animation session rules

#12

Alright guys :wavey: IĀ’ve given this a bit of thought whilst working today this is what I came up with;

[color=silver]Animation in any medium as to be honest animation is animation doesnĀ’t matter how its done. It may seem like 2d has an advantage coz it quicker but no one really has an advantage in either medium because with 2d you have to make model sheets first and do character designs before any animation can take place and in 3d you can just use box rigs or a free one off the web. For example the low man rig of generi rig is fine.[/color]

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[color=silver]The animators choose the style. Basically only the subject each month is chosen for you. An example of this is; if the subject was to Ā‘show a lossĀ’ then it could be interpreted as someone who has lost their keys or someone who has lost a family member or something completely different, the choice would be yours. In terms of how it is carried out, the one with the person who has lost their keys could be animated to music whereas the one with the death of a family member could be a dialogue scene. Again itĀ’s the animatorĀ’s discretion. [/color]

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[color=silver]SubjectĀ’s wouldnĀ’t always be Ā‘show a lossĀ’ type stuff it could be like jump out a window (to use I believe danger mouseĀ’s example.) it important that the story is the animators own itĀ’s just the subject that has to be incorporated some how. This gives the animator a certain amount of freedom without have everyone doing as they please all willy nilly. It has to be graded around something [font=Wingdings]:stuck_out_tongue: [/font][/color]

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[color=silver]Finally the animation has a deadline of one month so if we say that every animation should be approximately 15 seconds long it will give people time to produce a quality animation and allow them to finish it on time (hopefully) important to note that 15 seconds is not a hard fast rule as in you will not get penalized for going over or being slightly bellow. The most important thing about these challenges is that people are given the chance to produce something at a high standard, which can either be used as just a practice or finished up with a pretty render to stick on a reel.[/color]

These are just a bunch of ideas their still up for discussion so feel free to add or fix anything. So most importantly what do you guyĀ’s think. My main concern is that we all learn to be better animators so iā€™m open to anything thatā€™ll help us do that.:smiley:

#13

Sounds good to me. Freedom is good. We could use this as a base for starting, and go tweaking the rules as we go.

Iā€™m just anxious to start one! What do you say if we go ahead and post a new thread with a poll asking folks to vote on the contest that would start on 1 May? That would give us a month to get votes in and to ā€˜advertiseā€™ the challenge around a bit.

Or am I a little too anxious? Maybe we should hammer things out more first?

#14

also, Iā€™m still voting for all 3D animation, no 2Dā€¦just so that the playing field is a little more level.

#15

yeah 1st of may is cool, gives us some time to shout about it in the general disscusion thread.

as for only 3d thats cool if you wanna do it that way, i was just gonna chop and change and do a bit of both like one month 3d next one 2d just to stay in touch with both. though this could be my love of glen keanes work wanting to creep out.:stuck_out_tongue:

#16

cool. Whatever you decide is good with me. So letā€™s move over to the idea thread to get the ideas to present in the poll worked out?

#17

sure thing post away:beer:

#18

This is coolā€¦I didnt take advantage of it when it was last onā€¦Itā€™ll be nice to do this especial considerig Iā€™ll have finnished uni by thenā€¦be a cool way of building up my reelā€¦

#19

thats what weā€™re aiming for reel quality work but just a practice is cool too

#20

Good to have you Vivec. Feel free to add ideas for the animation themes weā€™ll use over here.

#21

Iā€™ll just chime in and say I like the ~15 second ruleā€¦Iā€™m assuming weā€™d target 24FPS, maybe that should be a rule, so it would roughly be ~360 frame animation.

Also, if Quicktime is acceptable, I personally favor the H.264 over Sorenson as it gives pretty darn good compression. Iā€™d maybe target 1MB data rate, which would yield between ~1-2MB clips.

Of course I donā€™t think that it must be in that format. I think there should be an option for something else.

640x480 is certainly nice too, but I am kinda liking 480x360 as a good compromise between being too tiny at 320x240, and taking up more space at 640x480.

just some added thoughts,

eric

#22

Well, at the moment it looks like we are favoring allowing any kind of digital animation ā€“ which includes scanned drawings, or stop motion, or whatever. Since we are considering allowing different styles of animation, then I donā€™t think dictating frames-per-second is necessary. The animation will look okay at the fps the artist chose, or it wonā€™t.

I like the 640x480 idea because details should still be very visibleā€¦ But, fluffybunnyā€™s idea of 480x360 isnā€™t bad either. I think that does hit a nice compromise.

I absolutely agree that formats are important. I would recommend the following for consideration:Quicktime ā€“ can you use different codecs? Iā€™m not overly familiar with QT, but at home have never had a problem viewing .MOV files and have been really happy about that.

Windows Media ā€“ Iā€™ve used WMV for compression and have been very happy with the results. The files are small, and as far as Iā€™ve been able to tell viewable by anyone with Windows Media Player who tried to look at them. You can use different settings, we should identify what we expect for animation videos in our challenges.

Flash ā€“ this is a very common animation file type, and should be allowed. We need to decide what version player needs to be targeted when the SWF file is for use in these animation challenges.

Once weā€™ve agreed on formats, I think putting together an overview, or tutorial, on properly encoding animations for these challenges would be a useful tool.

Other useful tools would include animation resources. A good starting place for these resources is the animation forums here on CGTalk:

http://forums.cgsociety.org/forumdisplay.php?f=26

This forum seems to have a lot of discussion on 3D techniques, but there is also discussion of 2D animation as well. Good stuff.

In the past it looks like the animations were not hosted here on CGTalk. So, where can they be hosted? There are a lot of free options out there, and I have a large chunk of webspace where I would be willing to host animations for others. Any other thoughts on this?

Finally, what kind of information should be included with each entry? My suggestions are:Time to finish (in days, weeks, or hours if you are REALLY fast)

Software used (all packages)
Encoding information (you never know when this is useful information)

Keeping sample parts of work as you progress is a good idea, too. Iā€™m sure a lot of great walk throughs could be written up, and having these partial steps available will only make these kinds of write-ups easier to do. Not that a howto is required, but some people like to contribute them.

#23

this would be cool,if you didnā€™t mind doing it then everyone could get everything from the same place.

your idea about encoding tuts is sweet too, if you know anyone whoā€™s a bit of an encoding pro then by all means get em on board (goes for anyone)

i reckon quicktime/ or flash are the way to go coz everyone can get hold of the players free.

#24

Count me in for this! :thumbsup:

As far as rules go, not too fussed. I agree there should be more flexibility with milestones than before. Everyone has their own way of working. Maybe it should just be a rule to post your own ā€œpersonalā€ milestones, i.e. storyboards, blocking poses, and major iterations of the scene file if thatā€™s how you work. Or reference video if you act it out etc.

#25

hehe, canā€™t claim that as my idea reallyā€¦tis the resolution weā€™re presently using in AM.

Regarding H.264 in QT, it does require the latest version of QT to play, but since itā€™s pretty easy to grab, it shouldnā€™t be an issue. Encoding this does require QT pro as far as I know.

Thereā€™s also the super compressed avi that the 10 second club uses, would it be thievery to steal their procedure? itā€™s not divX, but I forget what it is.

One other idea that pops to mind is frame counters? Theyā€™re sure niceā€¦should they be required?
I agree that 24FPS doesnā€™t need to be mandatory, I only suggested it cause itā€™s a good general target.

just keeping the ideas flowing :slight_smile:

eric

#26

I have the worst memory EVER, but i have some vague recollection of cgsociety planning on hosting anims soon? or was that for portfoliosā€¦ anyway, i donā€™t make much use of my current hosting, iā€™d be happy to mirror on a monthly rotation or something.

Iā€™ve got an idea to help thing move along in a more solid structured fashion, feel free to shoot me down if itā€™s dumb :wink: assign jobs/positions. put someone in charge of rules, someone in charge of topics, someone in charge of setting up voting threads, etc. iā€™ll use the rules as an example, that way if one person is in charge of the rules, they set up the rules based on whats been loosely agreed upon, then if changes are required, they can pmā€™ed and organised by woevers in charge. any of that make any sense? iā€™m not a natural born leader by any stretch of the imagination, but iā€™m totally happy if anyone wants me to take care of an aspect of all this

just yet another 2cents of mine :wink:

#27

Hey Dalmannaā€¦how about adding some polls to help decide some of these issues? Maybe one on movie size (I personally like 480x360),etc.

Dangermousedanger, I agree with you that one person should be in charge of this,or various people assigned to specific parts. Dalmanna, did you want to continue running the show on this?

Another avatar change for you, eh?

#28

ok, made a poll titles a bit messy coz i thought you had to write poll but apparently it does it for you:D go vote here

as for sorting out jobs i donā€™t mind doing the poll and setting the challenge and stuff as long as itā€™s cool with everyone else.

and yes the ryu avatar was getting old so earthworm jim stepped in:bounce:

#29

hey guys just pmā€™d Roberto to see if heā€™s interested and he wanted to know the rules so i sent him this (below) is this ok with everyone? and did i leave somthing out

hey again,

these are the rules weā€™ve come up with so far, if you think somethings wrong point it out and weā€™ll change it. the reason for only quicktime format hand in is because you can get quicktime on any OS and the player is free.

"participants will need to submit the following land marks:

[ul]
[li]Explanation of idea[/li]> [li]thumbnail sketches[/li]> [li]final animation in quicktime format with a res of 480x360[/li]> [/ul]
animations must be completed in one month"

#30

I think that accepting multiple formats would allow the challenges to be open to the widest number of participants. Not that all formats can be accepted, but having a few options should keep things flexible enough.

Here are links to software for viewing different file formats:

WMV - Windows Media
PC
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/mp10/default.aspx

Macintosh
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/player/wmcomponents.mspx
MOV - Quicktime
http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/win.html
SWF - Flash
http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download/download.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash
Once we have the rules finalized I think they should be posted as the first entry in a sticky thread. Also, they should be updated as any changes are made to the general rules for the animation challenges.

#31

Easy there guys. The new animation sessions are coming as soon as the animation hosting comes up from the good folks at cg society.

I am sorry but the rules I set will not be changed , 2d IS allowed and you are still supposed to submit your milestones. That is to avoid people not showing anything until they ā€œthinkā€ they are done with it. the point is to encourage peer critic every step of the way.

There are a couple of really cool topics coming for the sessions.