Thursday, September 25, 2008

Animation Bundle

I posted a set of animations yesterday on Newgrounds. Here's the link. While it scored higher than the first thing I submitted, this still deserves to be more recognized than many higher-rated things. Oh well.

EDIT: I misspoke. What I should have said was that many higher-rated things deserve to be less recognized.

Anyway, the main page of the thing is very gimmicky and unattractive. I don't like it at all, but I assumed that this sort of pointless movement is precisely the sort of thing that would catch the attention of most newgrounders.
I'm upset that the framerate is only something like 1/2 or 2/3 of what it should be. I think flash begins to lag (at least when it's hosted online) if there are too many unique lines & vectors. The video is much less attractive this way, so I may try to fix it sometime.
EDIT: I sort of fixed the framerate. By making it have the correct amount of fps, however, it lags a bit and may skip a frame or two. It's better than before, but not quite perfect. Resubmitting the videos like this increased its score by a little, but the viewers seem to see less of a difference than me.
The "Worm" animation took the most thought and effort. I decided to do something slightly creepy, and I expect to do much, much, weirder animations in the future. I'm happy with the result.
The "Tough Guy" is modeled after my own body. I wasn't interested in making facial expressions for this one, and tried something a bit more stylish than the body for the head. The final result was originally just a sketchy version for something I planned on detailing more and making more looney. This is sort of shown by how the hands start as misshapen bubbles and become actual hands midway through the loop (this may be hard to notice, because I tried to blur the "actual hands" a lot, so they're still a bit amorphous). When I began making the version that I originally wanted to be final, I found it too difficult to keep consistent and fluid, so scrapped it and improved the sketch. I'm not happy with the part where he flexes his muscles, but other people seen to like it, so I'll leave it alone.
The "Hand" doesn't look very smooth to me. I actually like how it is, but I can understand why someone would like it to be more simple by moving in an easier shape like a circle.
The run cycle is very basic. The head doesn't even bob. I expect to make many more walk/run cycles in the future, so I hope to improve my abilities.

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