The creative force behind Mind Candy has created an awesome new interactive website called Moshi Monsters. I was hired early on to help develop and animate the first few monsters. Since then the in-house team has built an impressive world of characters and games that sets the ‘user-experience’ bar pretty high. One of Mind Candy’s fulltime animators is our own keyframer forum regular Ranoka (Ben Palczynski) who is quite a force all his own. Another super-talented keyframer regular who contributed to the Moshi Monster world is Stephen Brooks (a.k.a. Rubberonion).
Stoopid Movie has some wonderful animated moments by some very talented animation students - although a bit on the adolescent side of humour, I felt it was worth posting. But if it isn’t your cup of tea, definitely hang out for the 2nd animation; Barfy the Pig in ‘A Day at the Park’. It’s blunt force trauma at its best - and what I consider a wonderful example of great timing in animation - besides, the squeaky toy sound effect is so over done it has to make you laugh
We got pretty jazzed up when my wife and I went to NYC to see a broadway play as part of her epic bounty of Christmas gifts this year. Besides seeing a great show and getting to meet her favorite actress afterward, we also witnessed first hand the fruits of my labor with an animation project I did last year for one of the huge digital billboard advertisements in Times Square. The project was with The Wow Factor who contracted me to animate a scene depicting an apartment facade that featured several characters interacting with each other with a common thread being Coca-Cola bottles that they ultimately partake collectively. I enlisted the animation talent of Ben Palczynski who helped me with some of the character animation. I was pretty excited to see it after all this time and it looks awesome, bigger than life and as bright as, well…a digital billboard in Times Square.
With the new year comes a new look - not because I didn’t like the previous look, I just think change is healthy sometimes. I needed a brighter look and feel for this site with hopes that it reflects the year ahead. I will also be upgrading wordpress this week so expect a few glitches along the way. Happy new year to all.
Just a new character I used in my Flash animation session at the Best in the SW conference in New Mexico last month. I used this example to show how to combine multiple techniques such as motion tweens, shape tweens, frame-by-frame animation and filters. I will probably use this same example in a future video tutorial series.
I consider this FOL (fact of life) and something that simply happens when your work becomes accessible via the world wide web. In most cases I find it very flattering when I see someone using my work for educational purposes but to advertise it as their own work is something very different. The silver lining is seeing the number of downloads so far
Makes me realize how much I should be developing my own mobile content
After reviewing the current “How to Cheat in Adobe Flash CS3″, Focal Press has approved the writing of the 2nd edition! This means a total of 320 pages from the current 270. It will allow me to add more content and expand on existing examples. I’m excited about this because it will allow me to go into more detail for the examples that need it and I have plans to add more mobile content, a chapter devoted to Flash and 3D (including Swift 3D) and Flash CS4 animation features. It will also allow me to correct some of the mistakes in the 1st edition that slipped through the cracks the first time around :p
It also means a brand new cover design - which is always fun.
Toon Boom has released the successor to Solo: Digital Pro. TB asked me a year ago to kick Solo’s tires and provide them with feedback. I did and I admit to having a really hard time with Solo overall yet was very impressed with its features. My problem was trying to overcome the dizzying array of menus and buttons and panels (oh my!). But I also ran into cerebral snags with several other UI implementations (X-sheets!). I felt like I entered a foreign country and didn’t know any of the language. I understand some software programs can take time to learn, but after what accumulated to several long hours with Solo, I barely got past drawing a ball and animating a simple squash and stretch sequence. Ugh. The luxury of free time is not something I have an abundance of and I had to put my Solo education on hold in order to pay the bills (Flash).
Toon Boom listened and has now overhauled Solo into what they call Digital Pro. The UI is simpler and with over 4 hours of online video tutorials, it has become easier to learn. With features like IK, 3D stage and Glue, I can not wait to try this product again. I have downloaded and installed the personal learning edition with hopes of spending some time with it this weekend but to my dismay the program will not let me past the splash screen where it requires me to enter a license key (which I don’t have). My only other option is to close it
So for now, embracing Toon Boom software will remain a distant but hopeful goal, at which time I will surely blog about my experience with it here.
There’s an interesting article on the Cartoon Brew website that starts off with a tongue-in-cheek poke at the title of my book. This touched a sensitive nerve between the traditional animators and those that use Flash for animation. Seems that the purist pencil-hugging animators are blaming Flash for “cheapening” the entire animation industry due to its low budget nature and clean line quality. What started as an alleged light-hearted point of view turned bitter quickly for the traditional animators who felt the need to voice complaints that Flash is causing too many self-proclaimed “animators” the ability to create “moving crap”. Sure, there will always be a balance between good and bad with everything, whether it’s an animation made with Flash, a novel, the latest block-buster film, cuisine or dare I say it…traditional animation! I have seen plenty of horrible animation as well as inspirational animation regardless of the tool used to create it. Flash is arguably a more accessible product than the traditional animation process which requires exponentially more time and tens of thousands of dollars for cameras and post production equipment. With the worldwide emergence of Flash as an animation tool, it is only natural and expected that we see more animation around us everyday - good and bad. And as Martha says, isn’t that a good thing?
Is Flash the red-headed stepchild of the animation world? Has it become the “F” word of our industry? Or is this really the tool of the future when we think of animation for the web, television, film, mobile, desktop…ummm, ,oh yeah, it already is
I have never been more excited as a Flash user than I have right now. Richard Galvan, Flash Product Manager, announced at Adobe MAX and the Best in the South West conferences some of the new features they are working on for the next release of Flash (Flash CS4?). As promising as these new features look, keep in mind this is no guarantee they will make it into the final release. It is still too early to predict with any degree of certainty the success of implementing such robust animation tools - but it is sure nice knowing that the Flash engineers understand the needs of animators and is working hard to make us happy. more »
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.
