*phew* Animation is tough Any who, here''s an update on an old post... This is what we have so far. We are knee deep in the animation phase, and we are "hoping" to have it done in two weeks... well, a full rough cut in two weeks. Then we get to deal with all the other fun stuff... tweaking, audio, packaging, etc... This is a rough cut... there are some clips that seem out of place - its because the clips in between them aren''t done yet (particularly the last two clips) The pacing is also weird (particularly with the book, you won''t see so many page turns), but like I said, its a rough cut. Any who... check it out (its about 5 megs - mpeg 4) Click Here to Play

hey not bad. nice intro. i liked the candle mage trick.
i like the mage rolling his eyes great work (might need more expression like this throughout)

things i noticed, you decide if they are important:

- mages, hands flipping the pages, look weird and repetitious. i wasnt reading the pages until halfway through.

- the knights shoulders are stretchy. spline model?
idea: throwing on some shoulder pads will fix it up.

-camera movements when the knight breaks down the door are too busy.
idea: slower pan and no zooming. no movement might look better.

I totally agree about the pages. Its a lot longer for a reason though... this was just piecing together footage. Half of those page turns are going to be used later in the animation... final pacing will probably be "1 page turn - Eyes - 1 Page Turn - Eyes - Zoom in on Book"

The Knight model I''m not worried about. Its a crap extra 3rd character that appears in about 4 shots ;p Plus, the guy who was doing his armor never got me those shoulder pads I had already requested We''ve got two weeks left, so unfortunately, some things are just going to have to remain not so perfect. (and left to be fixed another day....)

Yea it looked like a nice start, too bad you won''t be able to get more time before its release. An idea about the paging turning. I noticed that his hand moved with the page like the page was too stiff, unless its an ancient crumbling book the hand can move straight accross and page bend more to move with it. Just a thought.

Good eye, and I agree. Yeah, see, I animated it originally to have "magic" turn the pages, then I decided that''d be too easy... and then animated the hand to follow it.

This is actually not too hard to fix... its definitely on the list of things to "re render if there is time"

Its not as noticeable though when there is only one page being turned at a time... as it will be in the final edit.

''course, it is a spell book... you''d think he''d be careful with it ;p

LOL, any who... back to the project... *groans*

Well seeing as how it is a spellbook and perhaps ancient you could retexture it so that the pages look a little cracked and old, that would explain him not bending the pages. It would still require rerendering so its prolly a matter of whats going to require more work. Can''t wait to see it finished and get the audio with it.