[YeeWu]

Hello, I'm new here. I wanted to ask for some feedback regarding the backgrounds for my animation this semester.

Instead of image linking the super wide images, I'll provide text links:

Spring



Fall



Winter Scene 2

I hope no one minds the sizes (or the download times). These are previews I made for class. If anyone's interested in the rough cut, you can see it here:

Rough Cut

Please excuse the bad animation. This is my first attempt at 2d animation.

I'll explain in detail the story behind my animation later, as I'd like to hear what other people who have not hear me explain anything think.

I hope these don't look too bad. I tried hard to get an ink painting feel in Photoshop, and I don't think it worked all that well. Thanks for looking!

[mpm10]

I'm not sure what your concept is, but your drawings could use a little more color depth. Also the objects could benefit from a little more details... Keep up your work, good starting point.

[YeeWu]

Thanks so much for your feedback mpm10!

I wanted to keep this as greyscale as possible, with only the key elements (the seasonal attributes) to be in color for more contrast. Perhaps they could be a bit bolder?

I also didn't know how much contrast these backgrounds should have, nor was I sure how detailed I should get. I wanted to keep things as simple as possible with this being my first animation so I could find out what "worked" easier. I'll try and see what I can do about pushing the details and colors a little more though.

I'll try to describe my project a little more:

The idea behind my animation is life as a journey. A young boy's travels across different landscapes changes him physically (how he grows) and also mentally (how he acts). I divided his lifespan into four parts: child, teenager, adult, elderly man. I took certain cliched elements typical of said groups: the carefree joys of childhood, the melodramatic romances of a teenager, the more mature, humanistic adult, and the tiredness and inevitable passing of the elderly. For the transitions between each stage in life and themes for the locales he visits, I chose to use the four seasons to go along with each age group. The child will wander a blooming field in Spring, the teenager will lose himself in a firefly filled forest on a Summer's night, the adult will encounter a burning city in Autumn, and finally, as an elderly man, he will cross a snowy graveyard and come to rest under a tree. The final scene will include the elderly man disappearing under the tree as it blooms. Its flower petals fall and drift downwards and flow into the rest of the seasonal attributes.

I guess I should post more work here are some screenshots from Premiere:













Still got a long way to go!

[Wagner]

i think that you should have a higher contrast since it is black and white and without any color it might be dull, but make sure that there is also a good contrast when you shade the cells. i would personaly have alot of contrasting color, but have it realy desaturated.

something's wrong with my quicktime so i couldn't watch the test, lol.

i'd love to see it when it's done though, good luck!

[Tinusch]

I liked the movie a lot. I think it's working very well. I understand the style you're aiming for with the characters, but I think some more frames would definitely be in order, as it looks a little more like an NES cutscene than I think you'd like it to. I think it's a really cool effect, but apparently not what you're trying to achieve. I think the walk cycles in particular need some reworking, but overall I really like what you've got so far.

[YeeWu]

Thanks so much everyone for your comments! I appreciate the fact that you downloaded the test considering its rather large file size.

Wagner: I did push the contrast a tad bit in some of the scenes. I had to be careful though because I didn't want the backgrounds to take over the characters. I'm leaving the characters as they are now; black and white.

Tinusch: You couldn't be more right when you said it's "apparently what [I'm] not trying to achieve." I did come into this project with high aspirations (I aimed too high for a first animation, I think), and as a result worked in stages to get this done by the end of the semester. I intended to get all the major frames drawn, and then hopefully add the inbetweens if I had time. I did have time over the past week or so to add few inbetweens, but the more I worked on this, the bigger mistakes in the keys I began to notice. I have developed a certain fondness to this project, and I would like to start over sometime in the future (perhaps this summer if my schoolwork doesn't kill me =P )

Oh, also, most people I've shown this to actually like the NES cutscene effect, so perhaps I may just keep it.

As usual, sorry for my long winded posts. Here are some pictures:

New Spring





I'll try and update the test soon, but I'm having some difficulties uploading right now. Thanks again everyone![/url]

[YeeWu]

So the animation is finally "done." I'm quite unsatisfied with it, but I will re-do it from scratch sometime in the future after I improve (hopefully )

Final

You'll need the latest DivX codecs to view it. File size is approximately 17 megs. Hope you all like it

[Tinusch]

I still love it. Great job.