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WIZITCH INC Animations
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These pages are a copy of the official truespace forums prior to their removal somewhere around 2011.
They are retained here for archive purposes only.
WIZITCH INC Animations // Image Gallery
Post by W!ZARD // May 20, 2008, 7:48pm
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W!ZARD
Total Posts: 2603
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I'm slowly building an animated story, called 'WIZITCH INC'.
Part 1 was selected as the winner of the February 08 Caligari Animation Gallery.
Many people expressed a wish to know what happens next so I'm announcing Part 2 is now available
Part 1 (12,343KB) is available here (http://www.4shared.com/file/48374461/7bddc4cd/Wizitch_Inc_Pt_1.html)
Part 2 (19,085KB) is now available here (http://www.4shared.com/file/48375972/4bab5000/Wizitch_Inc_Pt_2.html)
Both are .wmv files.
Any comments. criticisms or compliments most welcome.
As these files are stored at an online file storage site I would appreciate any feedback about your downloading experience using the above links.
Many thanks in advance and please enjoy the show....
wzrd |
Post by MadMouse // May 20, 2008, 10:45pm
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MadMouse
Total Posts: 1069
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WOW! i'm sooooooo impressed W!Z! Somehow I managed to miss part one the first time round so it was a real treat to watch both parts together.
IMHO you've really got talent in this direction. One of the best TS animation I've seen in a long time. Very professional work.
I cant wait for part 3 now!!!
Bravo Stephen seriously great work my friend.
ATB
Steve |
Post by Steinie // May 21, 2008, 1:20am
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Steinie
Total Posts: 3667
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Well no problems with the download. I only watched part 2 since I saw Part 1 before. This story has taken quite a turn. The lurid Affair between Captain and Witch while poor Wizard steers the Ship.... I had to get ice to cool down!
Oh by the way the Artwork was impressive too. I particularly liked the sunset scenes with all the trees. Great job Wizard! |
Post by 3dfrog // May 21, 2008, 5:05am
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3dfrog
Total Posts: 1225
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The movie wont play for me and I cant figure out how to download from that site :( I really wanna see this. |
Post by butterpaw // May 21, 2008, 5:47am
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butterpaw
Total Posts: 831
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Ah! most excellently entertaining!! :D
more! more! ^_^ |
Post by W!ZARD // May 21, 2008, 6:45am
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W!ZARD
Total Posts: 2603
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Thanks for the feedback folks!
@MadMouse - if someone with your talent likes my work so much then I've hit the mark I was aiming for - thanks Steve.
@Steinie - LOL, I should have laid money that it would you who picked up on the Freudian innuendo between Captain Omen and Witchy Woo!;) - My script writing skills clearly need further development - it wasn't until after I'd recorded the dialogue tracks and mixed it all together that I realised just how suggestive it was.
I may well use that and build on it in future installments - I quite like the idea of the Captain falling in love with the Witch and her completely not noticing!!
It would never work out betwen them anyway - the Captain is more suited to someone like Lotta Teeth;):D
@3dfrog - sorry about your download issues. The link should take you to a page showing the relevant file (ie Part 1 or 2). The .WMV are not optimised for streaming so you'll need to download the file to your hard drive first - the download tab is toward the bottom of the page. DL it to a convenient space on your machine and it "should" run in Windows Media Player. They were compressed with Sony Studio Pro and use the latest Windows video codecs so you'll need your Media Player to be up to date. Hope that helps.:)
@Butterpaw - thanks BP - I intend to produce more - at the very least I want to create a satisfying conclusion to the story and explain a few loose threads - where did the Dragons Egg come from? What happens when it hatches? How will Wizitch Incorporated deal with the problem? Is there really anything going on between Captain Omen and Harriet the Space Witch? Why did the Witches glasses disappear and what happened to the broom and the carpet? And so on:)
Given that the latest 5 minutes took 3 months to bring together I would not hold my breathe for part 3 but, all going well, there will be a part three... eventually.:D |
Post by 3dfrog // May 21, 2008, 7:55am
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3dfrog
Total Posts: 1225
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Ah I finally got it. Before when I was hitting download it was merely refreshing the page. Don't know why.
Wizard, this is a totally rockin animation. You are doing great. There is definitely a new era of truespace animation on the horizon. I smell another monthly winner. |
Post by Dragneye // May 21, 2008, 11:20am
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Dragneye
Total Posts: 602
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GREAT work W!ZARD!
Enjoyed these two. When the moody rock guitar came on, my whole body smiled. They work great together. Very cool work bud. :jumpy::banana: |
Post by jamesmc // May 21, 2008, 11:42am
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jamesmc
Total Posts: 2566
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Aye Steinie, I too was stimulated by the 'cabin scene.' Especially the impassioned cry of the Captain after 'Witchie' and he disappeared from view!
Great animation Wizard, you have a superb sense for production and direction.
Kept my attention all the way through! |
Post by Ambrose // May 22, 2008, 8:50am
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Ambrose
Total Posts: 261
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Hi WiZ
This is just totally great!
Among the best ever, and the best it's totally real like an animation from Tv ;)
You can't tell what application etc. cool.
About real, is this rendere or "real" time? you know what I mean ;)
Totally awesum, keep up all the good work!
You did put this up elsewere didn't you, you must! spread the word spread the word :D
SeYa/Ambrose... |
Post by TylerZambori // May 23, 2008, 6:07am
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TylerZambori
Total Posts: 100
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hi, um, I'm a little nervous about giving critiques, because I don't want
to upset......er here goes:
The people's lips don't move. Also, the editing is a whole lot better
than a lot of what I see, but it could still use some improvement.
My film teacher used to always say: more closeups! you need more closeups. When somebody talks, or makes a facial expression,
cut to a closeup of their face. "The five C's of cinematography" is
a good place to start to learn.
The models are great, the clouds and ship are fabulous. The landscape scenes are really great. Did you do all that in TS?
I don't really get the story though: was the whole purpose just to get
the witch and the captain to go have sex? I wouldn't even have known
they were supposed to be having sex unless somebody mentioned it.
If the purpose of the short was just to get to the mandrake mountains
by nightfall, I'd say it seems like you need a little more punch to the story.
The first one did not make any sense story wise at all. Why were they
chasing the crystal ball? Why was it a danger, and to whom? no clue! |
Post by Steinie // May 23, 2008, 6:34am
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Steinie
Total Posts: 3667
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Tyler, the Sex scene was a joke I brought up and not part of the real scene....(I think);)
p.s. after watching the video many times I still crack up when the Captain does his belly laugh! |
Post by jamesmc // May 23, 2008, 6:59am
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jamesmc
Total Posts: 2566
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Tyler, the Sex scene was a joke I brought up and not part of the real scene....(I think);)
p.s. after watching the video many times I still crack up when the Captain does his belly laugh!
Darn you Steinie! You mean I had that dream last night for nothing!
er...
nevermind...:o |
Post by W!ZARD // May 24, 2008, 12:47am
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W!ZARD
Total Posts: 2603
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Thanks for the comments folks
@3dfrog - glad you got it to work for you!:D
@Dragneye - Re: "When the moody rock guitar came on, my whole body smiled" - thanks dude - I'm a sucker for slow grungy guitars myself. I did wonder if it was too much (being somewhat experienced at playing guitars I have no experience at soundtrack music) so I was pleased by your comment.
@jamesmc - thanks for the endorsement James - knowing it kept your attention is gratifying. I'm very new to this whole animated storytelling thing and I'm pretty much making it up as I go. I don't know much about pacing the story and so on so I am just hoping there's enough action and mystery and visual interest to keep everyone watching and wanting more.
@Ambrose - Re; "About real, is this rendered or "real" time? you know what I mean ". Bits of both really - the opening title sequence was animated in tS workspace but rendered in LightWorks from the model side. The rest of the action up till the Wizard puts the airship into overdrive is all real time DX9 animated and rendered from the workspace inside a big sphere which is painted with a spherical cloudscape I made using MojoWorld 3 Pro.
The scene immediately after the start of the guitar rock used the same technique with a cloudscape originally rendered in Vue 6 Pro Studio.
The last few scenes were rendered in Vue. The big castle was built in trueSpace (anyone familiar with my work will recognise it).
@TylerZambori - Re "hi, um, I'm a little nervous about giving critiques, because I don't want to upset......er here goes:" Thanks for sharing your thoughts Tyler - I did ask for criticisms as well as compliments and your opinions are as valid as anyone else's.;)
Re - "The people's lips don't move." - Rats I was hoping no-one would notice! Seriously though I'm very new to animation and I'm sort of making things up as I go. In both animations I animated the movements and added the dialogue afterwards which is probably the absolutely worst way to do it. To be honest, I never intended to take this as far as it's gone and I originally intended to simply make a single scene with the Wizard walking in the dungeon so I could play with the shadows.
trueSpace turned out to be so much more easy to use for animations than I realised and so I just carried on. The characters were originally made for static poses rather than animation and I never intended to animate the mouths.
I hope trueSpace 7.6 comes out soon so I can use the new morphing capabilities to simulate mouth movement.
I agree with your comments about close-ups but I didn't want to get too close because the mouths don't move!! Catch 22 (until we get 7.6 morphs).
You're also right about the editing - as I said these were made up as I went along rather than following a regular storyboarded sequence of shots. That had a definite effect on the way I edited everything and it's a bit rough in places.
Re "Did you do all that in TS? " More or less, yes.
Don't feel bad about not getting the story fully - on the one hand there really isn't much story to get, on the other hand I deliberately wanted it to be a bit vague to (hopefully anyway) generate a sense of mystery and on the gripping hand these two anims are part of the same story.
I don't want to give away too much of the overall storyline to soon but I eventually hope to wrap everything up in a way that explains whatever needs explaining. Part three will (probably) introduce some of the back story and maybe set up some more dramatic reasons for Wizitch Incorporated to be chasing the Dragons egg.
For the record, the Witch and the Captain do not engage in sexual activities of any kind at any time (though the Captain might like them to!).:D |
Post by Jack Edwards // May 24, 2008, 1:04am
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Jack Edwards
Total Posts: 4062
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It's really cool to see you transitioning from stills to animation Wizard. I agree about the (lack of) mouth movement being distracting, but like you said, might as well wait for morphs with 7.6 to solve that.
I did have a few other critiques: Too much time is spent setting up the scene, the flybys should be shorter unless you are adding more elements to them which add interest. It's the character interactions which make for interesting video, so when storyboarding it helps to figure out the relevant character interactions needed and then use the camera panning, zooming, flyby type devices for setting the scene of where your characters are and what kind of situation they are in.
The people animations could be more crisp and less "floaty". You need to use hard corners to the changes in direction for your animation curves at specific points to indicate impact with a solid surface or an abrupt change in direction. Probably best approach is to gather a collection of video clips with people making similar motions to study and use as reference material.
Great work and I'm definitely looking forward to seeing the 3rd video! :banana: |
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