Harlequin
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swamper
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Film Maker's Blog
Yeah, I am still trying to finish.
Apr 10, 2008 07:33AM
I should have more to post by the end of next week. I have (with two other people) started a LightWave® users group. We have our first meeting next week. I am looking forward to being able to talk with other animators who use the same software package. It will be good to share business notes as well. I still have to get some things through the copyright process before I can post them to the web site.
Another area that needs way more attention than it gets is the web site. Only so many hours to keep up with everything and get anything animated. More will get posted on the 18th.
Time flies
Oct 11, 2007 05:47AM
I don't remember it being that fun......At any rate. I am still trying to finish some things for this years festival circuit. I got the website on the road to update and will continue to add things. The website http://www.punchinelloanimation.com will be where the production blog and other news can be found. By the end of October the website is scheduled to be finished.
Later.
I think therefore you are.
Apr 23, 2007 06:27AM
For about forty five seconds of intro shot I need to create, in virtual form, a section of London street in 1595. People engaged in what I hope are normal activities, and the fun of animating a horse drawn wagon. Credibility in the imagined world is a matter of detail. Michelangelo is often quoted as saying “things are made up of details, but details are not things”. Detail, then, is the matter of being able to add object interactions until you run out of personal experience, or research materials. As an example; the horse harness has to respond to the movements of the horse, the teamster pulling the reigns, the wagon pulling back, the list really does go on. It would seem, to me at least, that the limit on this recursive process is the art of the animator. What all this really means is that next week I am going to start putting up some of the finished cuts on the website. The audio track is still in bits and pieces and a few things still need to be modeled, but it is time to break out of the detail loop.
じゃ また バベ。
Synthetic Mirror Shot
Feb 19, 2007 07:47AM
The true limit on imagination is how well you can use the tools. “Elizabethan Fairy Tales” will be finished with the second run through of the alpha animatic by the end of this week. The story has continued to evolve in ways that have made the original story boards look like the dabbling of a kindergartener. So I have spent the last two months rebuilding backgrounds, previews, renderings. Basically, going backwards far enough to have come full circle to where EFT was at the last alpha milestone.
At this point any budget has gone, well, away. Thus a case could be made for the job of Producer. That said I am going to try to finish EFT as something I can show, not bury in the yard late one night. Till next week, back to napping flint. じゃ バベゼ。
The ratio of reach to grasp.
Dec 08, 2006 08:05AM
Good news and bad news. The good news is that the software vendor gods have decided to make enough of the software 64-bit compatible that I can go back to using PXP-X64. The bad news, at the moment it seems I am going to miss some of the submission deadlines for the festivals I most wanted to attend. Yes, this is very upsetting. Getting the work done is something that I have always managed to do.
What is the lesson from all this? I am not sure how to quantify whether it was the scope of the project or just poor planning on my part. I moved one object from one side of the stage to the other. From there it was like watching a row of dominos go down as the change rippled across the rest of the cuts, so much for the alpha animatic.
Sigh……
Once I get the workstation up on x64 I can go back to getting the alpha animatic rebuilt. This weekend I have the recording session for the music track. None of this really effects that, of course I do recall saying that about something else recently. じゃ また。
A minor milestone reached.
Nov 17, 2006 07:15AM
The alpha animatic is done. Yea! Now, on to the real work of getting all the details, lose ends and unfinished components taken care of. From here I have to finish the texture maps and some of the finer character motions. But with everything blocked in, now I can concentrate on getting the rest of the audio, mostly the music track, put in where it needs to go.
I really do need to post more frequently. Now that things are finally taking shape I will be able to spend a little time on all the areas external to the animation. I desperately need to schedule some time to get at my web site. Was starting it when I did a mistake? I have given myself a deadline to have the animation ready to go to the festivals and I can’t miss that. So, the update won't be everything it could be.
Right now I just need to get back to clearing up the details on the “fix” list to move on to the beta animatic, then final render. じゃ また。
Racing Snails.
Oct 15, 2006 09:51AM
Well, it’s been almost a month since the last posting. I have fixed the hardware problems. Yes it slowed things down, but I really feel that I didn’t have a choice. To speed things up in the render department I am pre-baking a lot of the backgrounds. Yes this will limit the amount of interactivity, and, force me into compositing on “After Effects” but to get the depth in texturing right I just can’t sort out any other way. Bother. At least I am getting the animatics put together. I hope to have this finished rather soon, end of the week seems like it might be feasible, provided life leaves me alone long enough. I am going to try to get some revisions done to the website today. That area has languished long enough and needs to be placed more into the center of things.
じゃ また。
Agitating the dots.
Sep 18, 2006 07:08AM
In any moving 2D art form, this is particularly true of CG, all we are really doing is changing the color of a pixel (dot) over time. All the software and virtually every metaphor connected with making CG animation often miss the fact that the story is more important than the rate at which the individual pixels display their chameleon behaviors. Understanding that you are manipulating "dots" is more important on the software side than on the “content creation” side of things, but it is important that I remind myself about these things from time to time. I had some serious software compatibility problems and had to go back to my pxp-32 OS. This has really slowed things down, but I need certain plug-ins to work and this was the only way to get there. The vendors all say that, yes, someday, in the far future, everything will be 64 bit, this is not really much help right now. I hope to have some stills up by the end of the week but right now it’s not looking so good. I should have something to post one way or the other by the end of the week. じゃまた。
On the animator’s dilemma.
Sep 03, 2006 09:11AM
An often used old cliché goes by the title “The Animators Dilemma”. The two horns of this particular bull are 1) you can do anything. 2) You must do everything.
I was watching something the other day which brought this home to me. The character was smoking a cigarette, the smoke moved upward from the end of the cigarette in a normal looking wavy line. Then the character changed position, the smoke trail all the way to the top of the frame followed her cigarette’s burning end. What’s supposed to happen, the smoke column creates a small area of disturbance, then reestablishes an upward stream at the new rest position. The old path continues, if undisturbed by air currents, until it disappears off frame. Although a small thing this is one of the many wonders that CG can take care of for you. The cigarette end as a particle emitter can save me from these kinds of errors. Provided, of course, I remember to do all the setup for it, and want to spend the render time.
In the case of “EFT” I am trying to sort out how much fur. Fur is a major resource consumer. Rendering it correctly is, at least in my case, a post-render. You render everything then send the surfaces to be “furred” through another software application to have the pelt applied and animated. Time consuming. You betcha. How not to make the festival deadlines, oh yeah, so what to do?
The render farm is really going to get put to the test. This means I can’t start all the other jobs until I get a bench mark on whether it will ever be finished. Well, next week will tell me how much “reality” I can afford.
Is that darkness at the end of a tunnel or am I in a well?
Aug 18, 2006 11:23AM
Here is another week done. Where the heck am I? Finished the principle set, I think, and will try to start getting some of the rest of the props together. So, by the end of this weekend the plan is to have both principle characters textured and costumed. If I can get everything else ready it will finally be time for principle animation to start. The first phase will be to complete the rigging of the props that need to move. Not a lot of work, but something else that has to be done.
The cameras are going to be something I am going to have to experiment with. In virtual land the output render can be based on lenses and perspectives that don’t exist. I have found that I can use a lot of time tinkering around with this. So maybe later next week I can have something to post for all this. It would just be stills from the first few cuts in the first scene, but, anything burned to disk would be good.
Ah, time to get back to texturing some walls, after all if reality is what you see, then what is a texture?
Sometimes I even get some animation done!
Aug 15, 2006 12:59PM
So what has happened recently in the life of “Making Animation” . A lot really, not much of it really advanced the cause all that much. I was finally forced to change the business name. it is now “Punchinello Animation”. And, yes, the initial take on the web site is up at http://www.punchinelloanimation.com . I wanted to get the email address going and at least start trying to get things ready. Getting all the work done to change the business name done really took about three pretty full days. This did not make me happy as a day without animating something is like a day without really good sex, or, maybe not.
One thing I am learning the hard way is that the storyboard never seems to cover all the secondary models that I end up needing. In more traditional animation this is covered by the background art. In CG you pretty much, at some point, have to build the background even if you composite it later. So I am going to have to invest in some model and texture libraries. I just don’t have the kind of time left to cover all the bases.
Speaking of time, a lot of early festival submissions are going to come next month. I think I can have “Fairy Tales” ready I don’t know about my sci-fi thing though. The script still needs some work and I really doubt that I have all the resources to pull it off, at least as well as I would like.
So, anyway, that’s all the big news at the moment. Back to trying to build a virtual set.
Yeah, I need to post more often.
Jul 25, 2006 07:57AM
Two more characters to go on Elizabethan Fairy Tails and I can revise the storyboards. I hope to have this done by the end of the week. So, finally principle animation can begin August 1st. The current plan is to have EFT the first one done. I have to do press packs for both though. I have enough models finished to have a “photo session” for 2059. I don’t know if I can complete this much longer, and much more resource intensive project in time to make festival submission dates. I have to take a look at my production sheets for 2059 and have a reality check. Sigh…..
What this blog is all about
Jun 28, 2006 01:24PM
So it begins. I am starting this Blog to chronicle my animation projects. Whether anyone ever reads it or not, is, for now, irrelevant to getting my two primary projects done. The first is a set of Elizabethan fairy tales. I found these some years ago while wandering the stacks of the library. After translating them from the original English they are becoming a set of animated shorts. In reality, I’m not so sure children today should be exposed to the rather raw nature of life, circa 1600, given modern sensibilities toward creatures being boiled alive, serial killers and overt property destruction. From this era I have jumped to a script set in the not too distant future, 2059, which has several ideas I am interested in working out. What is the effect of prolonged uncontrolled development? Can any region survive the effects of its own stupidity? I am trying not to be too overt about this. Suppose we shall see. My animation Companies name is “Software Design Studios” yeah, I know, there is bound to be some confusion over the end product being animation, not software, but it got started with this name and now I am going to keep it. I will place a link to the company website where all the contact information is after I have finished testing it. But, as has been said, “You can’t have an end without a beginning”. For tonight that’s all for this posting.
Things Harlequin said...
My Friends & Favorites
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swamper
Friend Since: February 20, 2007
Last Online: 9:31 am, June 20, 2008
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CuartoCreciente
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CarrieHunter
Friend Since: August 18, 2006
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11 Comments about Harlequin
Apr 22, 2007 07:44PM
We shot on 16mm. I think it was a little over 5 min of film. It's not much for a 2 page script. It looks okay. I need to reedit it.
Feb 21, 2007 09:05PM
Thanks!!! How is your film going? Is it almost done???
Oct 15, 2006 09:22AM
My web site, such as it is, www.punchinelloanimation.com has the address. I am really getting closer to a final render. Then I can put some effort into the online presence.
Oct 13, 2006 11:07AM
hello where you from?, I'm an animator too...
Sep 18, 2006 06:40AM
No, never really had the opportunity, I have some freinds who have told me some lovely stories about their experiences. rather off putting.
Sep 15, 2006 09:39PM
Hey there.
Out of curiosity, do you have any interest in animating for video game software?
Aug 21, 2006 06:28AM
No; I am not a Seminole. I graduated from Mercer many years ago, then got a CS degree from USF. I use three programs when I animate. LightWave, which is now up to version 9. Abode's suite to do the editing and Photoshop. This pretty much covers everything I need to do. I have the mixboard and software to handle most simple audio. If "other than 3d" means compositing, then yes I have done a lot. Credits and title work, mostly for advertising. Let me know when your films are showing.
Aug 18, 2006 04:29PM
I'm not acting right now. I might in a few years. I'm tied up with the film school right now. Hopefully, some of my films will be at the Student Life Cinema pretty soon.
Do you go to school at FSU? What animation program do you use? I'm learning Maya right now. Have you done anything other than 3D?
Aug 18, 2006 11:04AM
I see I have been added to CarrieHunter's circle. I have always enjoyed the plays at the Asolo put on by FSU's master classes. When should we expect to see you on stage? Withoutabox is behaving badly!
Jul 04, 2006 10:03AM
Yeah, well it all started with a Commedia delArte puppet troupe. I allways got the Puncinello part. Means something I suppose. Back to building virtual marionetts.
Jun 29, 2006 06:19AM
Harlequin? Gee, I never figured you for a Romance type guy!
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