Animation and Video Life

Last post I started creating my Skate Monkey, Multi-dimensional character for Crazy Talk Animator 2. This post I thought I'd give you an update on where I'm at. It's been a slow process and there is still much to be done. Below you can see my DrawPlus character template now has all ten views of my skate monkey completed. Well almost. DrawPlus Template with 10 views of my skate monkey. If you click on the above image to see the larger view you'll notice all the character views appear to have random purple dots spread all over them. These are the pivot points (or joins) for where each body part will attach to the next. So far I've only positioned them for the very first view. I mentioned in my last post that I didn't really like drawing in DrawPlus, which is part of the reason this character has developed so slowly. I've been completing 1-2 views per day, on the days I have sat down to work on the character. After that I've usually felt so ti...

Long time readers may remember the Skate Monkey character I started creating for CrazyTalk Animator 2 towards the beginning of 2014. That project still remains unfinished because... Life/Business. However, I've been trying to get back into drawing again (like with an actual pencil and paper) just to remind myself (and a few of my detractors for using GoAnimate) that I can actually draw. Also to further teach myself how to finish off my pencil drawings in Manga Studio . I really don't use that software enough to get what I learn to stick!

Continuing on with my progress of  learning Crazy Talk Animator 2 I've begun work on creating my first Multi-Dimensional character. As you may have guessed it's my Skate Monkey character that I briefly attempted to turn into a CTA1 character quite some time back (See this post for the video ). A CTA2 'Multi-Dimensional' character is simply a character that consists of 10 different view angles that form a 360 degree view. This character is attached to a bone skeleton that exists in three dimensional space. The software then calculates which images from your 10 different view angles are needed to execute whatever motion you add. In the image below you can see my skate monkey character drawn at angle zero in the Serif DrawPlus template provided by Reallusion. The other nine view angles are the CTA2 dummy character which I will progressively replace with my monkey as I draw more views. A CTA2 Multi-Dimensional character has 10 view angles. In the short video be...

Work on my Skate Monkey character for Crazy Talk Animator 2 continues and I'm happy to say it's nearly done. If you haven't read my previous posts follow these links, Part 1 , Part 2 . Below is a very short video demonstration of the character so far pulling a few dance moves. There's a few minor issues that you may or may not notice but otherwise I'm quite happy with the character's general look and how the body is working. Obviously I've still to add a tail to my monkey. I'm not quite sure how best to do this yet. CTA2 characters do have provisions for a tail with multiple sections but it seems like a hold over from CTA1's G1 characters and don't work so well with CTA2's G2 mutlti-dimensional characters. Other things still to do is all the facial expression graphics and hand graphics (for different hand positions and motions). I've also developed the monkey as a character capable of utilizing the new character styles feature...

Way back in February of 2014 I began working on my very first CrazyTalk Animator 2, Multi-Dimensional character . Formerly known as the Skate Monkey , the character has since been retitled the Bored Monkey in line with a new series of skateboard graphics I'm planning to feature him on.

Animation 4 Business Premium is a new service I'm offering as part of my Business Explainer Video Service, Animation 4 Business . To launch the service I've created the short video below that explains why you might use my Premium service over solutions like GoAnimate and Powtoon. The video is also entered into Reallusion's Animation@Work contest too. Essentially it's for those situations where you need characters to perform specific tasks unique to your business but you don't want to go to the full expense of creating a custom character from scratch. Visit my site or email me if  you'd like more information. This blog however is more concerned with the behind the scenes stuff of how the above animation was created. So lets get into that. From start to finish this animation took three days including writing the script, designing my new Animation 4 Business logo, animating the characters and scenes and adding sound effects and music. Note that I didn...

Since I've previously covered how to get the most out of your purchased G3 and G1 characters for Reallusion's Cartoon Animator 5, it would be remiss of me not to look at the greatest character rig of all time, G2 characters. G2 Characters have been mostly relegated to legacy status since Cartoon Animator 3 but, as a rig that let you create fully 360 degree turn-able characters that moved in 3D space, animated with 3D motion files, and were mostly vector based, there was nothing else like them in any other 2D  software. The problem was, even with the templates provided by Reallusion for both Adobe Flash and Serif DrawPlus , they were complex and time consuming to make from scratch. They were also difficult to customize because there was no way to export and edit individual parts. G2 characters just weren't easy enough for the casual Cartoon Animator user to customize so they fell by the wayside. However they're still fully supported in CA5 with all the same functional...