Forums: Thunder Dome:

Originally posted by arigato
It doesn't have to be done with tweens, it could be done with scripted scaling...

So no, you don't need more keyframes to make it seem smoother.

I know what you mean ari...
old fashined animation would have required all the scaling to be done in seperate frames, right?
now you have scripted scaling.


by keyframes, I simply mean the storyboard events or changes... the key additions of the participants... I'm just trying to relate this in the only way I know how, and that's old-school storyboarding and animation...
and I only used art imported into Director, not Flash


we had to lay everything out in traditional terms... hand-drawn storyboards

here, going at this on the fly, with a minimum of planning as well as space/frames/time between the additions and major transitional elements is setting the piece up to be difficult at best...




in further defense of my missuse[?] of the word

technically, my understanding of Tweening is that it is shot for old-school in-betweening, which is the process of generating intermediate frames between two images to give the appearance that the first image evolves smoothly into the second image. Whether it is scaling or blending disparate images, tweening is a key process in all types of animation, particularly computer animation.... as the software enables you to identify specific objects in an image and define how they should move and change during the tweening process. I know you Flash guys have an aversion to the word "tweening" for some reason.

I was simply taught that it was the term to use for all frames generated by the application...

Originally posted by Walt
I know what you mean ari... old fashined animation would have required all the scaling to be done in seperate frames, right? now you have scaling.
by keyframes, I simply mean the storyboard events or changes... the additions of the participants... I'm just trying to rlate this in the only way I know how, that's old-school storyboarding and animation

going at this on the fly, with a minimum of space/frames/time between the additions and major transitional elements is setting the piece up to be difficult at best.


technically, my understanding of Tweening, short for in-betweening, is the process of generating intermediate frames between two images to give the appearance that the first image evolves smoothly into the second image. Whether it is scaling or blending disparate images, tweening is a key process in all types of animation, particularly computer animation.... as the software enables you to identify specific objects in an image and define how they should move and change during the tweening process. I know you Flash guys have an aversion to the word "tweening" for some reason.

I was simply taught that it was the term to use for all frames generated by the application...

the difference between tweening and action scripted animation is that by
programming the movement, you have process cycles instead of frames...
so the animation tends to be much much smoother looking.

Originally posted by sKtd_ne
the difference between tweening and action scripted animation is that by
programming the movement, you have process cycles instead of frames...
so the animation tends to be much much smoother looking.

that, I understand... my point is, that it'll likely look deminished in quality if we don't work to make the whole piece and the contributions of each participant as fluid as possible... theres no substitute for the work we could put in as artists and designers...


I commend you for the work in getting the mechanics of this to work...
I hope that together, we can make the artwork flow as well as the application can scale the images

hijack!!!!!!111snief

edit//

Originally posted by sKtd_ne
To make this work you must not touch the previous persons volley at all unless there is a bleed area.

unfortunately, this means that we need to start over.

or, rethink the process.


both mclarkson and myself used our interpretation of th instructions as given in the original diagram...

we left only the 320 x 240 "no touching zone" alone [after resizing the previous volley]... both of us used the area between the 320 x 240 and the 640X480 as a transition area in our work...

Originally posted by Walt
both mclarkson and myself used our interpretation of th instructions as given in the original diagram...

we left only the 320 x 240 "no touching zone" alone [after resizing the previous volley]... both of us used the area between the 320 x 240 and the 640X480 as a transition area in our work...

Yes.

Originally posted by Walt
unfortunately, this means that we need to start over.

or, rethink the process.


both mclarkson and myself used our interpretation of th instructions as given in the original diagram...

we left only the 320 x 240 "no touching zone" alone [after resizing the previous volley]... both of us used the area between the 320 x 240 and the 640X480 as a transition area in our work...

if thats the case then lets continue the way we've started.

i thought u hadnt used any bleed from my image in your volley walt??

Originally posted by Walt
or, rethink the process.

I still think that your notion will work if you cut out 640 x 480 samples in the finished volleys once you've got several collected to work with

i thought when we decided (after doing up that schematic) that we wouldnt
touch the previous volley unless there was a bleed so that when the app
loaded them you would see the previous persons untouched volley.

the way it seems we have done this so far, the display will be cutting other
peoples volleys, so you're never really seeing their work, just an
amalgamation of peoples work.

i dont care which way we do this, i just want the directions to be as clear
as possible for those people later on.

so walt, assuming we stay the way i initially had suggested, can i just
replace all my directions posts and use yours a template?

Originally posted by sKtd_ne
i thought when we decided (after doing up that schematic) that we wouldnt
touch the previous volley unless there was a bleed so that when the app
loaded them you would see the previous persons untouched volley.

the way it seems we have done this so far, the display will be cutting other
peoples volleys, so you're never really seeing their work, just an
amalgamation of peoples work.

i dont care which way we do this, i just want the directions to be as clear
as possible for those people later on.

so walt, assuming we stay the way i initially had suggested, can i just
replace all my directions posts and use yours a template?

I can go either way. :snrug: As it is, if you just cut the center 320x240 then all should be well as far as the application goes.

However, you are correct that people will not necessarily be seeing their own work, but rather an amalgam.

If we're gonna stop and start over, though, let's do it now before too many volleys have been completed.

i would say lets continue this way.

maybe this is one of those weird twists.

in the display site, we will show each individuals creation at the 1280 resolution sequentially.

then the looped movie (at 320X240)

lets keep on rocking using the original instructions.

unless I'm completely mistaken, the 320 x 240 "safe area" is in fact available, and intact, at 640 x 480 before it is reduced 50% by each of us when placing the previous volley into our own...

the way it seems we have done this so far, the display will be cutting other peoples volleys, so you're never really seeing their work, just an amalgamation of peoples work.

nah, it will be cutting some of the blend... but will allow us more continuity

your starter is clearly visible through the transitions from mine to mclarkson... a successful collaboration of this type, or mural, is intended to be an amalgamation of peoples work—as opposed to being a slide-show

.... and I still say it might be way cool, if someone's got a really good notion, they should take two panels in successsion... but hell, we should go 'round twice and incorporate all we learn!

yeah.. so im not crazy after all!

I'd definatly be into doing another one of these, once we get the size/overlaps/etc squared away. lets just consider this a trial run for the real thing?

Originally posted by mclarkson
Thanks. I feel like I totally annihilated Walt's volley without really meaning to. That is, I erased more of it than I meant to. But the next volley will surely apportion the karma I deserve.

karma's a bitch




large here


Definatly need more frames to work with. Im thinking like at least 5 per person... that would help a lot!

I don't think that a final movie size of 320 x 240 will do justice to the amount of effort involved. If Walt & MC rework their volleys to fit a final size of 1024 x 768 then it can be back on track. Better to have picked up the problems now than 15 volleys in

Here's how it needs to go...

1st Volley:


2nd Volley: Previous volley is scaled 50% and centred, for a no-go area of 512 x 384 with a small blend area surrounding it.


I've knocked up a photoshop template based on a final movie at 1024 x 768 below here

The authoring size (1280 x 960) includes an area for blending. Once the images are final, they'll be cropped to 1024 x 768 for playback in the flash movie.

hmm... i seem to remember asking if everyone was on the same page a while back. ;-)


I have my own ideas on what will work best, but there are enough ideas already being thrown around. No sense in my making it even more confusing by adding my 2 cents now.

Maybe if everyone takes note of the original here, if you havent already - http://zoomquilt.nikkki.net/

Towards the bottom, there are links to each of the participants frames.

Looking at those are what helped it all make sense to me.





The way we are headed now, It does seem like a lot of effort for what the end result will be. Especially considering the potential.

No hard feelings on my end if we started over.

Originally posted by the Invisible
yeah.. so im not crazy after all!

I'd definatly be into doing another one of these, once we get the size/overlaps/etc squared away. lets just consider this a trial run for the real thing?





karma's a bitch




large here


Definatly need more frames to work with. Im thinking like at least 5 per person... that would help a lot!

that is one incredible addition Invisible...
pulls everything together nicely







with the quality of what's been done and the work that has gone in so far, I am thankful for the info and the template Nat... yet I believe we aught to run through this as we've done so far—learning as we go...

you are right, I agree 320 x 240 is too small... but we've got 640 x 480 intact—which meets a pretty standard spec... after we run through this thing, each will have something to add from his/her experience


I, for one, would want to see three or four times the transition area built into this next template... what remains of each of our images is important, but continuity and flow is what makes the project that inspired us work... the transition portion of the pieces are the collaborative and most important part of a project like this... that's my opinion anyhow... the less it looks like a slide-show, the better

Originally posted by the Invisible
Definatly need more frames to work with. Im thinking like at least 5 per person... that would help a lot!

Originally posted by the Invisible
hmm... i seem to remember asking if everyone was on the same page a while back. ;-)

yup...

I have my own ideas on what will work best, but there are enough ideas already being thrown around. No sense in my making it even more confusing by adding my 2 cents now.

I, for one, would like to hear from everyone as they go through the process

Maybe if everyone takes note of the original here, if you havent already - http://zoomquilt.nikkki.net/

Towards the bottom, there are links to each of the participants frames.

Looking at those are what helped it all make sense to me.

I was going to say the same earlier... gives you a great feel for what is needed to pull off a successful piece

Clearly, the main issue is this: where does the no-touch zone take effect?

Is it the center 320x240? The center 640x480? The center 1024x768?

This no-touch zone corresponds in some way to the size of the final animation.

No changes happen within the no-touch zone, so no fading, or blending, or etc is ever visible in the animation. It's just zoom and replace, zoom and replace, etc.

I don't see that each artist making multiple frames is really meaningful; it would be functionally equivalent to just having each artist work at a much larger size. Yes? Or am I missing something?

Personally, I'd say let's charge on in the direction we're going, leaving a 320x240 no-touch zone, and see how it comes out. Think of it as a prototype. We'll learn a lot for the next one.

So, non-interactively, we'd have this:
Quick and dirty.