melvi:

Yep,anime style cause its easier and faster.

smart move. japs used to use tricks like panning still images  and using few or even no inbetweens in shots because they started just like you. learning from established western cartoons, little budget and mostly self thought. fortunately for them it gave birth to some distinct animation and camera moves that they still use today after they have overcome those problems and that made anime very unique. who knows you might come up with something unique too.

i've not used photoshop to animate before but i just curious does it allow you to scrub the pencil tests to see the animation as you go like classic animatiors flip their sketches or how you scrub the timeline or sketches like in other digimation softwares? if it does cool. if not then im afraid its of a great hinderance to your potential. im just trying to imagine you animating based on layers alone. but i see you nailed some lipsync at the end of the clip so perhaps it does.

great improvement. thats quite a lot of work you put in melvi. i can see you are going for anime style all the way.  the main things i think need improving are easing in and out of poses and of course more frames which quite understandably is so as you dont have any inbetweeners. other than that as a fellow 2d animator i'd say you are on the right track because 2 d (proper) is quite challenging. keep up the good work.

thats nice man. keep the flag flying. man don't worry you'll make the top 3 sooner than you know it. just keep practicing. i'v made it my wall paper for the day.

whats wrong with photoshop?

thanks aphek . geek! . anyways i dont think i need quicktime to be able to see the animation one frame at a time .i could just do that in max while i animate. but i get your point. didn't  have time to smoothen out the step interpolation and tweak some poses as i would have wanted. was planning to take a second stab at it but kinda lost interest. probably due to lack of criticism. but i kinda feel the zeal to finish it burgeoning. thanks to quicktime.

zPixel:

but i think the whole thing is kind of fast.

my thoughts exactly when i looked at it again earlier today. i had even done a slower version already.

zPixel:

i can see you've picked up 3d back, 

abi e don tey! just had to do something before i open max one day and realize i dont know anything anymore.

ok here it it(i think)

woops video missin. will upload later

here's a little something i did last night before bed.took about 3 to 4 hours. still a lot of cleaning to do. just experimenting with step interpolation for blocking then smoothing and tweaking it after wards. post updates later

oh ugo is a co moderator now. good move. you surely have enthusiasm. can only be good for the forum.

nice stuff. goodluck with the graphic novel and exibition. we need more stuffs like these.

guys give him a break he's finally trying to help the graphic video section. lets not discourage him. i not sure what benefits there is to it either but if we dont like this idea lets suggest better ones.

OKX:

cool. But dont develop a reliance on mocap data.
It removes rather than adds to your skill set as an animator.

Realistic animation is tuff 4 sure but hey,if u r looking 4 an easy way out-take up gardening.lol

or maybe sell recharge cards lol.

hi optimus okx (my nick name for you okx for championing 3d animation on this forum) i have been insanely busy of late working on a current project which is why i have'nt been active on the thread. just catching a sallah day breather. anyway there's a lot of good stuff here but most have already been addressed so i would just say something about the clerk walk cycle. i like the slight sense of weight the character exudes. my main crit, everything seems too keyposed. i mean the interpolation is quite nice and there doesn't seem to be any crazy tangents on the curves but everything is happening on the same time. organic characters rarely move like that. try adding some over lap so the motion doesn't all happen at the same time maybe by delaying some of the motion at some points like the return of the hips and/or hands. but then you mentioned you haven't worked on the arms yet so maybe thats what my eye is picking up. keep up the good work.

well i personally don't know anyone else who knows better about foreign forums and sites relating to graphics and video more than zpixel. so i don't think he's talking about local forums either. i also dont think your racism theory holds water. i get nothing but positive feedback and constructive criticism from the foreign forums im part of. racism certainly did'nt prevent zpixel winning 4th in an international competition
http://www.mofilm.com/competitions/lff2010/
check under closeup

interesting stuff. please keep it up.

ludnid:

tribute to allah

nice work lunid. can you please spell Allah with a capital A.

interesting. time shall tell.

AdamuW:

We also didn't think we'd be able to do the lip synching as well.

i just want to add to that we actually knew we could do the lip sync as we have handled complex lip sync before, we just didnt think we had the time to do proper lip sync with phonemes and a basic muppet lip sync just wouldn't just cut it hence the decision to rely on narration as we then planned not to do any lip sync at all! but as mentioned we later on experimented and turns out a basic lip sync without proper phonemes was quite sufficient particularly for this style of animation(always wondered how Japanese anime's always got away with that). we are now already working on the multiple voices and we should be recording by the end of the week.

melvi:

You guys need to work on the colour quality of the cartoon(I am guessing you had to compress the file size uploaded on youtube maybe).I would suggest comparing it with other animes.Also shade the characters with a darker colour of the colours as it will give the characters a more appealing look and give a direction of lightning,right now they don't look so good with flat colours.I am guessing it will be time consuming to shade every frame but I think it will be worth it.Also,make the backgrounds more like paintings and add some effects.It makes your animations look very professional.

thank you very much melvi and yes, the video had to be degraded to a practical size particularly for nigerian internet speeds which explains the significant loss in quality and color. it is nowhere close to the H.D version we have here at the office which is what you will get on the DVD when it comes out. also we are not trying to do anime. we are going for cut out style animation look which generally is supposed to look flat. and yes it would definitely add time to the project which is why we choose this style in the first place and not even 3d which the studio is fully capable of handling. we just want to focus and deliver the DVD as promised before resources and the budget runs out and then face the same fate as countless nigerian animation attempts. when we do that and find our feet, we can maybe then give bino and fino some steroids .

wow. so much positive feedback. makes me forget the loooong hard hours working to deliver this pilot episode. we really appreciate your comments as they really inspire us to do much more. we'll do our best to not let you down. keep watching us guys.

great effort . however my eyes kept picking up issues with the animation. i feel a lot of the curves were not properly addressed. i noticed quite a significant number of spikey motion in a lot of the head turns and hand movements particularly at about 3:12 when the igbo dude was talking. not enough easing in and out of key poses making some of the movement quite distracting. maybe because u use the step  interpolation when blocking and were too much in a hurry to clean out the curves in the final animation. overall id say its fair and a treat to watch. but then its easy to criticize. Episode 2 please.

getting more intresting. keep it up.

Dolemite:

It's not the mod's fault, it's the spambot.

thats why the moderator is there. to keep the spambot in check.

aphek:

@Jydekris
You came up with what? Can't see anything.

thought it was just me or my connection.

although i cannot overemphasize and belong to the school that believes in the importance of sharing knowledge and resources for free especially in this part of the world to help catalyze industry growth. i honestly dont see anything wrong with someone charging for it.

you mean the background? no i did a cartoon version of a photo of a street in lagos.

hi all been really bizzy of late so i havent'nt gotten the chance to do more classical 2d but here's a little one i did about three weeks ago i did it in 3 days for about 3 hours each after work before bed .first day to nail the performance, second day to flesh out the stick figure into the character and the last day to color including the background. didnt upload it earlier because the gif image i rendered was too large for nairaland i just uploaded it to you tube. here's vid

[flash=640,505]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMtm2-0JUH4&hl=en_GB&fs=1[/flash]


there's no audio but just imagine this guys dancing to p squares get squared( "to the left, to the right" or something along that line 

ugo i see you are grinding those tutorials that ship with max. brings back a lot of memories. kip it up you are on the right track.

Lofx:

Thanks man. I might just try to get it from Amazon. Just joined Nairaland and i must say that it has been nothing but inspiring. such a gathering of like minds discussing common interests. Really awesome. So much info. I hope to be able to share some knowledge here soon.

well the forum has definately seen bettter days but maybe new blood like yours is just what is needed to revitalize it.

Lafem:

Hello everyone. I'm happy to know that the likes of xOthermilk and the rest of y'all Nigerian 2-D animation aficianodos are keeping the genre alive and kicking. I've been very busy lately hence my absence from this thread for sometime now.

For about 3 months I've been working on a 7-minute length Classical animation short subject which I titled "THE AUDITION" (and which is now completely animated and in post-production), and thot I'd share a short (26-seconds) clip of the coloured pencil-test animation with you guys -- to wet your appetite. Enjoy!


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0YjNq7GAX4

welcome back lafem. surely has been a while. just saw your clip and im all goose pimples. cant wait to see the full clip. great improvement on the solid drawing.

thanks,i dunno man i think except you get extremely lucky, your best bet is e-bay. you'd find other brands around but i think you'd agree that they are no match for Wacom's technical superiority. anything from intuos 2 and you should be fine. there are a few centers in Nigeria that handle e-bay transactions well.

OKX:

i have a pal whose theory for accelerated growth is to invite a bunch of foreign artists, set up studios and let them churn out stuff.
he favors Canada where animation, for instance, is taught as part of some schools curriculum.
he argues that if u choose relatively young chaps- those AdamuW classifies as wanting to creatively push things, your costs wont be too high, and they are adaptable.
his theory is that the market will be more favorable to output created with foreigners input.
that idea brings up the racist in me, but i wonder if his plan has any merit?

thanks guys. great input, has broadened my views.

i feel it kinda does. the ideah of having experienced foreigners on the local scene to catalyze industry growth seems like a  good one in my opinion. lack of a decisive control over activities in nigerian studios i think is what is responsible for the slow pace of progressed envisaged in the country today. i dont necessarily think there is a racist angle to it but generally someone from a studio in any part of the world where the cg industry is developed and thriving. sloppiness seems to be the main thing killing our studios despite the best of intentions. many people who embark on a project dont even have a proper filing system on their computers to start with and the efforts are very uncoordinated. i know because it was a huge problem in the first studio i worked in although there were very skilled and talented hands. our efforts were not synchronized and a lot of the time you find us doing what we felt we wanted to do and comfortable with and not what is actually best for the project at that point in time. and although we all met at the studio the atmosphere was not a professional one and more of friends who cannot wait for closing hours so they can play call of duty multi player. cg is kind of like a battle sometimes. knowing when, what or where to attack is very crucial and can win or loose you a battle. its only natural to run into challenges in just about any project and when you get bugged down you might waste precious time that you would have used to accomplish other stuff while trying to solve one problem can greatly affect whether your project sees the light of day. there are times you have to retreat and attack from a different angle and then come back to finish that.  this is where i feel foreign hands will be of great importance. their experience will go a long way in coordinating and conducting the talents available into a great symphony. most of us are learning and are merely trying to develop workflows, methods etc. an experienced person from an actual sustainable studio and not just an experimental one will cut out that bug and allow the gear cogs roll smoothly. adamu's years in the uk and his time at an actual cg studio i think is what keeps us going and making the progress we are at EVCL because even though i could handle pretty much what u can throw at me given sufficient time. i know i still need to be managed to operate optimally. and though sometimes i might grumble when im suddenly told to leave what im doing and do something else. i cant help but appreciate the intervention at the end.