codecs...

Well today I had some time and figured I would try to do my animation justice by getting the best possible codec combination.

In the end, I have included an almost 2GB file as the HD copy of the film on the disk. It was encoded using microsoft AVI with no compression. It is great quality... but obviously unusable except as a data file on the DVD disk.

To upload onto Vimeo, I want to take advantage of their HD option which means I need to upload a video at a minimum of 1280x720. I chose to encode this in mpeg-2 and "main concept MPEG video" and scaled the output size up. This file came out at under 200mb which is quite acceptable for uploading to vimeo.

The final version which I have in my flash portfolio is a quick time video using h.264. I had some troubles exporting using h.264 earlier where it would clip scenes by 1 or 2 frames which made some scenes look a little strange especially where vidoes had been cut. There were quite a number of scenes where the interlacing looked really poor so I went through my entire video and under field option changed it to "remove flicker" which removed the worst of the interlacing.

Final submission.

I finally got around to looking at the final submission requirements yesterday after finishing my animation. I was a little surprised because... well I had forgotten what we actually had to submit. That is ok because I had left myself enough time between doing the animation and handing the assignment in.

After a quick email, I settled on what would be included in each of the 4 sections.

CD - Flash Folio, HD version of film, Promo Posters, Booklet and Insert as PDFs.

Flash folio - Company info and bios, synopsis, character info, competitions, and the film of course.

Insert - Company logo, company bio, synopsis, characters, credits.

Booklet - cover, company info, bios, synopsis, storyboard, characters, productions stills, credits.

Now all I've got to do is hop to it.

Final version of short animation will be uploaded when I can encode it in quicktime at uni, currently it is an uncompressed 2gig .avi :-S

Done?

1. blood splatter ✔
2. fix zoom into zoo scene ✔

3. "Humph" before ZK tells off ponto ✔

4. Delay the arm ✔

5. Eyes move to top right + back again ✔

6. DVD cover move paws + main image ✔

7. ZK looking over jim scene, change expression - shocked? angry?✔
8. eating noises ✔
9. Shorten length of eating shot ✔

10. Fix sneak + run ✔ - Well I decided to leave the run, but I added a few extra frames to the sneak

11. Fix writing on book page ✔

+

11. Fix the disappearing food specks when Jim eats ✔

12. Add more blood! Heaps more blood, there is stacks of blood now ! ✔

13. Added a swallowing sound for when Ponto swallows a nice chunk of Jim's leg ✔

14. Fix the weird thing with Jim's arms when he is eating.

Last thing to do is finish off the "gag scene" with the Nurse.

Rather excited to have it all finished.

An Intro!

http://vimeo.com/12312168

An Intro?

I got some feedback from Lisa this morning regarding the latest cut and she pointed out that it was lacking an intro. Uh Oh! She made the point that it having the film just start is a bit strange, and it needs at least a title. So I started making a quick intro, it is very basic, just a few seconds. I wanted an intro that would continue the style of the animation I currently have. I opted for a, somewhat cliche' ye olde style theatre curtains opening intro.

Video to come :-P

Thick and fast

Updates!

1. blood splatter ✔
2. fix zoom into zoo scene ✔

3. "Humph" before ZK tells off ponto ✔

4. Delay the arm ✔

5. Eyes move to top right + back again ✔

6. DVD cover move paws + main image

7. ZK looking over jim scene, change expression - shocked? angry? ✔
8. eating noises ✔
9. Shorten length of eating shot ✔

10. Fix sneak + run

11. Fix writing on book page

Just the two walk cycles left and it is all done...Though I am still contemplating adding a "gag" scene right at the very end, post credits. Something short and snappy, just a shot of the Nurse looking happy.

On another note I seem to spend more time in Premiere nudging clips around by 1/4 of a second here and 1/3 of a second there getting the timing just right. I re-did the ZK looking over Jim scene with different expressions 4 times this evening before I got one which I am both happy with and is a compromise between the strange looks he was having before and the more frustrated anger he has when he is telling Ponto off.

Things left to do

Well I "finished" my animation last night. All the scenes are completed and it runs through and eve has credits. Bon!

BUT I have in front of me a check list which I compiled of things which still need doing... it reads:

(Ticks are next to the ones I have done so far)

1. blood splatter ✔
2. fix zoom into zoo scene ✔

3. "Humph" before ZK tells off ponto

4. Delay the arm

5. Eyes move to top right + back again

6. DVD cover move paws + main iamge

7. ZK looking over jim scene, change expression - shocked? angry?
8. eating noises ✔
9. Shorten length of eating shot ✔

10. Fix sneak + run

11. Fix writing on book page

So I still have a few bits and pieces to do before Tuesday... BUT with my entire flash presentation already completed and just waiting for the final cut of the video to be rendered... well I am fairly confident I will be getting enough sleep this week to at least appear human.

Eating scene

I am glad I showed Hugh what I had completed so far on my animation on Tuesday because he gave me 3 pieces of advice.

1. The eating scene was too long
2. Jim's sneak doesn't look right
3. Jim's run doesn't look right


Today I solved the first of these issues by adding a big burp at the end of the eating scene. With the sounds of Jim eating and a burp at the end, it helps to show how much of a little brat this kid is.

Ponto eating Jim

Well after many hours of tweening and moving and fine tuning and exporting and Premiereing I have a short video to show of Jim being eaten.

http://vimeo.com/12228904

I might change the position + size of the splats. might also tinker with the speed of Jim's arms before he gets eaten.

Slow mo?

Well I wasn't planning on having a slow-mo scene in my animation... but it seems due to the timing of the poem, Jim is now going to be eaten in super slow motion...