David Rogers writes in his Animation Master 2002 that new users should look for learning projects under 30 seconds or so to start with and to put off anything more ambitious until they got the hang of it. My problem was that I had a whole bunch of sub-30 second projects but they were all very ambitious and very detailed. So it's kind of funny that the first learning project with any potential that I came up with would clock in at almost two minutes.

So I saw the free pre-boned knight model on the Flash CD and I figured out how I could teach myself to animate using this song. And it would be something I could share after completion; I figured even if I wouldn't amaze anyone with technique and polish, I could always make them laugh.

I found the old lyrics, tuned my guitar, and took a few minutes to remember the chords. Then I broke the project down into manageable, logical steps and plotted those steps at one major accomplishment per day.

1. Recording the song
   This proved difficult in a number of ways. First of all, I was getting over a cold or whatever it was that gave me such a cough. So I couldn't sing well. Secondly, I'd sold my recording equipment last summer and hadn't replaced it yet. I found a cheap computer mike in my stash of computer-hardware-and-wires-I-never-use and plugged that into my laptop via a Griffin iMic. Using Peak LE, I was able to get passing sound from my vocals, but not from my guitar. So I used Acid Pro to generate the changes I'd need, raising pitches so it would sound almost like a pseudo-dulcimer. I lucked out and was able to get a clean, cough-free recording of each verse in Peak and then I brought it over to Acid to combine everything. I wouldn't want to release an MP3 of the song as recorded, but what I had would work as a backdrop for an animation.

2. The first verse
   I wanted a long, establishing, hero shot, and the only thing that needed to correspond with the music was the slight pause when I sing "he had not much up here," meaning his head. So I spun around the knight model with a character, and had him fidget all the way to show that he was alive and not exactly the stoic hero the audience might expect. For the pause, I had him bump into the camera and spin out of control behind him. This was fairly easy to do, and involved little animating skill. I was very pleased with the way the movement of the camera turned out, and felt that Machloden's movements (at least before he bangs his head) look good.

3. The second verse
   Hash Inc. also supplies Tarzan and Jane models on the CD, which to me look like primitive man and woman. I felt the whole idea of two "nobles" fighting over who gets to woo the same maiden was a bit boorish, so having two Tarzans in a tug-of-war match over Jane somehow made this verse an interesting commentary on society. An outdated society, but a commentary is a commentary. I had the difficulty of dealing with multiple models, but, like the knight, both Tarzan and Jane were pre-boned. I also decided that I needed at least one difficult shot, so long as I was animating the camera more than animating the characters. I had a quick zoom out to reveal the tug-of-war, and another shot 'round Machloden's back which wasn't entirely easy itself. From an animation and control standpoint, I think I'm most proud of this verse. Fewest mistakes...

4. The third verse
   So I cheated. So I needed a dragon, but thought that big eagle on the CD would do the trick if I'd just paint it red and elongate the tail. I was wrong; it looks like a big red bird with long tail feathers, but what can you do? Turned out it wasn't boned properly (or maybe the bones didn't translate well in the 9.5 to 10g conversion), so I got to give myself a test run to see if I could fix that problem. I could, and the solution was simple--it just took me a while to find it. The shots in this verse weren't too difficult, especially after doing the second verse. In retrospect, I probably should have reversed the production order of these two verses. I had expected that I'd do more modeling work on the bird, but I was frustrated and lazy after figuring out how to fix the bones.

5. The fourth verse
   I made a decision from the get-go that I wasn't going to have the minstrel lip sync. It was the easier way to go, but it's now the single greatest regret because the animation behind the last verse is just distracting. It probably would have been worse if I'd tried and failed, but it would have cleaned it up a great deal. I modeled the faux guitar myself, as if that's any shock. As simple as it is, it was pretty difficult. I just suck at the modeling and am considering trying to outsource (or buy and modify) pre-boned models at least part of the time, if that's possible without making all my projects look derivative. More likely I'll just spend the damned time on it. I'm giving myself a good three months to complete my next, more complex animated project, so this probably won't be as big of an issue as it was when I have a nine day deadline.

6. Rendering
   This took a couple of days actually. So I didn't finish Machloden before my trip to Asheville last weekend. Ah well, it would be ready and rendered as a 'toon in Quicktime when I came home Sunday night.

7. Putting it all together

I felt I had less control over the timing than I actually did in Animation Master. Because I always failed to get all the keyframe points when selecting a sharp transition, anytime I made a move I effected things that occurred seconds ago sometimes mucking up an entire shot (if that makes any sense). So I left spaces for error with multiple keyframe points between "shots" I would actually use. And those spaces would need to be removed in, uh, post-production. I opened the files in Quicktime Pro, exported them as image sequences, and then imported those into Flash MX, which gave me exact control over both the timing and the cropping of the movie. It was time consuming, sure. And it would have been even moreso if I'd decided to trace each frame into a vector image (I didn't, but considered it--sounds morel like a job for an AppleScript). I uploaded the song into Flash and my whole project was there in one, 15 fps Flash sourcefile.
8. Trimming it down
   For the most part, this involved hacking clumps of frames out of the timeline--like I would in a video editing room--and trimming the scenes I wanted to keep to fit the narrative. A few shots, like Machloden's fall in the first verse, were way too slow, so I deleted every other frame to help speed things up. I also added fade ins, fade-outs, and effects, one verse at a time, along with some titles and end credits. The dragon's "talk-bubble" was done here, as was the minstrel's bloody tongue. I also erased a glimpse of Machloden in a shot where he shouldn't have been--where I was moving the model and didn't expect him to be shown in the camera. It was nice to finish the project in a software program I knew well, even though I'm certain I can eventually be more proficient by staying in Animation Master.

9. Readying the final project Since I didn't trace the bitmaps, SWF wasn't a viable option, so I exported to Quicktime and relaunched Quicktime Pro. Finding the right compression to make it a reasonable download size proved difficult, but I found with the cartoon look I could compress the hell out it using MP4 (Quicktime 6 format) and it would still look all right at under 6MB and a size of 240x133.

So that's the story. For the record, I used Hash Animation Master 10g on a Macintosh G4 laptop without once booting into Mac OS 9--I ran it all in 10.2 in Classic.

Probably the biggest timesaver was a Contour AV Shuttle Pro USB controller. I was able to program it very quickly and it worked flawlessly under Classic under Mac OS X. Having a laptop without a separate

number pad made it a lifesaver (and I tried an external Kensington USB number pad, which didn't work properly with Hash!). The second biggest productivity boost was to upgrade to Animation Master 10g from the ever-crashing 9.5 which came on the CD. Version 10g crashed no more than twice and it was after 10h had already come out--so I don't know if those problems have already been resolved. Finally, I recommend the Anzovin QuickStart CDs and the Rogers book. All good stuff.

Overall I'm very pleased with the software, even if I'm not entirely pleased with what I can do with it so far. It was my learning project; I realize that. But I've already a list of over a hundred things I'd like to have done differently or better with "Machloden," all the while wondering, "Would I ever be completely satisfied?" I think I could probably spend the rest of my life redoing this one piece over and over again, trying to make it a little better with each revision. So I'm going to move on before I get stuck.

Above all, the project has given me a very strong foundation so when I look at other Anzovin CDs or at the David Rogers book, I'll be more likely to quickly understand new concepts and have a good frame of reference to put it in. I've already gone back to one of the QuickStart tutorials and watched with a bunch of "Ahhh, now I get its" underneath my breath.

Hope this little postmortem helps you on your way. I should warn you though... I also have an even older song (already recorded by my brother and me) about Tarzan and Jane in a love triangle. Those models are calling out to me. A sophomore learning project, perhaps?

Filed under Journal, Project Postmortems

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