Animation and Video Life

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Work on my Infinite Monkey Theorem, animated short has mostly stalled in the last few weeks. Readers of my other blog will know I've been struggling with a neck injury (sometimes referred to as 'Computer Neck') that has made doing any kind of lengthy computer work a literal pain in the neck. I'm getting through it but, if you spend a lot of time in front of a computer, I highly recommend you take five minute breaks, at least every 30 minutes, to walk around and do some neck stretching exercises. Anyway, to get this project back on track, I'm trying something a little new to create my video diary of my latest work. Recently I purchased a new Logitech HD webcam (my old webcam was a pre HD relic) which I've teamed with OBS studio , a free application staple, used by live streamers everywhere.

Cloud Animator is a new, cloud based, animated explainer/presentation, video creation studio by Reallusion , who are better known for their flagship products iClone , CrazyTalk , and CrazyTalk Animator . The best I can describe a Cloud Animator Video Presentation  is that it is kind of a cross between a Power Point Presentation, Animated Explainer Video, and a HTML5 application. As someone who creates animated business explainer videos for a living, I've been a little perplexed as to what Cloud Animator is trying to be, and where I would use the videos created with it most effectively? Now that I've taken a deeper dive into what it can do, by actually producing a sample presentation myself, I'm starting to understand the benefits of adding interactivity to a video presentation.

Top Down Typewriter Prop by TET. As far as my Infinite Monkey Theorem animated short goes, I think I'm just going to have to stop stating what I hope to complete by the next post and just be happy with the fact that I've completed something, and that the project is progressing. Last post I was hoping to have the entire final draft of my polished storyboard finished this week but instead, all I've managed is to create a top down view of my typewriter prop.

Partial Image from 'Character' by Nigel Ng. Nigel Ng's animation, Character, is different to the animation I usually feature in this blog in that it is a more conceptual style of animation and story telling. Designed to elicit an emotional response, it uses music to set the tone, and juxtaposes short animations to create a narrative. Animators tend to move towards this kind of sophisticated, conceptual storytelling later in their careers, so I was surprised to learn that Nigel has only been animating around 4 months.

Final character art, scene one. Continuing to work on my Infinite Monkey Theorem animated short , I had hoped to have finished the entire final draft storyboard by now. However the holiday season being what it is, I didn't get as much time to work on it as I had hoped. Despite that I can show you the entire process of me taking the character (loosely based on myself) in the opening panel of the storyboard, from rough sketch to the final artwork that I'll use in the animation.

Infinite Monkey Theorem. Back in my last Project Update post I mentioned my Infinite Monkey Theorem, Animated Short that I had begun working on that was designed to showcase, Reddy, my first color monkey character for CrazyTalk Animator 3. Up until recently I had been working a little bit on the project every weekday, however the project fell by the wayside in an effort to get my Mar-Rey Sue, Desert Scavenger finished by the end of November. Now that character is finished, I think it's time to get this animated short back into my work schedule.