recognizeable but are inventive just the same.
chris at Mar 4, 08 at 11:30 am
Hey Chris!
It’s finally nice to see some animation of this guy. The gradients work perfectly and look really nice especially for this design. There are a couple things i think can be fixed to improve the animation.
1) The legs walking at one point, are in the air alittle too long. It sort of looks like there isn’t any inbetween. I think if you just kept a constant walk to it it would look much better.
2) The hat bouncing up and down looks alittle unnatural. The hat looks like it’s popping off his head instead of moving because of the walkcycle. The hat looks almost like it’s moving itself. I think because the body only moves up very little, the hat should only move up alittle bit. It also seems alittle unpredictable. Walkcycles are very predictable since there are only X amount of frames re-repeating over and over. I think the hat is a funny character asset so definitely keep it. Maybe if you exaggerate the body moving alittle more, then the hat bounce will look more natural.
3) The nose is awesome as far as design goes, but the animation seems alittle odd. If you maybe had it move with the walkcycle and to keep in mind the inner biological parts. It seems to be moving not erratically, but when it moves I can’t keep up with at which point it will bend. A swing can rotate as much or as little as it possibly can, but you know the center point of the rotation is at the top where the swing meets the frame.
4) The lower part of the jaw seems to change volume and mass, looks alittle strange.
I’m no expert, but that’s just what comes to mind when I see the cycle. The tail looks great, the design is killer, the ear moving is awesome, just those couple things i think can need improving. Take anything i saw with 2 cents, if you feel I’m wrong, don’t change anything…
Stephen Levinson at Mar 4, 08 at 3:05 pm
In the “may be misconstrued as blowing sunshine” department, one of the reasons I love learning from Chris is that, even though he’s written books, done multiple training videos, lectured at FlashForward… he throws animations out there for the community to pick at, and appreciates the criticism. That’s the sign of a professional, right there.
I tend to agree with my fellow above posters about the legs in the walk cycle… I wonder if Muybridge ever did elephants…
I love everything else, great character, great style.
Zebulon at Mar 4, 08 at 6:47 pm
Chris, were you listening to any particular music while you were animating this? Because Bilbo is incredibly in-sync with Lenny Kravitz’s “If I Could Fall In Love” from the Blue Crush soundtrack. Nice. LOL
I think he is adorable as hell. Maybe yeah, the little tick in his walk, but I still love him!!!
Kicking butt and taking names as usual Chris……
TM at Mar 4, 08 at 8:45 pm
@Stephen Levinson: thanks for the advice, appreciate it - I agree, the legs need tweaking. The hat is a little too bouncy for the lack of body movement. The nose has a mind all its own
I spent about 45 minutes on this walk cycle and should have spent more like 90-120. part of my problem is squeezing stuff in between client projects - so I end up rushing things a bit.
@Zebulon: Thanks for the kind words - I honestly regard myself as a glorified hack, riding on the coat tails of the true animation talents before me
@TM: I was listening to music - often am while working, but it was a Tower of Power song (What is Hip?).
chris at Mar 4, 08 at 10:55 pm
Are you asking me what is hip today?? like I know? I am playing a mixed playlist of DISCO, Linkin Park, Whitesnake, Hooty & The Carpenters to name a few. LOL!!! Oh wait, I looked up that name you posted, it’s a real group and song. I listened to the track. wow, now I can boldly admit the Turtles (Happy Together) are on my list.
you kill me! LOL
TM at Mar 4, 08 at 11:28 pm
I made some tweaks (reflected in the current animation).
The legs have been re-worked slightly.
The body bounce more exaggerated.
The bouncing hat has been adjusted.
Shadow now grows/shrinks.
For now I think I’m going to move on and do a couple more walkcycles (slow. tired walk, tip-toe on hind legs, etc…).
chris at Mar 5, 08 at 10:17 am
the walk looks much better now.
milchreis at Mar 5, 08 at 10:42 am
“he throws animations out there for the community to pick at, and appreciates the criticism. That’s the sign of a professional, right there.”
wonderfully said.
@TM: I was listening to music - often am while working, but it was a Tower of Power song (What is Hip?).
First lessen in Animator’s Survival Kit: UNPLUG! (look it up if you have the book)
MarkPorter at Mar 5, 08 at 11:23 am
Unplug - very true! It’s an obvious difference in the ability to concentrate when there are no sounds at all - but that’s not usually a luxury I have unless it is late at night - I work from home in a very busy house - even with a relatively secluded basement office, the sounds of high energy children can be heard (and often felt) directly above me through the floor joists. Often I am forced to have some amount of white noise to drown out the jarring jolts of kids jumping and bouncing off the walls directly above me.
chris at Mar 5, 08 at 12:25 pm
Love his trunk & tail movement! and just the look on his big smiley face.
TM at Mar 5, 08 at 5:26 pm
I usually work in total silence and do not realize it until the end of the day or someone enters the room. I wouldn’t hear it anyway. I happened to have music on the other day because I had a break and needed to PLUG IN!! Hence, landing on your site in addition to music.
I “scanned” over your comment, hence my initial reply. My bad. But thanks for the repeat. No need for me to worry about my A.D.D., you got me covered. LOL
TM at Mar 5, 08 at 5:34 pm
cool character and cool walk cycle
WayToon at Mar 5, 08 at 11:46 pm
Your comment hei love music- i love music a lot. it means everything to me but i cant animate or work with music on. i used to work in some ad agency and they would often have the radio on- it wasnt even loud but very silent so you would automatically concentrate on the music. you know it was so silent you wouldnt hear it if you were normally thinking so your ears would automatically adjust and you would concentrate on that silent music- VERY annoying. im glad i can work at a company without music but sometimes when it gets too silent ill put my headphones on and work and i am not the only one that does so. when i am at home music is nice to listen to when i DRAW- i cant listen to music when i do animations- especially because most of my animations are about dialogs and i have to listen to the dialogs listening to music would be an impossible task. i love a lot of music but often when i draw music with great LYRICS doesn’t help. i will just automatically sing along if its a catchy song or sing the lyrics along in my head which doesn’t help if you try to draw something or do something else (like code) so I personally think electro (air) and idm (boards of canada) is the best music for ME when i work but also want to enjoy music (maybe we should have a topic about this on the forum and hear everybody’s opinion on that. since im at work i cant recall my password and post on the forum).
oh BY THE WAY i love working at night simply because nobody bugs me then. its SILENT and i know nobody will come into my room. its WONDERFUL. maybe thats why many authors write their stories in some house in the middle of nowhere (canada).
i also love how offtopic the whole thing has become but still people talk- that elephant was a great conversation starter
MarkP0rter at Mar 6, 08 at 4:37 am
I like the Bilbo walk cycle it looks very funny and spontaneous. Great work!!
Cochesaurus at Mar 6, 08 at 10:31 am
@Cochesaurus: thanks for the comment and great blog yourself!
chris at Mar 6, 08 at 10:39 am
Love the character - it has a lot of personality.
My only 2 cents on the walk cycle (sorry) would be that its more of a weight issue. His mass is shifting up and down or kinda left and right (pretending you could view him top down) just slightly off to how his weight would be shifting on or between footsteps. I think this might be making the footsteps look a bit off rather than the cycle itself which is not meant to be super accurate but light and fun.
Just to repeat though this is nitpicking.
Dave H at Mar 6, 08 at 2:25 pm
Dave: thanks for your comments - i agree the body and legs could be adjusted to work better together.
chris at Mar 6, 08 at 4:21 pm
Amazing as always Christ. Especially the tail/trunk an the walk cycle does look good but maybe on the loop it’s a bit choppy? When it first starts? The legs seem to overlap a bit but I’m just being critical. The piece looks amazing, graphically and as an animation, congratulations
Peter Woodward-Court at Mar 6, 08 at 5:49 pm
Thanks Peter, The choppy start is because there’s no preloader and while it’s loading (only 36k) the rest of the page is loading with other SWFs - so much of that choppiness is bandwith overhead.
chris at Mar 6, 08 at 9:43 pm
See how awesome you are? Their referring to you as “Christ” now. LOL
TM at Mar 8, 08 at 11:44 pm
TM: Ha! I didn’t catch that - too busy walking on water I guess :p
chris at Mar 9, 08 at 11:31 am
Hello Chris,
I am from Bulgaria ( East Europe) . I am delighted with your book “How to cheat in Adobe Flash CS3″.
Thank you for your directions.
My modest opinion for Bilbo ( here ) : The good spirits is it’s the mostly advantage. Congratulations.
Irina Stoyanova at Mar 10, 08 at 3:02 am
I’ve seen him on Mojizu. Did you submit him to mojizu.com? Do you have the link to this character’s page?
Gregory Kerstine at Mar 10, 08 at 10:21 pm
found it
Gregory Kerstine at Mar 10, 08 at 10:22 pm
I’m sure you did this for a client but, is there any way you could post for download a .fla file and a video tutorial of this type of animation? We’d really appreciate this. Thank you very much in advance.
Eric at Apr 11, 08 at 5:31 pm
dec. animation… but you need to make the shadow grow/shrink because he moves up and down
Artix at Apr 14, 08 at 9:09 am