Import flash puppet into toon boom animate [Part 1]

A few days ago I posted an image of a robot puppet work in progress. Before I spent more time finessing that one puppet though, I needed to figure out it is going to come into Toon Boom Animate Pro without any hiccups. So, I spent a good part of the weekend and today trying to figure out how to properly import a flash puppet into Animate Pro.
I started off by importing one of the finished puppets from my digicel 1 class final project from August 2010. I had intended for this to be entirely animated in flash and thus went all out. There were movie clips with effects applied to them nested inside graphic symbols. The graphic symbols themselves had different poses on different frames that I could select. So far, I only knew that Animate Pro had a pretty slick drawing substitution implementation. I was hoping the importer would be smart enough to figure out the flash substitutions just fine. However, the importer was far from smart. Saying "It did not go well" would be an understatement. Here is what my puppet looked like:

Yes, he was half naked, missing his glasses, and hands. Few things stood out immediately.

• Toon Boom Animate Pro will not import symbols that are movie clips and have effects applied to them.
• Animate Pro will not recognize your flash 'alternate drawings' or drawing substitution. The drawing substitutions panel is outright dumb. Observe exhibit B: A shoe substitution for the backpack.

The others however, I was left guessing at. I first tried shorter symbol names. I removed guide layers in the symbols, and I removed excess frames from inside my hands since I wasn't going to be able to use them anyways. I flattened the artwork (I have a habit of working in layers) and made all the symbols (even with multiple colors/shapes) one layer. But still, this:

• Remove excess frames from inside the symbol timeline.
• Remove guide layers
• One layer artwork.

Here, I had just one layer for the hands; just one fill and one outline. To further simplify it, I took the darker outline out of the hands. Even though it made them look like amorphous blobs, I just had to get something in there. And I succeeded. (I removed the backpack and water bottle because they weren't necessary here)

• Remove outline
• No masks/Masking

The glasses and the eyes were the final piece of the puzzle. I did way too many things with the glasses to list here. And the real value is in telling what my big discovery was. It didn't matter how many colors or layers there were in the artwork, the problem was with lines. Once I used "Modify > Shape > Convert lines to fills" in flash, it imported just fine! Who coulda thunk it?

• Toon Boom Animate Pro cannot import flash artwork that has lines.
• Animate Pro will only import artwork that is all fill.

So even if you just sort of skimmed through the article, if you only remember the bulleted points, you'll save some of your hair from turning grey when you're trying to import flash puppet into Toon Boom Animate Pro.

Because I think this is already enough information to type(for me) and swallow,(for you) I will post part two of this tomorrow or something.

Robot character design for 2D production

Here is a work in progress image of my robot puppet being done in flash. I had intended to animate this guy in Animate Pro. However, looking at the puppet now, I think I might have made a mistake with the character design considering my medium.

Because he is such a boxy character, a lot of perspective comes into play. Shapes will look different when his arms and feet are moving about. Doing a very convincing walk with him could be difficult.

I would appreciate any suggestions or cheats to make this work.

Hollywood racism in Lion King

Let me just get this out of the way: I am not going to be talking about the alleged "stereotyping" in the casting of hyena characters' voice actors. I think it is fair that there were also two protagonist characters Mufasa and Rafiqi voiced by African Americans.

While in Orlando this last weekend, I happened to see a little bit of The Lion King in the bus that transported us back from Universal resort to the hotel. And I started to think back to this discovery channel show about lions. The scientists were trying to figure out what kind of physical traits attract a female lion to a male lion. They made two stuffed life size lion dolls, one with dark black mane and the other with brown-blonde hair. Then they observed the lionesses from a distance. The lionesses just could not get enough of the dark haired lion dummy. Even lingering around and biting the dummy long after they had realized that he is not real as he wasn't reacting to them or even moving a muscle.

My point being, in the wild, dark haired lion is more desirable. However, the makers of Lion King, going with American conventions, had to make the protagonist light haired or 'caucasian' and the antagonist, dark haired—pretty much everything outside America to the south or east… or south east of Greece. Arabs, Indians, Koreans, pick whatever you want. I was also surprised that I couldn't find another blog post talking about this. So chime in on what you feel.

More 2D animation pencil test

Super excited to be starting this quarter because I am working in 2D animation again. This is the first pencil test of the quarter, Mushu(dragon from Mulan) head turn assignment. This obviously needs some fixes and I will fix it because the assignment isn't due till Wednesday.

Waking Sleeping Beauty

You know how the internet is… Some trend catches on like wild fire and creates a buzz for a while. Then it dies down and everyone forgets about it. Waking sleeping beauty is a documentary film by Don Hahn that was originally screened back in september 09 at Telluride film festival. It was talked about on all animation and movie review blogs. Eventually, people would stop talking about it.

But I got to watch the movie earlier this quarter at SCAD and had to write a field trip report for Charles DaCosta's class. Here is my paper which I finished last week.


I remember I first heard about Waking Sleeping Beauty on Mark Mayerson’s Blog when it screened at the Toronto international film Festival. It quickly left my mind as I finished my fall quarter finals and went on vacation. Early spring quarter, we got assigned our field trip which was to go watch Waking Sleeping Beauty at the Trustee’s Theater at SCAD. As all the great things I’d read about it on animation blogs started coming back to me, I got very excited that we would get to see this documentary.
I knew I had heard Don Hahn’s name before, and I realized I own the book he compiled from Walt Stanchfield’s lectures on figure drawing. He has also worked at Disney with Professor Troy G. And his page on IMDB page is full of fond names from mine and many of my peers’ childhood. This documentary is his debut as a feature director. Waking Sleeping beauty is a documentary about the revival of animation at Disney from 1980s to 1990s. He would also answer questions after the screening.
The theater was jam packed with students, all animation junkies I presume. This was much bigger turnout than I had expected. I arrived a little late and quietly found myself a seat towards the end of the theater. And I was gripped by the movie from the get go. Being the animation nerd that I am also helped I am sure. The movie only used archived video interviews on screen. Interviews specifically conducted for the film were played as voice overs while funny and captivating imagery was played on screen.
The story started off by talking about the time when Disney was in shambles. None of the movies were the success everyone hoped they’d be. The animators were beginning to lose hope and thought their days at Disney were numbered. Through home video footage we see animators staging a zombie apocalypse enactment in the studio. It was a nightmare scenario for these animators who were ripped apart from their ‘home’ their old studio and put in a new facility, uncertain of their fate.
But the magic was returned through the hands of the talented people like Eisner and katzenberg who were brought in at what was the lowest point of the company’s history. With a slew of successes from The Great Mouse Detective and Who Framed Roger Rabbit, the Disney animation era jump started again. Audiences were coming back to the theaters in hordes, the movies were making more and more money and the studio was prospering. However, all was not well.
Animators still had a very stressful life. They worked long hours as Disney resolved to release one new feature length movie each year. They hardly had time to go home. Animators spent days and nights in the studio, never saw their family and kids. This was what everyone had always told me what working in the animation industry is like. The animators made the most of what they had. The studio became their second home, their co-workers became family. They had margarita nights where they let loose.
The focus of the film shifted from the animators to the executives. The politics higher up in the company played an important role in the creative decisions of the studio. However, they did not seem to capture my interest. But it does serve as a lesson that the fate of a company can change drastically in the lack of good leadership. Also that good leaders need to keep their personal differences aside and work towards the greater good.

More Beanbag Animation

I am very glad I did not post my flag animation here. While going through everyone's flag animation in class and hearing what Troy had to say to most of them about things they needed to fix, I inherently figured out that my animation was a piece of crap and will need to be fixed a LOT if I am to get a decent grade. I guess that's what you get when you finish your work last minute.

So I will be redoing the flag. In the mean time, I wanted to get going on the assignment I enjoy more, the Bean bag. I had shown my angry jab to Aradhana and she said it just seemed like he was poking or touching something. I decided to work some other actions into it. Like he may start off with a heavy exhale like a puff and go at the poor victim. Then he turns around in another grunt when he notices something that shocks him. That's where I am at. I cannot decide on which 'fear' emotion I want to work with. the duck? cower? retreat?

And actually just typing about this, I figured I might need more of a finger wagging than a jabbing action for my bean bag. I don't quite feel up for it tonight. My throat's got me down. So until next time folks!

Bean Bag Animation

Pulled the first honest complete all nighter this quarter. Finished my flag animation, but here's something a little more intertaining (interesting+entertaining- that's my sleep deprived brain for you)

I call this Angry Jab. The first emotion my bean bag is going to act out. The entire animation has to be atleast 4 seconds with 3 distinct emotions. I mapped it out to anger the first second, then transition(shock) and 2nd emotion(fear) for the rest.

Gotta go catch the bus now.

If I had seen this last night, I wouldn't have gone home.

The backstory goes something like this... I came to Montgomery hoping to get some kick-ass (my ass kicking) work done over the course of the night. I animated a few frames of the flag and shot it and it was extremely disappointing. Not just disappointing, it was actually terribly demotivating. I was not enjoying it at all. I knew very little to try to apply to the assignment I was working on. I had been there for only about two and a half hours. So I decided to plough through for a little bit more.

I switched gears and started working on the bean bag animation. I was enjoying this much more. But still the terribly stiff and jumpy flag was poking me in the back of my mind. So rather than dealing with it, I decided to go home. Caught the last Silver B bus back to the terrace and slept it off.

But this morning when I got here, the bad taste of the flag animation was long gone. I captured my keys and looked at my little bean bag guy aggressively jab, jump back and finally get sad. It was such an exciting moment for me that I could not Not share it with you all. And I just wish I didn't have to go to the class now so that I could continue working on this guy.

What I've been working on at this hour...

The entire room is deserted. So very peaceful up in here. Just wish my music was with me. I just finished animating the bouncing ball. All 74 frames of it. or 27 drawings. I had some from my previous session. Doing the rest, along with making some changes to the previous drawings took me about one and a half hour tonight. This time I uploaded the video on youtube and am embedding that here because youtube gives you the option of seeing it bigger.




I removed one frame from before the first hit to make the ball seem like it was coming down faster and not sticking to the ground. I tried applying the same idea to the second bounce, and changed the frames 21(22) and 23(24) to be a little higher. I suppose this drawing will help explain some things.

 All critiques welcome.

Bouncing Tennis Ball Test01

 

Here is the result of about 45 minutes of planning/roughing/thumbnailing and animating. My first bouncing ball assignment. Done solely on the observation of a tennis ball bouncing and the few guidelines on spacing and timing given to us by Professor Troy Gustafson. 

I noticed that the ball lingers around the ground a little too long on the first bounce. I will fix it so that it immediately zooms back up. There's also more bounces to be animated. All that should be done this Sunday.

As for life drawings, I have been doodling in class and will scan them as and when I get the time.

Not accepted into animation, YET.

Yesterday, after talking to my parents and sujata, I was feeling so bad, I didn't want to go out and show anyone my face. I figured I should involve myself in something. Something that will give me instant gratification. Since sex was out of the question, (seeing as to how I don't have a girlfriend, and I refuse to ..you know.. pay for sex...) I picked up a different project. I decided to try and use my cellphone as a remote for my camera. And I spent almost all day on that. And my last blog post was a journal of the whole process.

But in the end, I was excited. I went downstairs, and brought up nick. I showed him why he couldn't use my cellphone today. (His phone's undergoing repairs) We joked and talked about the serious stuff, but this time I was ok. I was ok telling everyone that I didn't get into animation except my parents. Because I feared the aftermath. Last time I didn't quite live upto their expectations, was 12th grade. I still remember how the whole thing went down. Right in the middle of our vacation in mumbai. The look on my dad's face. The disbelief in my mom's eyes. We were in a cab, and still my dad didn't hesitate to yell at me. It was one of the worst days of my life.

A few days ago, when I was talking to mom, I could tell she was anxious about the result. But she reassured me by saying "jo hoga, hoga. tune apni poori koshish kiya na." I can't remember when anyone said something like that to me. Everyone always saw me as being the slacker. I was told things like "you'll regret not studying harder." or "I never saw you studying. you NEVER STUDY!" I always got the rap for being a lazy, distracted and vain kid. But yesterday when I told mom I didn't get in, she didn't do that. I could tell she was upset but she didn't sound at all angry. We talked briefly about the things to do now. I even told her I spent $560 dollars on a camera, and she didn't tell me I was extravagant or spendthrift.

The conversation with sujata was a whole another deal. I wanted to know how she felt about not getting into NID and studying in the creative I college. And perhaps, what I feel now, (I will forever regret not getting into sheridan animation) will change in the future, for the better. I will give my parents the chance to read "Failing forward" Might even put up some of my favourite quotes on my wall or notice board. meh. Whatever!

Sheridan Portfolio Submission

Portfolio submission finally done! I'm so relieved! I feel like blogging the whole incident. I was pretty zoned out in the beginning, because I was still sleepy, but then Oliver just comes up to me and he's really hyper because he's high on energy drinks. "HEY! Where are the Instructor guys?" And it was only 8:15 or something back then, so they were in the classroom talking/discussing. I pointed him to it, and he walks, really fast, like roadrunner, to the door, and looks in, then comes back out and says "This one girl saw me and pointed (doing action). I was like, UH, OK!" And just does the roadrunner walk again. It was SO HILARIOUS! That thing woke me up good. Even after a couple seconds, I was still thinking about it and going, "what just happened?"

Mickey was with me there. He was with me throughout the night. He helped me put together my portfolio. He said He'd wake me up in the morning, make sure I didn't sleep through the portfolio submission. But I had set alarms and so I actually woke up before him. I didn't even have anything to eat, I have this thing on my tongue since the last couple of days that just burns whenever it touches any other surface. So I just had a glass of water, and we walked to the college at around 7:50 am. This was the earliest I've been outside in a LONG LONG TIME. Anyways, it was beautiful to see the morning sun. The sun close to and during spring and summer is really beautiful. Anyways, because I was talking with Mik, time really flew by. We weren't the first ones there, but the number of people quickly grew after we arrived.

As they started collecting the photos, we went to the back of the queue. I saw Ben after a really long time.

We didn't talk for long, because I noticed Alex Zimmer. It was really exciting to see him after such a long time. Because in my head, there had always been a curiosity whether I had gotten better than him. And as he showed his portfolio to us, I realized that my portfolio does show more clearly the skills that the portfolio review people are looking for. And I was feeling a little more confident. I think I need to thank alex for this. LOL. He had put in a LOT of personal pieces. He thinks, the portfolio requirement sheet says minimum 5 personal pieces. I doubt that. Also, He put in the giant foot drawing we did in life drawing class in second semester art fundamentals. I remember Brenda had specifically told us the animation portfolio review guys don't like this drawing. So I want to wish him good luck because he'll need it.

When I got to the desk to hand in my portfolio, Harsh said he couldn't find my name. I thought he was kidding. But in a few seconds, I realized that he was actually searching for my name on the list and was unable to find it. I panicked! This could not be happening! I tried staying cool by laughing it off... yeah, like Boman Irani in munnabhai mbbs. ;) Eventually, he found my name, but he said that I hadn't registered. OMG! this would mean that I could even come back tomorrow and drop off my portfolio! But I didn't want to take a chance with that and I just wanted it to get over with. So I handed it in. My  portfolio number was 333. Well, someone had to get three threes, but I was really excited that it was me. I talked to lisa I think and she was telling me in china, 444 is considered an unlucky number, as it stands for death!

Warning: Some offensive content.

I've been to life drawing every day from monday to thursday. Sometimes I even went to the 7 o clock one after the 6 pm session ended. I don't remember what day it was, but Ron was our model, and there was a really interesting conversation going on, which I HAD to blog about. But since internet wasn't working, I couldn't. Today, internet is back on so here I go.

Ron was talking about how a degree in animation is meaningless. I think the conversation started on the topic of english requirement for the program... Anyways, he said, "a degree in animation is like a degree in giving blowjob(I hope he was talking about girls) People only care how well you do it, they don't wanna know if you have a certificate saying tht you can give a blowjob." Which I think is extremely hilarious. Aw COME ON stop scoffing at me for this one line! I already warned you in the title! Back to the topic, he said, "all this confusion was probably because animation was a relatively new field." upon hearing this, I went "huh?" I didn't expect someone here in canada, at sheridan college where they've been teaching animation for a couple decades to say its a 'new discipline'. But what he said next, made that point clear. "Illustration has been around for centuries. Even before people started writing books, there were illustrations to tell people stories or a message." He's right... look at the ancient Egyptian wall paintings... Someone else prompted, "Animation has only been around since 1920." And I decided I should tell this to my parents... they'll really get a kick out of this.

They would have wanted me to be a doctor or an engineer... Medicine has been practiced for ages. Long before people discovered moving images, and the need to entertain themselves watching cartoons, they needed to cure all the diseases that befall humanity. Engineering has developed ever since man stepped out of a cave. (that's my assumption!) Fine arts has been around for really long too. but not in the form of animation. Leonardo da Vinci's drawings, I think are fit to be called illustrations, maybe technical illustrations. But they were not moving images... I can't think right off the back of my head who created the first 'moving image' drawing. If anyone out there knows, or takes the time to find out, please let me know.

Now, I must sleep. All that snow shoveling has made me tired. And all the okra eating made me sleepy...lol.