Armature frustrations, remaining work

Getting down to the nitty gritty, I have constructed a to-do list (things I have yet to do to complete my animation). I would definitely wager that the animation is more than half way complete, and while the remaining items are difficult, they can take less time.

Armatures cannot and should not be duplicated in Flash unless the movie clip or graphic ITSELF is duplicated. I had a scene in which a girl moves her arms, however, going back to the scene, the arms were missing and legs were in their place, doing a totally different motion in another area of the stage. Armatures will be used for many upcoming movements.

to-do list at this point:

*Animating anywhere from 2-7 characters in 7 scenes (complete with environments that have been, for the most part, finished)

*adding additional effects to all scenes (9 of them), perhaps shadows

*Finding a title for the film

*Implementing 4 additional (very short) so-called "legacy" scenes, in which characters photos merge into events in the story and vise versa.

*Making a transition from the hardship phases to the legacy scenes (for the sake of flow)

*Credits, which WILL BE a series of shots involving animation (incorporating end credits with a tasteful animated sequence of motorhome travel).

*SOUNDTRACK INTEGRATION, a potentially enjoyable problem, considering the different solutions

*SOUND EFFECTS...have to be prudent with this one, because the music will fade in and out, and should not be obstructed by particularly loud noises.

(some all-nighters may be coming, even though I am theoritically on schedule and realized that the sound integration process should only be a 2-day ordeal instead of a week and a half).

Armatures and my animation

If you take two graphics and break them apart TWICE, you can then proceed to create an armature for those two pieces (this is incredibly helpful when putting together an arm for a humanoid character.

My animation has plenty of character work left to go, but initial constructions of characters can be used in other scenes.....just tingling with excitement here...as I imagine other animators in 424 are also doing. I am a bit all over the place now, working on several scenes at once. Audio considerations are still in the thinking phase.

revisiting with the class

Above are screen shots from scenes in my animation. The title of this movie is still a WORKING TITLE. I am at odds on what to call this, let alone how to structure the soundtrack for this flick.

Making a quick presentation of where I was at to the animation 424 class on Friday, it definitely appears that there is much more to be done and considerations to make (audio, character animation, time frames, etc.). However, there was good feedback and I am fired up to continue with the process.

Title and story flow for animation

I still need a concrete title for this piece. Anything I come up with is either cheesy or not accurately representaitonal of the visuals and overall theme. Another problem arises when considering the flow from the hardship segment of the animation to the finale shots. How do I go from one to the other with minimal or no text and smooth transition.

Not too excited about this mid-showing of the animation this Friday....totally incomplete and revealing, but that's show biz, the feedback could be immensely valuable.

Above are images of the family motorhome used for merging, rotoscoping, and animation purposes in this process.

character problems

I am highly considering the idea of rotoscoping from photos of family members in order to animate the people in the animation. Using frame by frame (after rotoscoping in Flash or Illustrator), I can then build movement and emotion off of the more accurate rotoscoped characters.