Project Updates - Things I Either Am, or Have Been, Working On

TET, hard at Work.

I've been particularly busy lately working on various projects. Scheduling my time much better so I work on several things for just an hour or two each day. I thought I'd give you a quick run down of what I've been doing of late. Starting with JAC the Cat character...

JAC Cat,
Crazy Talk Animator 2

I haven't really advanced this enough to warrant a full post dedicated to my progress on this. However I have been working on it daily, trying to solve all the body part import issues that I outlined in my Part 4 update.

JAC Cat body Parts.

I can tell you I've pretty much resolved everything with regard to importing my DrawPlus template into CrazyTalk Animator 2. Body parts are all in the right place, none are missing or color inverted.

I'm now fixing up the various joint masks - which I've discovered don't do their job nearly as well if you use a lot of gradients in your coloring. I'll need to plan my character design better next time, possibly stick to flat color.

I'm also trying to resolve the issue of the cat's tail. I've discovered I can import the tail segments but, for the moment at least, there's no way to make sure they're showing in the correct layer order. I haven't done enough with this to know if the tail is going to work as part of the character or whether I should create a tail prop and attach it to the character once it's in the scene.

Dan.

New Animation 4 Business Promotional Videos,
Crazy Talk Animator 2 and iClone 6

Speaking of CrazyTalk Animator 2, I recently completed a short promotional video for my relaunched Premium 2D service that utilizes that software instead of GoAnimate. The video focuses on the wonderful hand drawn characters and props by Australian cartoonist, Gary Pye, who I happen to have bought a sizable chunk of his content from.

My video is a little rough around the edges and is again voiced by me (personally I don't think my voice suits Gary's Dan character but it'll do for now). I'm quite happy with the animation I did on the two main characters but my attempt at humor with Wendy's changed look falls flat - better luck next time!

As I write this I'm working on a second Animation 4 Business promotional video using iClone 6. This time to promote my all new Premium 3D service. You can see a behind the scenes image from this video below. Note it is a true behind the scenes image, being a screen shot of the unfinished set I've put together and not a frame from the actual video - which I haven't even started animating yet.

Behind the scenes screenshot of my latest promotional video.

The script for this one was written by one of my Animation 4 Business contractors, Commedus, who came up with an interesting angle to showcase a little of the 3D aesthetic.

Hoot Game Creating

Hoot

Long time readers of this blog my remember Hoot, a character by TheseStars (from GoAnimate), that I helped bring to life for her animated, anagram videos.

Currently we're developing a game featuring Hoot and his Anagrams using Scirra's Construct 2 software. I can't really show you anything as yet but we're making some really great progress with our latest work in progress game file having a fully player controlled Hoot running around the screen.

I can't even speculate on a release date but if we get it done by early next year I'll be very happy. Expect the game to be available on a mobile device near you when it comes out.

I'll also write some reviews about Construct 2 and my experiences with it in the near future 2. If you're an animator interested in creating 2D games it's certainly a great option - the basic version is quite powerful and free.

Bat Storm.

That's about everything for now. I do have other upcoming projects. I particularly hope to be working on my iClone version of Bat Storm real soon too.

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

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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

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