Saturday, January 21, 2006

16: No Animating Done

Well, can't say I've been doing much animating. I tried to, but I spent most of my time visualizing how Maggie was going to take on the horde. I was trying to work out the first sequence in my head and I just sat in the rooming looking blankly at the wall. Keren thought I was upset because I had lost one of the legs of the Stikfas. Well, I hadn't lost it, Ekko was playing with it and then it was gone.

Fortunately, we later found the leg clutched in Zoe's hand. She's a bit put out these days because we're making her sleep on her own now, which results in sleepless nights for the parents. Cute kid though, I would put up pictures of her and the Stikfas if I had any. I think I will.

Anyways, I think I have the first bit of the choreography done, but I'll need a block of time to do it. I don't know how many other Stikfas will be on screen, but it will now get a bit harder, keeping track of where everyone is. I am tempted to do a storyboard or something. I didn't, but I'm tempted to.


It was getting late, and I was too tired to animated, so instead I redid the camera base. I had the small camera base (as posted in 9: Money Shot entry) and I had the original base (which can be seen in 13: Kids and Animation Don't Mix) and I thought, "Why don't I combine them so I don't have to switch between the two all the time?"

So I did, and resulted in the camera to the right. It's low enough to the ground so I should be able to get the shots I want and I can always raise the camera. I will have to play with it, however, if I want to hang it on the lamp again. I will probably just make a third leg which will replace the one with the gear box.

I haven't tried panning up and down with it, but one of these days I may give it a shot. It's not the smoothest thing, but it's not done in realtime so it shouldn't matter.

More On Film Editing

Bother, I'm still working on trying to find a program that will do Pan and Zoom properly! I downloaded Wax as well as ZS4 Video Editor but I don't think they'll work for me. Well I know that ZS4 didn't work at all, but it was slow on my machine anyways. I may look into doing Wax, but I can't find a proper pan anywhere. And Showbiz still has the easiest way to set the contrast and brightness, so I just may stick with that. I wonder if iMovie has pan and zoom, I should check that.