Skip to main content

The War Beyond - TET's First Anime on GoAnimate

The more realistic Anime theme was introduced on GoAnimate back in June 2012. At the time I was very busy with creating business animations but I did take some time to try the theme out and started making The War Beyond.

The War Beyond by etourist

Like it? Create your own at GoAnimate.com. It's free and fun!

The premise of a war starting without the two main characters really being aware of what's been happening in the wider world around them was inspired by the film Tomorrow, When the War Began. In that film the group of teenagers take a camping trip to a remote location only to come back to an invasion of their town that no one was aware was going to happen before they left.

My version looks at the idea that teens are often so engrossed in their own world and circle of friends that they sometimes don't pay attention, or even just ignore, what their parents are doing as well as not knowing about news and current events affecting their community.

The style of the animation (apart from anime) was to try an look like a graphic novel with the choice of camera shots and placement of speech balloons - without actually being a graphic novel. I never considered using TTS voices or having people voice the characters.

I never intended to tell the whole story of the two teens. In fact I came pretty close to just deleting this animation as an unfinished project however I felt there was enough there it would have been a shame not to at least publish what I had.

Back in early November I revisited the animation and decided I had enough scenes to be an interesting narrative. I went through and refined them, then added sound effects and music.

Adding just the right word at the end to sum up what the viewer had just seen took some thinking. I had a few other words in mind but 'Hope' seemed the most appropriate in suggesting that maybe the two teens made it out.

There's not much in the way of technical details and tricks to relate. Most of it is quite straight forward. Of note though include:

  • The picture in the opening scenes falling to the ground from the vibrations of the helicopters. Details like this can really enhance a scene - especially if you add a sound effect to go with it.
     
  • The two characters actually enter the apartment without opening the door yet you hear a door close as the scene dissolves from outside the apartment to inside. This works because a dissolve in film 'speak' represents the passing of time. Even though, in my animation, we're going almost immediately from outside to inside, the dissolve suggests enough time has passed for us not to actually see the characters open and close the door.
     
  • Dialogue is kept short. You learn nothing about either character, not even their names yet, through their exchange, you learn that war has broken out and that the boys parents were at least preparing for it. Everything else is explained through the visuals... even that these two are probably a couple.
     
  • The closing scenes, with the two characters walking down stairs. GoAnimate's Anime characters walk and run in a slightly unrealistic way (you can see it when they run to the television). Originally I had them running down the stairs in a wide shot but it looked so terrible I changed it to two medium panning shots where you can't see their legs at all.
Having used the Anime theme I'm not a big fan. I like all the backgrounds, and the characters are great but the character creator for the theme is so limited right now. Though it's good the characters can 'learn' actions like the Lil' Peepz characters.

If GoAnimate adds more variation and particularly more outfits to the Anime character creator - and perhaps offers a bit more of the theme for gopoints rather than gobucks it could well take off. Right now it's a little expensive for the average user and doesn't offer enough free characters to be much more than a novelty for most people.

Popular posts from this blog

Can You Learn Reallusion's Cartoon Animator 5 for Free Using Their 137 Official YouTube Video Tutorials Sorted Into a Logical Learning Order?

Or you could just buy The Lazy Animator Beginner's Guide to Cartoon Animator . While Reallusion's Cartoon Animator is one of the easiest 2D animation studios to get up and running with quickly, learning it from all of the official, free, video tutorials can be more overwhelming than helpful. With more than 137 videos totaling more than 28 and a half hours of tutorials, spread across three generations of the software (Cartoon Animator 3 through 5) it's hard to know if what you're learning is a current or legacy feature that you either need to know or can be skipped. Many of the official tutorials only teach specific features of the software and don't relate at all to previous or later tutorials. As a result there are many features either not mentioned or are hard to find. To make your learning easier, on this page, I've collected together all of the essential, official, free video tutorials and sorted them into a learning order that makes sense. Simply start at

TimeBolt: Fast Video Editing for Anyone Creating Online Courses, Podcasts, or Vlogs.

I resisted making tutorial videos for a long time because I don't like editing. Specifically I don't like editing me teaching as I step students through a process during a screen record. I have a tendency to insert long pauses not just in the middle of sentences but between multiple words in the middle of sentences as my pace matches what I'm doing onscreen. This makes for very long and very slow paced video tutorials. To counteract this I have to edit out all the pauses. This can take hours, or even days on particularly long tutorials. For example, when I created my main course, The Lazy Animator Beginner's Guide to Cartoon Animator , I literally injured the thumb on my right hand, operating my mouse, as I spent weeks taking out all my pauses (seriously, I had to wear a thumb brace for a few weeks to fix the pain). Recently I came across TimeBolt , a very affordable, fast editing application with the featured purpose of removing all the pauses from your video (and even

Make Disney/Pixar Style Characters with Reallusion's Character Creator and Toon Figure Bases

The Extraordinary Tourist Classic Coat outfit created using Reallusion's Toon Designer for CC3. I've talked before how I've wanted to get into 3D Disney/Pixar style character animation since I first saw the animated cutscenes for the very first Tomb Raider game back in 1996. It's why I initially bought Reallusion's iClone 3D studio app as soon as I could afford a computer that would run it. But then Reallusion released their 3D Character Creator (CC) for iClone and I wanted to create my characters with that (and I did try with Bat Storm ). But the focus of CC was realism, even with ToKoMotion's stylised body morphs . Now with Reallusion's Cartoon Designer bundle for CC3 which features two packs, Toon Figures , and Toon Hair , designing Disney/Pixar style 3D characters just got a whole lot quicker. The two packs are the bare essentials for creating Toon style characters. Five body morphs (2 male, 2 female, and one adolescent body morph that w

AE Juice - Animation Presets, Motion Graphics, Templates, Transitions for After Effects, Premiere Pro, and Other Video Applications

Level up you video edits and animations with AE Juice's motion graphics and templates. Some days you just don't have the time to create flashy motion graphics for your latest video or animation. For some of us it's more a question of our own artistic abilities being a little less than the awesome we'd like them to be. Whatever reason a resource like AE Juice's animation presets, motion graphics, templates, and transitions packs for After Effects , Premiere Pro , and other video applications can really make your work stand out very quickly. AE Juice gives you access to an instant library of free, premade content elements and sound effects, which you can add to with additional purchases of various themed packs from their store. There are three ways to manage their content, all of which can be used in commercial projects . The AE Juice Standalone Package Manager makes it easy to browse previews of all your pack contents and to download and find just the elements yo

Review: Headshot Plugin for Reallusion's Character Creator 3

Headshot for CC3. Quite possibly the best 3D Avatar I've made of myself in any 3D application. Creating a realistic 3D human avatar is a whole lot easier with Reallusion's new Headshot Plugin for Character Creator 3. The plugin is an AI powered extension that can generate 3D digital humans from one photo. Which sounds like an amazing proposition but, in practice, if you're trying to achieve a specific likeness to an actual person, Headshot will give you an excellent base to work from. Headshot has two modes, Auto and Pro. Auto Mode Auto is well worth a try if you have an ideal photo of a front facing person that is properly lit and posed to Headshot's optimum requirements. It's also the only mode that will take a crack at generating a hair model. I grabbed an image of Harrison Ford, dragged it into Headshot without changing any of the default settings (other than specifying 'male' and selecting an 'old male' setting) and this is what I

KIT Scenarist - Free, Open Source, Screenwriting Software that Helps Research Your Ideas Too

KIT Scenarist Script Writing Software's Mascot, Alexander Cat. While you can write a script in any word processing app, if you're writing stories (screenplays) that feature characters and dialogue, a dedicated script writing app can save a lot of time formatting, letting you focus more on the actual story. Script writing apps are also very useful if you plan to send your screenplays out to production companies, or if you're collaborating with actors and other production people, who are used to scripts being in a particular standard format.  [Note: In case you're wondering there are reasons scripts follow a standard format and are always written in Courier (typewriter) font, including but not limited to; being easy to read by actors, plenty of space for notes, and the general rule that one page of a script (in this format) equals approximately one minute of screen time.] KIT Scenarist , in my opinion, is one of the best script writing apps out there for ease of use, simp

Reallusion Releases Cartoon Animator 5 - One Version, More Features, Lower Price!

If you're serious about producing 2D animation as quickly as possible, while still achieving professional results, Reallusion's Cartoon Animator 5 makes the most compelling case yet as your animation studio/tool of choice. Cartoon Animator's point of difference has always been its ease of use and accelerated workflow. Creating fast, 2D animation using puppet, bone rigged based characters and props, on a stage with 3D depth for easy scene parallax effects. As it has developed Reallusion has incorporated more advanced features like motion capture for both face and body as well as being able to export scenes to post production tools like After Effects with the addition of plugins. After moving away from Flash based vector image support for a few years, Reallusion is back with full .SVG (scalable vector graphics) support for resolution independent graphics. They've also added Spring Dynamic physics and Full Form Deformation tools, both of which make it ridiculously easy t