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RetSamys β First Flight - Adventures of a Red Book #1
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Published: 2016-01-31 14:16:55 +0000 UTC; Views: 2661; Favourites: 36; Downloads: 14
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Description
Part 0 (Teaser)Part 1 - First Flight
Part 2 - Title | HD version | still title
Part 3 - March 2016
Part 4 - April 2016
Part 6 - May 2016
Part 7 - June 2016
Part 8 - July 2016
Part 9 - August 2016
Part 10 - September 2016
Part 11 - November 2016
Part 12 - December 2016
I did it! The first part of my animation series!
For those of you who don't know anything about it, here's the premise of Adventures of a Red Book:
- Work an entire month on an animation.
- No pressuring myself about time or execution.
- Have fun.
- Once the month is over
- Post all of the animation of the month. All will be licensed as CC-BY.
- Start with the next part of the animation, which begins were the last animation ended.
- The main character of the series will be a flying red book. All will be pretty minimalist, because I can't invest that much time and also my skills are bad enough as it is.
- Once I have finished the series (no idea when that will be, see what I need to do below), compile it into a minutes long (!) animation and upload it to YouTube. It should be enough for 720p.
This was interesting. I think I have drawn an average of 2 frames a day and I think it's the kind of stress-free strategy I need in order to continue the series for the rest of the year.
Also, even though this is simple enough as a drawing, the animation was a bit more complex for me. I mean, everything is hand-drawn, but I still need to think of the book as a three-dimensional object and it is turning and then, there's perspective that I forced myself to implement after I made the background... This might be the kind of relaxed, but still skill-challenging challenge that I need.
Next month will be spent on the title animation. And hopefully, I can come up with some sort of narrative by the end of the month. Otherwise, I'll just have to make it up as I go along.
Tell me what you think and what kind of thing you'd like to see in the future.
Wacom Bamboo & GIMP
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Comments: 35
It has the makings of a first step to an adventure!Β I have faith this will truly come out in flying colors!
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Thank you.
I'm all booked up with this one, it would seem.
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Thank you. I agree.
No, but seriously, I like that the amount of time I put into this can be seen.
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I love this! It's very well done in my opinion, and is one of the tidiest animations (with this much detail) that I've seen. Kudos!! =^..^=
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Thank you!
Tidy? OK. I mean, I know it's rather fluid because there are a lot of frames, but tidy? I'll take that compliment and leave it like that.
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Commenting for Project Comment:
The animation itself is very short, but it flows very nicely and with little to no hiccups or mistakes in the line-work. It's also understandable considering what the premise for this series you made is. I love the way the book looks as it flies, and the way it stretches and bends as it opens to make its pages like the wings of a butterfly looks really nice. The beginning of the animation though, the book leaving the shelf, could use a bit more to it. Maybe have it fall a bit from the shelf before it begins to open and fly, instead of merely floating there as if someone took it from the shelf.
It's also an interesting choice with the colors and simplicity of the style. It's a common theme to have lack of any color whatsoever with a single object in color, often in red as well, but there is certainly a lot that can be done with that style in later parts of the animation, since this seems to be described as a 'part 1'. I do think though that if the rest of the books will make no movement whatsoever they could use a bit more detail on covers or the the inner pages or something, even if it is meant to be more minimalist. As they are now they almost seem like nothing but curved blocks, but the actual flying book does actually have hanging pages as it flies instead of simply opening and closing, which is a nice detail.Β
Al in all, a simple yet effective beginning to the animation. Hope you continue to have fun with it.
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It took me way too long to reply to this. I'm really sorry. This is a good comment.The animation itself is very shortI disagree, agree and disagree with this.
The animation is not short. It might not be as long as other content you might be used to, such as movies, series or YouTube videos, but hand-drawn animations take a lot of time. This is several seconds long. As far as I am concerned, this is good.
The animation is short. I want to make a whole, normal-length YouTube video out of only 12 parts of this series.
And: The animation is not short, because there is more coming!it flows very nicely and with little to no hiccups or mistakes in the line-work.Ha! I love deceiving people's eyes. And in animation, it's easy enough to do that if you have enough frames per second. This is why the animation is "short". The image sequence is quite something.The beginning of the animation though, the book leaving the shelf, could use a bit more to it. Maybe have it fall a bit from the shelf before it begins to open and fly, instead of merely floating there as if someone took it from the shelf.True! Absolutely true! I actually have started on the fall of the book, only to realise that it looked horrible the way I did it and that it would take too much time. So I did this opening and I'm not entirely happy with it, but it'll have to work and it should lower the watcher's expectations as to how skilled I am as an animator.It's also an interesting choice with the colors and simplicity of the style. It's a common theme to have lack of any color whatsoever with a single object in color, often in red as well, but there is certainly a lot that can be done with that style in later parts of the animation, since this seems to be described as a 'part 1'.To be honest, I have made it minimalist because it's easier to animate, so I guess there is "a lot" that I can do with it, in quantity.
However, I am trying to play around a little bit. I am forced to work with it in some way because it's so bright, so this is actually a lighter shade of red and I'll have to make sure that black parts won't look too dark in comparison.I do think though that if the rest of the books will make no movement whatsoever they could use a bit more detail on covers or the the inner pages or something, even if it is meant to be more minimalist. As they are now they almost seem like nothing but curved blocksYou're right. I probably should do something about the background if I find the time.
Thank you for your wonderful comment! You bet I will continue to have fun with this.
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No problem, and I certainly understand what you mean in terms of the length of the animation not being short by the technicality of the time taken to make something even this long. The longest animation I've ever made was around a minute long if memory serves me, and that was a nightmare at points. Still annoyed I was never able to get it to upload correctly on this site, sadly its format doesn't agree with the site.
.
Keep up the great work, looking forward to it.
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Ah. Well. I have just finished uploading my longest animation so far with the second part of this series. It's about 50 seconds long. 
Well, let me know if you need any help with uploading it correctly. I know a thing or two about this.
What file type was it?
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It's been so long since I looked at itt, but i believe it was an mp4 file. Initially it was a swf file, which could be used on deviant, but after having audio and effects added, the swf had been made into a mp4. I believe i still have the version without music, and that was the one i tired uploading, so i'm not sure what went wrong. Maybe in time i'll try uploading it, but i'm unsure what the length limit for animations are on this site. How long it goes for before looping back to the start could always be the reason it didnt work. it's technically on my list of uploads, but last i checked the video doesnt actually come up, just a blank white box.
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Ah! Yes. SWF files, sure, no problem, just make sure it's below 200 MB (or possibly 30 MB, not sure what the rules for Flash files are) and provide a preview image. There is no limit on how long the animation can be.
Looping is not something that dA has anything to do with. If you're using a Flash file, you'll need to make sure that the Flash animation is looped at all. I don't know how you created it in the first place...
The only Flash file format dA accepts for animations is SWF.
MP4 can only be uploaded if you are part of the dA Film Community.
If it's without music and if the amount of colours permit it, you can also upload it as an animated GIF.
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Thank you for the information. At some point I may have to consider finding the file on my external drive and seeing if it is compatible as it is. I'm not entirely sure though, s it was one of my first attempt at using a rigged character model. I'm very proud of some of the backgrounds and the frame-by frame character in the animation, but my newness to rigging is apparent in the other, as his animation is too slow or stiff at times.
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sieht gut aus, hab mir erst nicht richtig vorstellen kΓΆnnen, was du als Animation vorhattest, aber das (Zwischen-)Ergebnis gefΓ€llt mir, bin gespannt, wie es weiter geht
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Hey that's neat! I love your flight path and the perspective, it's very nicely done. What I'd work more on (for future reference maybe, cos you probably don't have time to go round tweaking it) is the opening up of the book, and the motion of its pages. The pages aren't too bad, but the way it opens up seems a bit unnatural. I think it's too symmetrical, probably.
Other than that, nice work and I'm looking forward to seeing where this goes! As a last suggestion, it might be cool if you add one other colour (like grey) instead of just having red and white.
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The flight path is relatively easy to fix. I used a path to lead me through the process (similarly to the angel animation, if you have had a chance to look at it).
The perspective was a pain in the ass. I had to consider a new one every time I rotated the book ever-so slightly.
OK, yeah, that is something I should keep in mind. I hope to learn stuff from this project, so this is really great feedback! Is that only during one of the opening sequences or during all of them?
More colours might be added (maybe even retrospectively, we'll see, shading would be great!) if I have enough time.
Note to future self: Yeah, I know you're reading this! You need to make the last non-faded frame longer (and maybe the very last one as well) and re-compile the first few non-faded frames, the lines of the first non-faded frame are still visible! And I also hope that you finally found some time to comment on My-Sword-is-Bigger 's Deviations!
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Well it does happen to be very impressive, whether it's easy to do or not! And yes that does seem to be the problem with perspective.
All of them tbh, but it's mostly the opening part that sticks out. When it's in flight, you don't notice it as much.
lol! Is that a note for when you come through reading over the comments on your deviations?
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Good to know. Thanks again.
Yup. I tend to do that.
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Thank you!
I really had no idea how else to start it. But I like how it turned out.
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its always good the first things to have a slow start so later it could be intersting ^^
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Thanks! Yeah, I think I can be proud of myself now.
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This looks like an interesting project! I'm looking forward to it
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I'll make sure to keep in touch then
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Oh! Thanks for the watch!
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Wow! Darauf habe ich gewartet! Ist toll geworden. Ich finde die Idee immer noch sehr toll und ich bin schon sehr gespannt, was als nΓ€chstes passiert.^^
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Danke!
Ich bin auch gespannt, wie es weitergeht... 
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Das wird auf jeden Fall gut.^^ Bei dem Anfang. Ich finde ja das minimalistische verleiht dem ganzen einen ganz besonderen Reiz.
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Kann ich mich nur anschlieΓen! ^^
Weiter so, Ret!
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