Welcome to the Archive section of the blog!

Linux contribution

Posted on December 25, 2006
Filed Under Linux | Leave a Comment

Following a discussion on Lugradio.com I thought that I should start contributing to the linux community since I have been using it at work for quite a while now. As a start here is a template I just used to print on my Centos 4.4 server CD. It is a very small contribution but that will do for a start. Works perfectly with my epson CD printing software.

Mirage (edit “TVPaint”)

Posted on December 21, 2006
Filed Under Drawings | Leave a Comment

[important update] It appears that what I am mentioning at the end of the post is very serious, as far as I understand it Bauhaus is only a reseller and the French company is the actual creator of Mirage. The last version of Mirage available on Bahaus website is Mirage 1.5 which is not the newest release. The new release has been renamed TVPaint 8.1.1 (do you remember TVPaint?) and it offers features more suited for digital 2d animation. Buying from Bahaus will not allow you to upgrade to the new version and only TVPaint is intelMacs compatible.

Here is the 2d animation software I am testing those days. I have been trying several since the begining of the month in order to improve my drawing skills and hopefully my animation skills and a better understanding on spacing.

Just like every animation mentor students I tried PAP which seem to be the Zbrush of Digital 2d animation. An awfull interface that hides a software which only reveals himself once you get to know how it works. The drawing feeling is great but you can only draw in black or blue. The lack of coloring tool and only one layer just doesn’t do it for me so I tried Toon Boom.

Toon Boom is a cool software because it offers a landscape mode timeline where you hold poses instead of just copying them. Copying is good but if you make changes you would prefer to see them reflected on the held poses instead of deleting them all and copying them back. One great thing too is that you can rotate the workspace. Now one thing that can put people off is the drawing mode. Toon Boom is a vector software so every paintstroke is interpreted in a clean mathematical manner. It is great if you love sharp looking animations with a finished feel to it but not so great if you are the kind of guy who needs to rough stuff up before hand.

Next comes Mirage. I was reluctant at first because of the interface again but after few minutes and going through the various tutorials it doesn’t look so bad anymore and to animate you only need to know few things. I will either make a video very soon or a simple 2d animation tutorial to show you how it works. An animation toolbar is available but it doesnt’ look like it comes with the basic version of Mirage. Rusty Mills explains on his blog how he uses Mirage on his TabletPC (how long will I resist to buy a tabletPC…… ).

At the moment this is my favourite digital animation software. I use it everyday (few weeks left before the trial version expires) to do simple animation tests or sketch full poses, eyes and hand poses. My favourite tool is the size 3 blue crayon.
I won’t encourage you to buy Mirage for the moment as there seem to be a legal issue between french company TV Paint and Mirage. I don’t really know what is the whole story but TVpaint and Mirage are exactly the same software under a different name and color scheme (I have always prefered dark user interfaces though) .

Pocoyo not on Youtube this time

Posted on December 19, 2006
Filed Under Animation | Leave a Comment

Instead of fighting against Pocoyo’s lovers who naively put episodes on Youtube and forgetting about copyright issues, Pocoyo’s production company Zinkia, has decided to put some episodes in much better quality on their own website.

www.pocoyo.com

If you didn’t know about the show. Pocoyo is produced in Spain and you can check Pocoyo’s production blog at http://pocoyo.blogs.com/pocoyo/

Spumco’s Ren and Stimpy revolution

Posted on December 17, 2006
Filed Under Animation | Leave a Comment

If you want to know a bit more about Ren and Stimpy’s creators, head to http://cin01.blogspot.com/ You will find some scans of a series of Articles about Spumco.

France Cul. histoire du cinema d’animation

Posted on December 7, 2006
Filed Under Animation | Leave a Comment

France culture is running a 20 25 minutes episodes series about the history of animation.

It is unfortunately only in french. Click here to find the previous episodes

Terry Pratchett’s Hogfather on TV

Posted on December 7, 2006
Filed Under Miscellaneous | Leave a Comment

Terry Pratchett’s Hogfather will be broadcasted the 17th and 18th of December on Skyone. You can read more on skyone’s website . Don’t forget to check the very cool videos and there ‘s even a “making of” video by the MPC people. Thanks Rich for the tip

Animation principles

Posted on December 5, 2006
Filed Under Animation, Drawings, Education | 1 Comment

Everybody knows the 12 principles of animation established by Frank and Ollie in the Illusion of Life but over the years many people have felt the need to add more principles.

Just to clear my mind I have decided to make a compilation of them based on Walt Stanchfield notes www.animationarena.com/principles-of-animation.html
Chapter 7 Principles of animation page 155

1. pose and mood
2. shape and form
3. anatomy
4. model or character
5. weight
6. line and silhouette
7. action and reaction
8. perspective
9. direction
10. tension to extreme
11. planes
12. solidity
13. arcs
14. squash and stretch
15. beat and rhythm
16. depth and volume
17. overlap and follow thru
18. timing
19. working from extreme
20. positive & negative shapes
21. straights and curves
22. primary and secondary action
23. staging and composition
24. anticipation
25. caricature
26. details
27. texture
28. simplification

Things are still not very clear in my mind and as I go along I will refine that list with explanations and add ons. So far I am already thinking of adding
– Clarity
– Entertainment
– Sincerity

but also to take Adam’s variation in consideration:

4. model and character
11. planes of view

Colour harmony (uncomplete)

Posted on December 1, 2006
Filed Under Graphic design | Leave a Comment

John K. and Keith Lango mentioned the importance of colours when designing a show. I didn’t really understand what they were talking about but since I want to redesign this blog, there is no better time to do a bit of study.

First if you feel lazy and want to find a quick color scheme for your website, run to
http://www.colourlovers.com/ , http://colormatch.dk/ (Internet Explorer only) “4096 Color wheel” or try the new free Adobe colour application Kuler (requires Flash9):