Here's a screen shot from my project, Meet Max, in Final Production...yay After Effects :) Stay tuned! All scenes in place and timed to music. Just a little more tweaking and we're in business. :)

Work lately on short film (Meet Max)

June 11 - So far, Scenes 1-7 setup roughly. Polishing happening on tracking, timing, etc later on in animation pipeline.

*Scene 06 needs Girl #1 standing in it and is incomplete. She is on the right.

Scene 7 timed well, could be pushed further for even better effect.

June 15 - Scenes 1-9 set up roughly, halfway done setting up scenes.

Still FRANTICALLY searching for information that will ring those bells in my head on tracking and compositing (I'm not sure if that is the correct term, but what I mean is having 2 characters in one scene playing simultaneously - having both characters show up in the same scene, and how to set the "layers" up in the timeline, if that makes any sense whatsoever.) Anyway, here's a picture of me working on it!

Done with coloring......and flattening the files....now onto final timing...I keep realizing again and again how emotional all this is for me. Here's a secret...when I hooked my colored frames up with After Effects I started tearing up! Every step I take with this I realize how attached I am to the project...I wonder if this happens to many animators. I am currently using After Effects CS6 for my 2d animation and although I still have my notes from AE class, it's been about six to eight months since I've used CS4 AE, and when I try to time out some 2d animation frames, the RAM preview plays back too slow, almost like 1 frame per second, which makes me think I need more frames, and I know that's not right; but I remember going to Composition Settings and trying different frame rates, but it doesn't seem to help, the frames aren't playing back fast enough. I went to the library at my college to see if I could check out the book but I can't and I can't buy it (can't afford it right now). This makes things difficult. I can however copy notes out of it while in the library and look up tutorials online. My google searches are coming up vague; Are there specific keywords that might ring the bell? I am not having any trouble setting up the nested comp/scenes, just the playback timing. I have many solutions to try out. I'll use photoshop sequences along with single frames.

And now for something completely different

ode to my friends

Caffiene, Richard Williams, Adobe CS4, and Pandora radio, you are my only friends...I couldn't do this without you.

Had to save this:

"Without a reasonable confidence in your own powers, you cannot be successful or happy.”

I'll have to remember that...like, tattoo it on my forehead.

Meet Max