Some new stuff (WIP): Telephone desert dream

[slowtiger]

When I was ill some weeks ago I noticed some interesting images in my fever dreams, giving me the idea for a whole sequence. The first two scenes are mostly done, with some back-and-forth work to adjust the colours (second scene still has old colours):


http://www.enigmation.de/fonpan.html and http://www.enigmation.de/fonpol.html.

Everything was drawn in TVP, but the mechanical movements were done in Anime Studio. The phone handle moving in perspective was tricky. First I tried to move just one image in TVP, but the keyframer uses Z values instead of % size to change the size, which always changed the X and Y position as well - I couldn''t create a smooth steady movement that way. (If there is a better way, please enlighten me.)

I created that movement in AS then (for those interested in a detailed description: http://www.lostmarble.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=14925) and re-imported it into TVP to trace the handle again.

I also used these scenes to get organized a bit better: now I have named colour palettes, and some more chalks and brushes to my taste. I also manage to create lively textured areas now. With the animation of that guy I tried to get more loosely, but this still needs work. At least everything fits together nicely!

(Yes, I know Yves Tanguy and Salvador Dalí, and love them. But this telephone still is my own invention...)

[Elodie]

Wow, you really make weird dreams =p

I like the animation. The mood reminds me a lot "Dali's paintings" (sorry :p). By the way, have you ever seen "Destino" ?

Nevertheless, it's quite interesting Slowtiger =)

[ZigOtto]

... First I tried to move just one image in TVP, but the keyframer uses Z values instead of % size to change the size, which always changed the X and Y position as well - I couldn''t create a smooth steady movement that way. (If there is a better way, please enlighten me.)

not sure to get what you mean by "steady", but instead Z, you can keyframe the % size as well in tvpa,
also, the phone handle could be first cut as custombrush (+ optimized) before keyframing it,
or alternatively, set the layer's pivot point where the perspective vanishing point is located,
then use the Size percent (Keep Ratio ticked) to animate in the perspective .
2 Keys and a polynomial speed-curve would do the trick .

btw, amazing scenes indeed !

[slowtiger]

you can keyframe the % size as well in tvp

That's what I suspected, but I couldn't find it. Have to try again (just to see if it's doable).

have you ever seen "Destino" ?

Just recently, and after I had that dream. But Dalís images are familiar to me since childhood. Our local library had a small cormer crammed with art books, and I spent many afternoons there browsing nearly every book. Another of my favourites were Max Ernst's collage books, you'll immediately recognize this if you watch the cutout animation on my website.

"Destino" was kind of disappointing, partly because it was done with CGI, without any attempt to tweak the shiny slick surface to something more organic or painterly. It maybe would have been a sensation if finished in its time, but today the whole imagery looks prettily dated.

[Animark]

Hey, cool. I like that animation and your alter ego as well . Those old "Dream of the Rarebit Fiend" made by Winsor McCay comes to my mind, while watching it.

In the Phone Pan Szene (the first one) I would like to see the clouds moving a little bit slower.

And I testet to make the perspective movement in TVP with a simple box. I used one layer with the box and animated it on another layer using the keyframer position and size parametres. I also manipulated the speed profile curve extremely. The results are good.

By the way, I teached Anime Studio the last weeks and my students didn`t liked it a lot. Now we came back to TVPaint . However, I like Anime Studio anyway, but I think, you don't need it for the movements in your clips.

[slowtiger]

It's not about "this software can't do what I want", it's more like "it happens that I got a result there first". From my years of experience in graphic design I know that there's always more than one way to do something, and more than one software being able to do it. (That's a good test to spot a rookie: he may know a solution for every problem - but for each problem he only knows one solution, and is lost when a certain software is not available.)

Last night I re-worked the other scene as well, changing the colours and everything. One would expect this to be a tedious task, but it went amazingly fast to re-paint all elements. I didn't had to touch the animation at all, just replace elements. I didn't even had to redo the erasing on the stakes where they go behind the receiver - just used the old layer as a stencil and let TVP do the rest.

Old and new version:


I'm quite satisfied with the result by now, I like the painterly quality - and that is something I thought I would never achieve. Colours are hard to figure out for me.

In 100% size you can see each "brush" stroke:

[CartoonMonkey]

Just gorgeous work! Really beautiful.
C