Animation and Video Life

Remember Xtranormal ? The site that said "If you can type, you can make movies." Although its online studio was very limited it was still pretty good for making short, dialogue driven videos with visually interesting 3D characters and backgrounds. Here's a reminder with one of my best Xtranormal videos using some of their Star Trek based characters. I enjoyed Xtranormal quite a bit but its pay as you publish business model and the need to purchase themes made it expensive. Particularly if you graduated to the downloadable desktop version, State , which gave you more functionality, increased possibilities and an even lighter bank account. Last year, around mid 2013, Xtranormal closed down its website with a promise to rethink its business model and maybe make a come back. As it turns out Xtranormal is no more. Its intellectual properties were liquidated and, early this year, sold to a new company called Nawmal . Presently Nawmal is still in the process of assess...

I've been on an extended break from this blog (and pretty much everything I do in the way of creating my own new content) not by choice but because I've been very busy in my Animation Business . I'm certainly not complaining about that but, for me at least, there does come a point in creating animations for clients where all my energy has to go into getting the best result for my client - even if it means cutting back on everything else I do. Fortunately the work has eased up a little and I feel I can get back into, what I hope will be, regular weekly posts to this blog again. I thought I'd begin with a post about what's coming up that I would like to blog about as well as an update on projects I started but have yet to complete. Firstly, all the paid work has allowed me to purchase quite a few software packages that I'm sure readers of this blog would like me to review including: Serif DrawPlus X5 - Vector drawing and animation. Serif MoviePlus X6 - Vid...

Xtranormal's online studio is a good way to take a break from the challenges of visualizing a complete script to just focus on a single scene with dialogue. So that's what I do from time to time. The Robotz theme characters are actually a collection of retro constructed robots made from hardware that seems to be mostly pre-1980 back to very early twentieth century. In this sketch the very latest in World Domination Robots reports for duty in some large industrial type complex of the future (I think the set is actually the bridge of a space craft). It's not long before he realizes he's not as impressive as he first thought. The idea for this sketch is really just me messing about. I like the idea of contrasting grand ideas with the intricacies of every day life. Who really cares if you're the latest in World Domination Robots if it's peace time and you have a broken toaster? Although Xtranormal looks deceptively easy there's actually more wo...

Have you ever wanted to start your own animated cartoon studio business but thought such an idea would be too complex to set up and, besides that, you need to be able to draw, right? Well, not necessarily on both counts. Recently animation sites GoAnimate (now rebranded as ' Vyond ' for Agencies) and Xtranormal (now rebranded as ' nawmal ') announced new Commercial Use Packages that include re-seller accounts i.e. accounts that allow you to create commercially licensed video animations with their studios for clients to use in their business. GoAnimate is a site that specializes in allowing anyone to make 2D cartoons (e.g. such as Saturday morning cartoon style animation) easily with no drawing skills required. It relies on pre-drawn and automated characters that you simply drag, drop and position on pre-drawn backgrounds. There's plenty of room for customization to give your final cartoons their own unique style. Xtranormal specializes in 3D cartoons (i.e....

Xtranormal, Star Trek Entry Summer Movie Contest. To begin, I'd like to thank all of you that took the time to vote for and Youtube 'Like' my entries in Xtranormal's Summer Movie Contest and the Sydney Opera House's Graphic Contest . Thanks to your efforts I managed to place a very respectable seventh place in Xtranormal's contest - where the top ten most Liked entries received a prize. Seventh won me 2000 Xtranormal points - which I think equates to about US$20.00 in real money if I had to buy those points. Still, you can do a lot with 2000xp on Xtranormal so it was great to have even placed when I thought I'd be lucky to squeak in at tenth. You can see all the winners on Xtranormal's blog . GoAnimate SOH Graphic Competition Entry. I wasn't quite so fortunate with the Sydney Opera House's Graphic Contest. My entry was accepted into the first round alongside about 53 other entries. Unfortunately I don't know if I got enough...

Animation site Xtranormal is having a Summer Movie Contest  with a $1000 first prize and they also just released a new set of Star Trek themed characters and backgrounds called Trekkiez . I decided to combine the two into this blog post by featuring their new characters in my Summer Movie Contest entry below. If you enjoyed the above animation then I'd really appreciate it if you took a moment to visit the animations Youtube Page to click the Youtube 'Like' Button under the video . The top ten most liked videos will all win a prize. As mentioned, first prize is US$1000, with second prize being an iPad 2 and third an iPod Touch (any of which I'd be happy to win but first would be awesome). The competition ends at the end of July 2011. Long time fans of my online animations may find the theme and script of the above animation some what familiar. That's because I based it upon the ideas that feature in the script of my original GoAnimate, Star Trek Quogs seri...

This animation is not a swipe at either GoAnimate or Xtranormal. I'm a strong supporter and user of both sites. The only reason I don't use Xtranormal as much is, as the video points out, it costs REAL money... and, whilst GoAnimate isn't 100% free either, its flexibility (again pointed out in the video) means it's where I get better value for money. So watch the video and then I'll tell you what it's really all about... I created this animation as a way to try out Xtranormal's new Stikz theme - which is some weird merger between 2D and 3D animation, resulting in a few awkward angles by the auto camera that really aren't appropriate for the theme (notice some of the side views where the stikz guy's face is almost a line). Partially inspired by TinyWatchProductions' iPhone4 vs HTC Evo  Xtranormal video that went viral on YouTube back in June of 2010 (Just imagine the Xtranormal character as the iPhone4 customer) my animation is a parody of...

Office space is a series I started on DIY animation site, Xtranormal , featuring two office workers, Steve and Vicki. Steve is a Waste Management Executive on the rise and Vicki is his some what jaded personal assistant. You can see episode 1 and 2 on my original Xtranormal post . Episode 3 picks up just after Steve has presented his report to the Top Brass. He confronts Vicki with a number of issues... Episode 4 (below) is the latest episode which I've entered into Xtranormal's first animation contest . The theme is relationships in celebration of Valentine's Day. There is a US$1000.00 dollar prize for the entry with the most views on Xtranormal's Youtube channel. The competition ends February 28th, 2011 so please help me out by sharing this animation as far and wide as you can. In this episode Steve has another chance to present his report but Vicki is some what distracted from getting the job done. This one is a little more racier than previous episodes so pa...