Zlogspot - animationandvideo

Custom ToonMaker Character, iClone 6. Last post I introduced you to iClone 6 and my first full project using Reallusion's premiere 3D software animation tool. My project is a short promotional video for my Animation4Business service. As explained last time I actually sketched out a storyboard for this video (like actual hand drawn sketches) which is something I rarely need to do using animation tools like GoAnimate where it's just as easy to create the storyboard directly from the actual components that will be animated. Because of this I thought you may find it interesting to see a key scene comparison of my hand drawn storyboard with the actual finished scenes which I've posted below. As you can see my final scenes aren't too far away from what I had in my sketches. Overall the animation looks fairly simple but it has taken the best part of just over a week to create this 30 second promotion. One of the most complex scenes in my promotional animation, scene 8. The ...

Explaindio Video Creator is an easy to use presentation video creator that is geared towards marketing and sales videos but could be used to create any kind of presentation video. I was convinced by the sales pitch that it would be very easy to use and I was particularly impressed by the white board features. It also looked to be an improvement over both  VideoMakerFX and EasySketchPro two other programs that I bought and reviewed . Having now used Explaindio it is, in many ways, similar to VideoMakerFX and feels very much like an upgraded version of the same product with enhanced white board and other video features. If you purchase the program it comes with a whole bunch of extras, the most important of which is the content libraries including; graphics, fonts, music, backgrounds and templates. These are the things you'll rely on if your artistic skills are some what lacking. The claim is that almost anyone could buy this software, learn it fairly quickly and have a finished vid...

Animation 4 Business Premium is a new service I'm offering as part of my Business Explainer Video Service, Animation 4 Business . To launch the service I've created the short video below that explains why you might use my Premium service over solutions like GoAnimate and Powtoon. The video is also entered into Reallusion's Animation@Work contest too. Essentially it's for those situations where you need characters to perform specific tasks unique to your business but you don't want to go to the full expense of creating a custom character from scratch. Visit my site or email me if  you'd like more information. This blog however is more concerned with the behind the scenes stuff of how the above animation was created. So lets get into that. From start to finish this animation took three days including writing the script, designing my new Animation 4 Business logo, animating the characters and scenes and adding sound effects and music. Note that I didn't storyb...

Reallusion, the creators of Crazy Talk Animator, are holding a competition titled Animation @ Work  with cash prizes of up to US$1000.00 for the top three best videos as chosen by the judges. Other prizes include software, gift cards and magazine subscriptions. There are four main categories; Business & Training, Infographics, Comedy/Parody, Animated Comic. Entries must be submitted via the competition website before May 5th 2014. The competition had five early bird prizes for entries submitted before March 31st which I attempted to try and score with my entry to the Business & Training category below. Unfortunately it was not to be and I missed out on a free copy of Reallusion's soon to be released content pack,  G2 Power Tools, Volume 2. Although I really did want to win the content pack this particular entry was more an exercise in seeing if I could create a business explainer video within my usual 14 day turnaround time for an explainer video created with GoA...

PowToon  and other similar  drag'n'drop  animation sites can be quite challenging to get good results from, for your animated business explainer video, when you're restricted to using just the characters, props and backgrounds available in their site's theme libraries. You won't get an animated explainer video that looks exceptional if you simply launch PowToon's editor and start dragging and dropping without a plan. How do I know? Case in point. Watch the unfinished video below that I started work on as described above. I wanted to make an explainer video advertising my Animation 4 Business services . I had the script ready and went straight to the studio.  Keep in mind, I've been making animated explainer videos professionally with GoAnimate for three years to this point. As you can see it starts out okay and probably would've been an okay video if I'd had kept at it but to me it lacked energy and looked too much like I was settling for whatever I...

I can't begin to describe how hard it is to work on a business explainer animation that has a terrible script. The script that the client wrote so they don't have to pay me to write it properly, with fewer words and an easier to understand structure. It's especially difficult when the person creating the explainer video (i.e. me) doesn't understand the product from reading the client's script, even after asking the client questions. You'd think that would send alarm bells ringing for the client that maybe their script just doesn't do the job. If you do happen to be writing an explainer script for your product or service then it pays to follow a tried and tested structure which is as follows: 1. Define the problem your product or service solves. 2. Introduce your product or service as 'the solution'. 3. Describe how your product or service solves the problem and why it's the best solution. 4. Summarize your product or service and what it does. 5. ...

TET Bitstrips Avatar. I recently discovered Bitstrips , a social comic creation, Facebook application that enables you to create gag cartoons and comic strips staring yourself and your Facebook friends - even if you can't draw. Whilst Bitstrips doesn't have much to do with video or animation the parallels with GoAnimate's animation studio - that everyone can use, even without drawing ability - is obvious. Bitstrips actually has more flexibility than GoAnimate when it comes to creating poses for characters. Almost any pose, expression and emotion is possible even though the characters are all 2D. It would be a dream come true if Bitstrips partnered with GoAnimate to turn their content into 'Bitanimations' as well as 'Bitstrips'. They pretty much have all the artwork. They just need the underlying animation application to support it. The Bitstrips Facebook application seems to only allow single panel, gag cartoons and provides a number of ready made jokes whic...