Updates - A Mix of Stuff

Today's blog post covers a couple different topics, all updates about some stuff I've been doing or might plan to do.

First of all, you may remember from a post I did a while ago about an armature I made. Recently, I've added a head to the puppet, but it still needs some work. From the images below that I took, I noticed that the nose looks a little weird, so I will change that some. I'll also have to figure out a hair style to put on him. I don't have any plan for when to finish him so it could take a while.
The other day, I also found some glossy white paint marked down, so I went ahead and got it. I thought of a little animation I could do a long time ago that would need a white glossy set, but I never got my hands on any paint. Now that I have it, I can possibly make the animation. I do need some wood however or something else to paint for the set bottom. I tried looking for some actual images I took a while ago for some pre-visualization, but I can't find them. There's a little poster type thing I made anyways. If I ever get around to doing it, the animation would probably be around a minute long or so.



As far as the website goes, I haven't done any more on it, but I have gotten the vector image of the logo so that it can be used as needed. You can see the logo below. I also need to start collecting some resources for the resource page.


For the video tutorial, I still have to edit it some. I'm not sure when I'm going to finish, still figuring out things about compression and stuff. I still need to create the credits and captions as well as other stuff too so it could still be a while before I'm finished.

I'll have to cut down on some of the other stuff I do in my free time to try to finish these other things. Got lots to keep me busy.

Video Editing

I've been trying out some video editing using virtualdub and blender for the video tutorial. It's been slow because this is my first time doing something like this and I have to figure out a number of different things like codecs and stuff. Once I have the rough of it edited, I'll try some blurring effects to hide some personal info (not that personal, but want to hide anyways) and I'll need to do a few other things (add text, credits, ect.) and it'll be finished. I pretty much have the intro done, but I'm starting to think that there's probably some copyright issues with it because I'm using some software logos that I don't own in it. I may have to redo the whole intro because of that which could take a while longer or I'll just shorten it a bunch for the first few episodes or so until I can make the new intro. Other than that, things are going pretty good.

I'm probably going to be gone the next few days so I won't be posting, just to let you know.

New Site Design

Well, my brother has been too busy to do a web design for me, so I started to do my own. The image above shows a glimpse of what the site will look like. It's not final, I'm pretty sure I'm going to change a few things and get the actual logo(my brother designed that a while back when he had time). I'm not quite happy with the look yet, I'm not sure exactly why, but I think it's some size and spacing issues. I'll also need to implement the words Kramer Klaymation into the title area somehow. Yep, it still needs a lot of work.

Some changes in the new site will be:

- Getting rid of the fun and projects pages. Neither have shown much potential or use. Any future projects I may have will be recorded in a separate blog at blog spot or another most likely.

- Adding a links and resources page. In the site that I currently have right now, I haven't been too open to sharing other people's sites and links. When getting this blog however, I decided that I should do it so that I can share some of the nice resources I find with other people more easily.

- The gallery and videoclips will probably get a face lift. I may switch all my videos over to you tube or some other host just because of ease of use. For the gallery, I'm going to try to find out a new way to display photos so that I can also add captions. I think that I already have an idea of what to use using javascript.

- Adding a tutorial page. All the tutorials that I wrote will go into this. I originally designed these as JPG images, but realized that it wouldn't be a good idea because of slow loading and such. Because of that, it will take a long while to redesign these into html. More tutorials will probably be added later on as time goes by and as I get ideas for more.

- Store. The store will most likely go. I'm going to be busy and also moving overseas for the next couple years so it will be too hard to keep that running. I haven't had much success with it anyways. The ad in the image above is just a spot that will be used for random ads for my site or Google ads or something.

- About Us Page. That will be made up to date. I may rewrite the whole thing or just add a little section on the end. My goals for the site will also be added.

I sure have got a lot of work cut out for me. New site design estimated arrival will be within a year. I'll probably try to get it done sooner if I can get myself into the habit of working on it.

Oblivious Inferno - Money Masters

Here's a neat animation using little circles of paper or something of the sort.



I've continued to work on the tutorial, need to figure out some editing stuff still, like I mentioned before.

How to Build a Set Tutorial

Here's a tutorial I found online about how to build an animation set at cjandbuster.com. It's not the most complex set, but it looks pretty nice nonetheless. On the page he gives a brief rundown on how he built the set as well as giving some pictures for us to see along the way.

Click here to go to it.


On another note, I've been busier than I though I was going to be for the last few days so I'm not sure when the tutorial is going to get out. I also have to figure out how to edit it. I've been having problems with some stuff.

Space Intruder Animation

Here's a neat animation on you tube called Space Intruder by Sander79. Although simple, it has a nice set as well as good animation. He tells how he created it in his description:

This animation was made for a yearly art festival in my hometown Maastricht (kunsttour.com). Showing all my old stuff wasn't an option. So I started building a set and tried to come up with a story with two characters and a lot of violence : ) Filming took six full days in a period of three weeks. I only had the chance to animate when I had a day off from work. But sculpting, storyboarding and setting up scenes where done every evening.
A very talented Dutch musician (dob Audio) gave me the opportunity to use his music. Here's a website with a few tunes by dob Audio http://www.ser1.nl/dob
Hope you all like it!!

No clay was harmed during the production of this animation : )

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Here some more details for other filmmakers and people who are interested:

The set was build with a soft wooden floor, styrofoam, montage kit, paint and a little fake plant. The frame rate is mostly 12 fps, but some parts where increased up to 24 fps. Exactly 2532 pictures where taken to complete the animation. The UFO part was shot real time with wires. But you probably saw that already (wires are clearly visible).
All movements of the little blob character where done with replacements. Meaning that every frame has another ready sculpted replacement character. Almost 100 replacements where sculpted for all the
blobs movements in the animation. It's a very quick way to animate : )
The shots where a character comes out of the ground were filmed backwards, because it's easier to slice the character with fishing wire than to rebuild it.
The clay I used is found in almost every toy store. It's modelling clay in a few different colors which stays soft. You can mix colors together to get the color you desire.
Nails with both ends sharp where used to let the humanoid character stand in any position. The nails are hammered in the soft wooden floor and fit in holes under feet that reach a few centimeters up the legs for stability. The characters armature holds up to 30 individual small metal wires in each body part. It's impossible for a limb to break off even if you try. Metal strips are twisted around the metal wires to prevent bending on unwanted places (bones). Check our armature building tutorial:
http://s235.photobucket.com/albums/ee...

The puppet is made using the buildup technique. Applying layers of cotton wool soaked in liquid rubber directly onto the armature. Acrylic paint is added to the liquid rubber to get the right color.
I used a Canon MVX20i DV-cam and Stopmotion Pro Version 4. The blur effects where made with the character/object hanging on a wire and then moved the object/character while the frame was averaged. Magix Video Deluxx was used for editing. I used a picture from the moon of my previous animation (Misplaced) in the background.

Here's the animation:

Coffee Bean Animation

Here's an interesting animation that I saw online that looked well done. The creator used coffee beans to animate different things. You can view it below.