Animation Project
So, who is involved? KaiYVes, Agent Lightning, Randomosity, fireh, Catwings, ibcf — anyone else?
Date: April 15, 2014
Categories: Experiments, Nonrandom Craziness, Sound and images
Thursday, 25 April 2024
Life, the universe, pies, hot-pink bunnies, world domination, and everything
So, who is involved? KaiYVes, Agent Lightning, Randomosity, fireh, Catwings, ibcf — anyone else?
Date: April 15, 2014
Categories: Experiments, Nonrandom Craziness, Sound and images
ibcf doesn’t seem to be registered — at least, I can’t find him on the list. We’ll have to clear that up.
I’m still interested in this! As soon as we can set up a Dropbox, I can upload some concept art for aliens and such. We’re going to have aliens, right? At least, that’s what I gathered. I love aliens. We should probably start planning out a list of characters, plot, etc. And I’ll start working on the soundtrack, too. I should be able to produce a main theme and maybe some themes for characters, as soon as we finalize those.
I believe Cskia can be considered a part of this now.
AL – YES THERE MUST BE ALIENS
Erm. I actually did a sketch of Ashley-06. It didn’t turn out like I’d expected… if you know what I mean.
I have an idea, and I wanted to see what you guys thought of it. Since there will be aliens and robots and beings from places other than Earth, presumably not everybody is going to speak English. So what if the first character introduced was a sort of interstellar linguist who once en becomes fluent in a language, en puts it into ens translator (not like the Babel fish, en has to input languages from ens own knowledge). So when the show opens up, this linguist is just leaving either the US or the UK depending on who writes/voices the narration for the translator. (Like episodes can begin with the translator mechanically stating something like “For purposes of clarity, all languages spoken will be automatically translated into English. Decency and clarity filters will translate all profanity and phrases with no direct English translation as ‘cake’.”) And then for the rest of that episode the characters all interact normally but speak in English.
SFTDP. The premise could be that the linguist in question was going on a journey to learn the languages of as many cultures across the stars as possible, but en makes friends on the way to take along and frequently gets sidetracked. If you all think that’s a good idea.
This sounds like a neat idea to me.
But, we would of course have to make up languages for the alien cultures. We can’t have someone from Saturn’s Rings natively speaking German. It could get quite insulting.
That’s what the translator would be for. All the lines and voice acting could still be done in English that way (think of the TARDIS translation matrix). Of course, I am more than happy to come up with some made up languages if nobody thinks I’ll accidentally say something obscene in an actual language I don’t speak…
Yeah, that sounds cool! My only concern is that it sounds a little Doctor Who-esque: we’d just have to make certain that we deviated a lot from the Whovian plotline of “ANGSTY traveler journeys, arrives, saves everyone, leaves”.
Making up the languages would certainly be a challenge. I could make an electronic beeping language if a situation called for it. And we could have aliens who communicate visually, or through interpretive movements, or telepathically! It could be lots of fun. Plus, this idea gives us a flexible plot to work with.
Well, I don’t really see a linguist saving the universe, but I’m trying to keep an open mind.
I was thinking of, among other possibilities, aliens that communicate via scents. I think it would be awesome seeing the linguist try to translate non-verbal to verbal languages and back again. Or even better, getting to a new planet and not having a clue how to communicate with the locals yet and having to hire a more “local” translator.
Pheromones! Ooh, so many different possibilities!
I was thinking. Perhaps instead of either a translator that translates any language the linguist knows, how about this:
There’s a sort of official language for the galaxy or even the universe, and everyone speaks it except races too “primitive” to take their place among the other races of the cosmos. (Think like groups of indigenous peoples who have little to no contact with the outside world.) The official language can be automatically translated into English by the translator (except words that have no direct translation, which would be left in their original state), but every other language would be spoken as is. And the linguist could be studying the languages of the “primitive” species, such as humans.
Nice idea.
Being a voice actor, I’m interested in trying to pronounce all of the languages that the script writers come up with.
Well I think all fake languages should be spelled out phonetically.
Just an idea….
Go to Youtube and search for ‘You’re Next, by AdrianVonZiegler’.
Does this give anybody any ideas? It gives me plenty.
SFTDP.
In the script, the writer may want to explain how the lines are said. Like, as an example:
Character1: {Humorously} “Go for it, Sir!”
Character2: {Sadly} “Sorry. I didn’t do my job well enough….”
Only so the actors can understand how they’re supposed to say the lines, along with what to say.
That’s actually standard in scripting. Even though this is voice acting there will still be sort of “stage directions” – both to explain how the lines are said and to give the animators an idea what the characters should be doing.
Hey everyone, what if instead of constant travelling, the main characters stop at each planet for a good length of time to completely learn the language? We could make some comedy from culture shock and the like.
For anyone wanting to make digital art for this project, but not wanting to buy (or pirate) expensive software, may I suggest FireAlpaca? The brushes are as close to SAI quality as I’ve found, and it’s completely open source.
SFTDP: O Great And Powerful Administrators, are we going to set up the dropbox soon? If so, do we need parental permission to connect to that? I’d love to send an alien design I just made to the GAPAs, but I’m not sure if I should wait for the dropbox to be opened. Or is the dropbox still a thing?
It’s a thing — it just hasn’t happened yet. I’ll set it up over the weekend. I’ll discuss permission with the other GAPAs. *confers*
It worked! Hallelujah!
Yes! I’m glad to see you here!
Right, I’ve created a shared Dropbox folder and sent invitations to most of you to join it. People who use bogus email addresses won’t receive them, however. I don’t know how to give them access to the folder.
I just got the email! Thank you so much, Robert!
Thank you, Robert! We’ll try to use this wisely.
Please do.
Alright, I’ve just uploaded a piece of concept art… I hope that’s okay with everyone?
(SFTDP) in reply to Catwings’ comment, since I’m about to turn in for the night… If you don’t have a Dropbox account you should probably get one of those: signing up is easy and free. You can install Dropbox on your computer too, and it works like any other folder you’d save files to, but it syncs with the internet for ease of access. Once you’ve set up your personal Dropbox account you can accept the request from Robert to join the folder. Anything you save to the folder “Museblog Animation Project” will be shared with and seen by all of us, so it’s ideal for collaborative efforts. Your personal Dropbox outside of the MB folder will remain yours, and you can do what you please with it.
Also, use the same email address that you use for MB to set up your Dropbox. Hope this helped!
Eek. I don’t know all that much about Dropbox….
Would anybody mind giving me hints…?
When you get the email, it should have a link. Click it, it’ll take you to a sign-up screen. Once you’ve signed up it should give you the option to download Dropbox. Do that, and it’ll upload a file to your Dropbox with tips on how to use it.
By the way, thanks Mr. Coontz!
Just made myself a Dropbox account and logged on. AL, you’re an excellent artist and I LOVE it!!
Yeah, that’s a really interesting design. AL did a really good job.
Aw, thank you both! My art style is best described as “hit and miss”, by the alien was definitely a lot of fun.
Here’s a breakdown of the animation process! We don’t have to follow all the steps exactly, but it might be useful as a reference.
#1 Storyboard: We write our script as a series of rough drawings (like a comic strip) to help us visualize the scenes. Pictures are worth a thousand words!
#2 Soundtrack: Record the dialogue, sound effects, and music (will we make our own music or find free stock music? Or do we want music at all?)
#3 Animatic: Synch the storyboard drawings to the soundtrack. We determine the timing/edits/cuts at this stage.
#4 Layouts: Planning the specific elements–the camera angles, camera movements, lighting, shading, background compositions, and key character poses/positions for each scene. The layout artist should be good at drawing in perspective.
#5 Animation: The moving drawings. I’m using Adobe Flash CS, unless I can find a better program. Would anyone like to help animate?
#6 Backgrounds: Done at the same time as the animation. Follow the layout artist’s instructions for perspective, composition with enough space for the action, good color schemes, etc.
#7 Cleanup/Ink and Paint: Cleaning up all the rough animation drawings and coloring them in. It would be really nice if someone could help me with this, eh heh.
#8 Finishing Touches: We make the final edits and tweaks, then we upload the film to the Internet! Woohoo!
I’d love to make a soundtrack. I’m an amateur composer and I have the software (or I will hopefully by the time this thing gets off the ground, unless you all like midis and low quality compressed fakebit chiptunes). I could also probably do sound effects. I think there are databases of free sound effects, stock sounds? Correct me if I’m wrong.
I could also probably help with inking stuff, unless that’s something that needs to be done in photoshop or flash or something that costs money.
Are each of us going to be broken down into stations? Like, AL volunteered to help with the soundtrack…. Or is everyone a part of everything?
Considering there are so few of us, I think it would possibly be better to keep everyone open to anything. If this was a huge project, concerning over fifteen people maybe, we’d probably be forced to organize more strictly. As if you all weren’t aware of that, of course….
I’m eagerly waiting for these components to start appearing in the Dropbox folder.
Agent Lightning – Great! There are indeed websites with sound effect libraries we can use, but feel free to make your own! As for inking/painting, a simple drawing program like MS Paint might work.
Catwings – You’re right, we’d probably all do multiple jobs. It’d be good to know who’s able to contribute to which parts, though.
How long is this film going to be, and how much animation does it need? If we’re doing a 10+ minute film with lots of detailed, realistic-type characters, we should probably do limited TV-style animation. If we do about 3-5 minutes, use simpler designs and fewer characters, and have a lot of action and visual gags, there could be more full and fluid animation.
As a reply to you replying to me; I’m probably only available to do the voice-acting. I don’t really have experience with animating or sound direction. I’m not the best of writers, so the scripting and casting will have to go to someone else as well.
Also we ought to think of a theme to shape the story around. So this girl lives alone on a space station? Does she long for human contact, or does she prefer her alien/robot buddies? And why is she alone? What happened to her parents? Will the film be a philosophical study of loneliness or a lighthearted, whimsical space romp? Or a mix of the two?
The part about loneliness appeals to me. But, since I believe there will be a mix of options in the replies, I choose both.
ibcf – I figured she would be the second main character – well, and I suppose her robot friend would be the third. That is, if we’re going with the extraterrestrial linguist idea. Said linguist could be passing by, see the lonely girl, and not have the heart to leave her on her own so she gets invited onboard. Which isn’t to say her backstory won’t be developed, of course! So in other words, I’m thinking the story will be a mix of both.
Catwings – If you only want to voice act, that’s perfectly fine! Just do what you feel comfortable with! But if you ever decide you want to do more, we’re a small group so that would be helpful.
Randomosity101 – Ah, sorry! I had the wrong impression.
Now I see, you were envisioning this project as a web series rather than a standalone film?
Yes, that’s what I had in mind.
Hrm, that’ll be a lot more work. We may need to rethink our animation strategy…
Have you ever seen “Clutch Cargo?”
With the creepy mouths? *shudders*
Robert – Haha, maybe it wouldn’t be that bad.
But I’m not sure we could do a whole web series in a reasonable time frame. I suggest a short, sweet, simple story that works by itself, then afterwards we can expand it if we so choose.
Good idea! It’s easy to imagine a short pilot that sets the scene and introduces the characters without requiring them to do anything very exciting. We could see the girl in an observation dome, gazing out at the stars and the silent vastness of space, and then learn about her daily routine and her quirky robot friends… Then if you fall in love with them, you can find more to do with them.
I doodled a design idea for the space girl and Agent Lightning’s alien. Not much, but at least it’s something (sorry about the notebook paper)…
I saw that. She’s cute, and you’re good.
I loved your sketch!
About the amount of work-
There’s not really any kind of time constraint before the first episode is actually finished and goes up. I figured we would take as much time as we needed setting up a pilot and seeing what we liked, then going from there. At that point we would still have plenty of time to work on the next episode or episodes. Once we actually get going if we want to do this like an actual show, we can put together episodes in short “seasons” with hiatuses in between so that we have a lot of time to work on them. Sound workable?
Oh my gosh, they’re both fantastic- I really like those sketches!
Thanks all! I’ll try to upload a few more later tonight.
20.2 (Randomosity101) – Sounds good! However, I think it would be nice if we could get the animation started by summer vacation. The only time constraint is our own attention spans–we might end up like Cedar’s Muse movie.
Weren’t KaiYves and Cskia part of this? I haven’t seen them post here yet…
They both expressed interest, but we might have to wait until finals are over to hear from them.
Would anybody mind if I posted my *enhanced* version of Ashley-06 in Dropbox? I believe she would be an interesting idea for the “Robotic friend.”
Post away.
I’ve… uploaded it.
I don’t know if anyone saw it or not….
I’ve seen it! Of course, watching you all is more or less my job here.
22 (Catwings) – Sure!
I scanned a couple more girl sketches. I tried to draw her with some perspective and solidity, but she ended up looking oddly stiff. Still trying to figure out what her head shape and neck length should be.
I also uploaded my early attempt to draw her in Flash with a mouse. Yikes!
These sketches all look great, everyone! We should probably work on a plot of some sort, and solidifying which characters are going to do what- y’know, plot stuff.
Dropbox just told me that one of the sketches was removed…er, what’s up?
Two of them were.
Either the artist knew it was rather pointless to keep them there after we’d all seen them, or Dropbox did something, or one of the GAPAS knew it was rather pointless to keep them there after we’d all seen them.
We didn’t touch ’em.
My apologies, guys, that was my fault. I was nearing the limit of my personal Dropbox so cleared out a massive number of image files without realizing that the Dropbox iPad app had mixed your pictures in with mine. Unfortunately, I didn’t realize what happened until later when I checked the desktop. Further apologies for the late response. I’ve been offline most of the day, so I missed this discussion.
Ah, thanks for letting me know. All is forgiven!
D’oh! It was 3 of them, all mine.
It says Rebecca Lasley did it? Oops? xD
Busy?
Everyone?