Animation Challenge #1: The Side-Kick

[sciboy]

Welcome welcome, to another glorious morning in the Arena!
Today we have a very special delight, a competition of the random sort.
For the next few months we will take witness to the development of character and motion for the glorious victory that awaits our competitors.

For today, is the day for animators to take a triumphant pose and show the body language that makes other artists quiver in fear.

The topic is... The Side-Kick.

Good luck gladiators, and gawd bless CA. :yayca:

In order to enter you need to create a WIP thread and announce below that you have entered the arena with the link. Please keep this thread uncluttered.
You will need to present your concept before the 1st of May and final entries by 1st of August.


For Beginners

For those of you who want to give it a go but don't have an animation software setup,
I highly recommend Moho, a vector animation tool that is well featured and easy to use.
While it isn't free, the demo is fully functional excusing the watermark and greyscale swf output.
If you got any questions about animation feel free to ask, i'll be working together tutorials to help out with animation in general and techniques i use. =)

http://www.lostmarble.com/moho/index.shtml

Competitors

FlipMcgee (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=66668)
sciboy (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=65690)
llothcat (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=66798)
Wertle (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=66780)
grudge (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=66830)
ah.heng (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=66982) (Surrendered)

[sciboy]

Hehe, this should be fun.
Tremble in fear for Sciboy has entered the arena! (http://conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=65690)

[FlipMcgee]

"What the f--- have I gotten myself into!"

Indeed I tremble in fear standing (er, posting) in the same t-dome arena as the mighty sciboy!

Thanks for setting this up. I still have to prepare for my concept so I'll update this post with a link once I have a WIP thread up.

Hopefully more CAers will join and give this animation challenge a shot. :vodkamachine:

[Egets]

wow the helmet of horror was really cool animation !!! So was the cat bastard and most of them all.
I downloaded Moho program, looks like there is a lot to study before you make it work... could be interesting but I just have a ravishing headache right now so cant really consentrate on studying it, actually have been having headache for past 3 days now and even the paintkillers dont seem to work, is that a migraine then or what, prob have to go lie down even that dont feel a fucking bit grrrr, I hate when my body dont obey me

the helmet animation is found here on the upper left corner:

Helmet of Horror (http://www.lostmarble.com/moho/gallery/entertainment.shtml)

[sciboy]

Don't worry, there isn't much to learn software wise, the included manual/tutorials is enough for you to pick up most of the features in a few short hours.

The rest lies in your technique, ideas and investigation.
Feel free to ask any questions, I'd be more than happy to assist you with your venture into animation and i'm sure all the other animators around would be too.
Speaking of the videos, one i thought was well done is this (http://www.lostmarble.com/moho/gallery/wimpyTemplate.html?theFile=hs_lesson3.flv&wW=320&wH=260).

[llothcat]

I be in, too. I need to actually get a demo reel done.
my sketchbook thread will be where the wip will be posted. I will be using blender, and a few other open source programs, for it.

i got bored with the 10-second club.

[grudge]

Please... help me, I'm sorta kinda a bit of a retard(not meaning to be rude or nonpc)... so to enter, we design a "sidekick" character of sorts, and than animate it in some format? and post the resutling animation, I wouldn't be bothering to ask questions if I wasn't interested... I'm just a bit lost about the requested work and I'm not seeing any WIP threads with images to hint me in the correct direction!

[llothcat]

hmmm.yes I ws wondering about that. Can we have a standard file output? the 10 sec club, for instance, wants only mp3's at a max of 1mb. Maybe we should do the same?

[sciboy]

I decided against requirements and restrictions for this first animation challenge, since (a) I want to see what kind of competition we got in here (b) Allow people to cooperate and share information to help improve their work (c) Have alot of fun.

So i'll be leaving it all up to you guys on how far you want to go, and how you want to do it.
The topic is as much up to intepretation, for all i know you might to a karate training parody or go down the superhero route, i don't know it's all up to you. =)

Also that brings up a good point, i don't want this to be a competition where we are at each other throats trying to take the lead, you guys better help each other out, there's a reason i'm requiring WIP threads.

I look forward to seeing your concepts.

[llothcat]

ok..time to bump this. I got some some rough models posted..texturing is goin to be painful..not to mention the bg's . How about all you?

[sciboy]

llothcat: Mate, where's your WIP thread? You can't enter the challenge without one.

I've made a fair amount of progress, doing the production quality storyboard now to determine to precise look of some scenes, although i'm keeping the characters on a seperate layer cause they need to be redesigned for simplicity.
Fun thing is once the storyboard is finalised the rest is pure fun and easy because i incorporate most of the production elements into it. =)

I'll be attempting to do alot more 3D in this round, but i'll be sticking to the traditional animation look and i went with a comedic superhero story.

[Qitsune]

I won't be able to make it with all the girlie stuff going on (calendar & stuff)

[ah.heng]

i'm joining.

i take it i'm allowed to interpret the theme anyway i like.

[sciboy]

Yup, this is completely open-ended, but you do have to make the subject choice recognisable to your audience.
Next challenge i'll go with something more simple and specific, bouncing ball competition or such. :)

[FlipMcgee]

My WIP thread up: http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?p=835294#post835294

Just establishing the characters that I plan to use, so I don't have any actual animation wips yet. But here's a challenge warmup and a sample of my so-so skills :^^;:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v67/Flipmcgee/run.gif

[Wertle]

Oh man, it'd be really good for me to enter this. I'll see if I can come up with a concept in 3 days. *Gets to workins*

[Wertle]

Ding!

http://conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?p=837131#post837131

This is the scariest thing for me to do EVER.

[llothcat]

http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?p=837589#post837589

ok..animation thread is posted now...

[ah.heng]

i'll post up a rough storyboard on sunday.

[grudge]

Right... I'll play!
Anyway my WIP thread is at~ http://conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?p=838209#post838209

And an example of my wonky animation ability(sorry its freakin huge) really I gotta learn about video compression
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y144/grudge1/th_elphantsound2.jpg (http://s4.photobucket.com/albums/y144/grudge1/?action=view&current=elphantsound2.flv)

[Egets]

Im sorry but it looks too intimitating to me,the program- my crossback hurts too and I have flue :dad:

[sciboy]

Yay more competitors. :P
I'm very impressed by the concepts so far, good work.
Rushing like hell to get mine ready, unfortunately had unexpected work pop up and all my plans go out the window.

[FlipMcgee]

Nice! This is slowly becoming a real thunderdome. :rendered:

I've updated my wip thread with a storyboard, here (http://conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?p=839013#post839013).

See 'ya later.

PS.
Hope you'll get well soon Egets.

[Wertle]

I updated as well with some rough thumbnail sketches. I'm mostly concerned with whether the story idea will stand alone. Ding. (http://conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?p=840107#post840107)

[ah.heng]

here's my storyboard.
http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?p=841041

[sciboy]

After Round 1 LMS is over, i better see some updates!

[FlipMcgee]

Due to the LMS T-dome and the Blizzard Art Contest I won't be able to make the deadline. But if you extend it 'til November/December I'd still be in.

Otherwise, good luck and have fun everyone!

[sciboy]

Yikes, that's one hell of an extension, but it's an option. We'll see how everyone else is doing closer to the current deadline and decide whether or not to.
Personally i'd prefer to move on to another project or activity.

[llothcat]

welll..life gets in the way and all. I was out of my apartment for a month--long story on that one. I just have a walk cycle done, but it's not near what I wanted just yet. still learning the system. How "finished" are these supposed to be? While I was out, I couldn't work with sound, for instance. Full short or just a simple routine?

[sciboy]

It's completely up to you, this challenge was suppose to be completely open ended so we could see what animators we got around.
Next time though, we'll be doing small but regular activities.
Which also brings up the point of why the heck we'd need to extend this thing if aslong as there is some animation relevant to the topic, you've met the criteria.

[sciboy]

Sorry to double-post, but if any of you need to beg for some more time, now would be good.
I'd be ready to extend the deadline by 30 days, oh and keep up the good work llothcat.

[Dile_]

oh nevermind... im lame

[llothcat]

thankyou..now that I have the time, I'm re-rendering it. It'll be up soon

[llothcat]

I take that back..the file is prohibitally big....503mb :$ The old file will have to do.:$

[ah.heng]

sorry, i'm dropping out. i have to work on my portfolio.

[sciboy]

Congratulations to llothcat for being the only one to send in his entry.
I'll be doing a much more simple and specific challenge next time so we can get a few people off their asses..