To take it even further...if you change every layer to "color outline mode" it's equally as awesome:
FITC '09: Graffiti Wall from Andrew Procter on Vimeo.
Designer/ Print Material - Joshua Davies
Image: Fable II Pub Game30 Days of Night from Big Spaceship on Vimeo.
-Royal Carribbean 100suitcases.com
Image: Dr. Hello, himself
And there he is.
Image: Jared Ficklin!
I'm first reminded of Crappy Cat, and then Poptropica. But the presentation here exceeds both of those games. How are they getting this level of performance out of Flash? First off, I measured the gameplay window: only 750 x 480 (give or take a few pixels). When was the last time we designed a game that small? You don't even realize this because they've designed a smart html shell around it with even more beautiful artwork that doesn't distract from the gameplay. Also, they have an impressive parallax working in the sidescroll part of the game. None of this appears to slow anything down. The mixing of vector and pixel is seamless, but definitely intentional for optimization. They've figured out how to pull it off (they being: Touch My Pixel).
Gary passed a game on to me called Questionaut. It's a free game on the BBC's KS2 Bitesize site, described as the following: "Journey through strange worlds and test your knowledge of English, Maths and Science on this magical mission to recover your friend’s hat." It looks like it's by the same creative folks behind Samorost.
I am a huge fan of Ugly Dolls. A few months ago, I stumbled on their website and signed up for updates. (nerd) Anyway, one of the most recent updates announced a new website. Check it out, it's an interesting blend of "hand drawn" illustration and flash animation. (plus they have some super cute icons you can download)
This is my final post on investigating the various methodologies of Flash animation. At least for the next week or so;) But seriously, I appreciate anyone who has taken the time to pour over what I'm admittedly calling a series of rants.AARON: Does this type of animation differ from a TV series?
ERIC: Totally. On the TV series that I’ve worked on, everything is stock digital puppets with a few special poses here and there. On the Comcast commercial nothing is stock - John drew layouts for everything. I enjoy working with layouts a lot more, the poses tend to be stronger and more organic. Working with stock it’s always a matter of trying to Frankenstein a pose together, like getting the correct hand from the library to fit the pose, “eh, it’s the wrong angle, hopefully no one will notice.” However, for me, working with layouts makes the turnaround time much longer; maybe I’m just not accustomed to that kind of process anymore. From my experiences working with both layout and stock pipelines in Flash, working with stock is the best way of going about making a TV series. Layouts require too much clean up and rigging that would most likely bottleneck somewhere in the production. Though the quality is better with layouts, it is just not economical for the demands of the studios with tight budgets and tighter schedules, especially when competing with overseas shops. But for a short, like the Comcast commercial, it’s totally the way to go. What was the question again?
So, it would appear that we're not the only one's debating a "stock" approach versus a "layout" approach. Stock, I guess being the industry term for Library, Layout meaning shot for shot. And then this other quote:
AARON: What type of direction did John give you before you animated?
ERIC: John’s main goal was to make this commercial not look ‘Flashy’ but still be smooth. He didn’t want too many overshoots, even timed tweens, or over distorted drawings using the transform tool. Most of the revisions he gave me were to substitute overshoots with slow ins to eliminate the jerky animation we often see in Flash cartoons.
Lots of jargon there. Fun to figure out what it all means. Elsewhere in the interview John K. states that this 1:15 spot took about a month to create with 15 people (voices included). Which he says is 10 times faster than any other commercial he's made for TV. But that still sounds like a heck of a lot of time to me with so many resources (we don't know if they were working fulltime, of course). I'm realizing more and more that the quality of animation I personally want to achieve is not as easy as it sounds, though definitely possible. Reality is kicking in :)
I find that we're in a unique position in the animation community, because few of us are actually trained in animation. We're all trying to figure out best methods to get the job done. But there's something nice about that, because we don't have the weight of convention holding us down.
My personal learning journey has been something like this: I look at the animation I like and try to figure out how it works. Which is where biases come in, because we all have our tastes. But as a company, we should be open with our ideas. So that we can all learn from each other. Too often, process boils down to budgets and results. And while I think all that has tons of merit, I want to make sure we're just as focused on pushing the artform as far as it can go. We've built an environment at FableVision that is a friend to creativity, and we should take advantage of that every day.
"The year was 1993, and Charlie Jackson, Jonathan Gay, and Michelle Welsh had established FutureWave Software, and with an initial investment of $500,000 they set their sights on the emerging market of pen computing. From their little office on Vickers Street in San Diego, the team hoped to make drawing on the computer easier than drawing on paper.
Hey gang! First off,
Looking for a design pick-me-up? Jay passed this great website on to me today. It's a design portal of sorts that tracks current trends in web design by showcasing a ton of cool sites. There's a lot to look at, especially if you're looking for innovative design solutions or just a lot of cutting edge Flash sites.
