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Hello everyone! I'm Gabe, aka "Young Dragoon", and I saw that we had a thread for Disney animation, which, don't get me wrong, is amazing, but not one for animation in general. I don't mind people talking about Disney in here, I just don't want this turning into Disney General, which we already have. Here we can discuss animated features, televised animation, or animation shorts. We can even talk about the history of animation and animation techniques as well.

On that note, if you haven't seen The LEGO Movie yet, please do so. It is a riot and a half. Also, keep your eyes open for The Book Of Life and The Boxtrolls, both coming out later this year.

Have you heard of "The Thief and The Cobbler"? The man who made it did it entirely by himself for 24 years, and he only got half done or so before execs rushed the last half and it came out like a messy Aladdin ripoff. Fortunately some fans made their own cut that is much better. The animation, from what I've seen, is jaw-dropping!

Since this is an animation thread, I just want ask this:

How many animators, professional and amateur, do we have on this site? For those of you who are animators, what is your preferred program to work with?

I'm an amateur myself and use Paint.NET, Windows Movie Maker 2.6, and Garageband to make my animations.

Animation thread?

GMOD TRAIN COMING THROUGH!

(I am still amazed how animation came out of something like gmod, really. An open world basically made for screwing around somehow spawned animation through very unconventional means. I'm not even sure how they actually do/did it!)

And let's not forget SOURCE FILMMAKER!

(I AM SO HYPE FOR THIS TO COME OUT. Seriously, that animation looks gorgeous.)

Animation huh?
What do you think about this jewel?

Medley wrote:

How many animators, professional and amateur, do we have on this site? For those of you who are animators, what is your preferred program to work with?

As far as I know, ProjectENDO and Hydoyezen are two people on the site that also do animations. You could ask one of them.

Alright, everyone loves the LEGO Movie. But let's not forget all the talented stop-motion animators there are on YouTube. At the moment, I don't have YouTube, and I'd post a link if I could, but one of the best animations I've ever seen is Blood Feud. Smooth like butter.

@Snowy_98

I love the uncobbled version so much. Richard Williams is a fucking beast. He would constantly assign people shots only to reassign the shots to himself and if the animator still wasn't producing work up to snuff, he'd fire them. That's why so much of the film is his own hand-drawn work.

@MedleyManiac

I'm studying animation at the moment. My favorite program to use is ToonBoom Harmony, which, to be honest, the only reason I have access to it right now is because I'm a student and the license belongs to the school. For compositing. though, I import everything into After Effects and Premier. I also am proficient enough in Flash, although I generally dislike animating in it.

3D-wise, though, I've mainly been using Maya.

I also love claymation. Especially Wallace and Gromit, Coraline and Fantastic Mr Fox. All are really cool in different ways, and show the variety of themes that the medium can take.

Personally, I always feel that stop motion films have some of the most interesting art direction when it comes to animation because of how stop motion has to be approached compared to 2D and CG animation. I personally feel that limitations are the best thing for creativity because it forces people to think in different ways than usual. With stop motion, you need to find ways to make movable characters and maintain their balance while being able to mimic basic animation properties. Paranorman solved a lot of the problems concerning the latter by using 3D printing to their advantage in order to recreate animation smears, something which a lot of stop motion had problems doing.

(still think Paranorman was robbed of the Oscar, btw)

I got reminded of this recently:

Cool shiz.

That movie and Hercules have the most interesting character designs from Disney, imo.

Ahh yeaaa Atlantis! Need to watch that again, it's been too long.

Me and my brother used to watch Toy Story and Hercules so much on VHS that the tapes got messed up at certain scenes :P we still have them somewhere…
My other fav animated movies when I was young were Mulan, The Iron Giant, and Chicken Run. Of course, I ended up dragging my parents to every animated film then. So, I guess I like them all, but I prefer some over others.

On the TV side, I was obsessed with Wallace & Gromit, Bugs, anything from Hanna-Barbera, late 90s-early 2000s Cartoon Network/Nick, Tintin cartoon, etc.

Wow, I love me some animation ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ

Have you also heard of "The King and the Mockingbird"?

It's pretty much the French equivalent of The Thief and the Cobbler, at least in terms of development time. It took 40 years to finally finish the movie!
Also, did you know Richard Williams finally released his own cut, although unfinished, around the end of last year?

Finally, have some old stop-motion films.

Thank you, Young Dragoon for starting this thread.

@MedleyManiac
Oh and here! Have a walk cycle as well!

I used Flash. Other works I use Flash, Photoshop, Movie Maker and maybe Sony Movie Studios sometimes. But most of them are just amateur little snippets.

I personally don't animate or study animation, but basically all of my friends are animation majors. Although the animation department at my school is fairly new (only 3 or 4 years old) and one of the animation professors is apparently so dreadful that it's lead one of my friends to decide to switch majors and study illustration instead. I'm sure she'll pick it back up and pursue it again, but it's still a bit of a shame.
It's really too hard to say which animated movie is my favorite, since I basically watch them all the time. Suffice it to say I love a lot of them.

My favorite animated short is this

And here's a (not so) fun fact: Regarding the Oscars' Best Animated category the academy admits to usually not watching any of the movies nominated and even not bother watching the one they gave the award to. This is somewhat common knowledge but it still pisses me off because animation is still a medium that not enough people give respect to, and if the academy doesn't even give a shit then that doesn't give much hope for what the general populous will think of it.

Worst animated movie ever:

_DVD_cover.jpg!

Resource:

I'm surprised this thread is getting so popular! I thought something as broad as "animation" wouldn't go very far. I had the same thoughts about the "Movie General", but I was proven wrong about that one too.

This is pretty dark cartoon short from India with a massage

This is my personal favorite animated short of all time:
If you haven't already watched it, you really should. It's just so beautiful.

As absolutely terrible as it is, two things keep it from being at the same level as the stinker I'm about to mention. 1) it had an absurdly troubled production with everything getting stolen 2) It was only released on DVD.

Freddie had a wide release and marketing campaign, but It's beyond bad.

Please watch it. It's insanely entertaining because the writers have less ability to write a cohesive story than a 10 year old that was taught how to write by Chris Chan, so its hilarious.

Hell yeah! Animation general!

I went to see the LEGO movie after I saw all the great reviews its getting (I have't been to the cinemas in 2 year before then,which means I also unfortunately miss Frozen) and well … Everything Is Awesome! The animation was great,the jokes were funny and really holds up and the story was really quite well done and didn't really see that twist coming which took me some time to process but at the end was touching.

After watching the movie,I kind of miss going to the cinemas,so I decided I'm to going catch more animation movie coming out this year,like…
- Mr. Peabody & Sherman
- Rio 2 (I should probably watch the first Rio movie thought,i have't seen it)
- How to Train Your Dragon 2
- Big Hero 6 (I don't know anything about the Marvel Comic but the perveiw has one hack of a Scenery Porn)
…And whatever movie I have not heard about.
What other animation movies are coming out this year?

Oh, and this

Other animated movies coming out this year:
-Legend of Oz: Dorothy's Return (it's based on Dorothy of Oz, which has her returning to Oz, so its a sequel. I didn't even know there was more than one book)
-Planes: Fire & Rescue (I remember when they announced the sequel, before the first one even came out. I haven't seen the first, so I can't say much more on this)
-The Boxtrolls (from the same company that did Coraline and ParaNorman)
-Home (I just found out about this. From Dreamworks it's coming out at the end of Nov)

Should I include CGI/Live action films? Because there's Paddington based on Paddington Bear books (I remember reading a couple when I was in elementary).

So the movies from these lists I'm hoping to see are Rio 2, How to Train Your Dragon 2, Big Hero 6, and The Boxtrolls. :) but I have so many other films on my list to see! I'm probably gonna be broke by the end of the summer :P

It's a shame that Pixar doesn't have any films coming out this year. But at least we'll get two next year for that.

Also, I was easily impressed with The Thief and the Cobbler, mainly due to the fact every single frame was done by hand without any Xerography. Seeing backgrounds move like that were really stunning.

PIXAR-wise, I'm really excited for The Inside Out. I'm impressed with the choices for the voice cast and it will be nice to see PIXAR hitting some more original stuff again.

What does everyone in here think of Steven Universe?

Has anyone ever heard of Ralph Bakshi?

I enjoy Bakshi's animation, but a lot of his stuff is just a pain to sit through. Fritz The Cat is probably my favorite of his. I'm interested in Last Days Of Coney Island, very interested to see how that will go. Probably still won't be up my alley when it comes to adult animation, though.

And Song of Fire And Ice was the most disappointing thing I'd seen him do.

Any traditional (2D) films coming out from America though? Typically claymation and 2D are my favorite so yeah.

There's none coming out of America this year, sadly. However, the new Spongebob Squarepants movie is in the works and will be released next year. The live action sequences were actually filmed near my school around last September.

Here's a cool little short I found a while back. The plot is kinda cliched, with the whole corrupt and manipulative priest thing, but I feel it fits the western setting they were going for well. I also really like the use of stylized, cel-shaded CGI in this one. Speaking of animated westerns, who else enjoyed Rango?

The Backwater Gospel is great because they achieved the look of the short by manipulating and changing the texture mapping of practically ever other frame almost

The only film I've seen of his is Cool World, which was pretty terrible. And this is probably a stupid question, bus does Song of Fire and Ice have any relation to A Song of Ice and Fire (the book series that I'm currently reading)?

No it doesn't. I have Game Of Thrones running while I was animating, and "Song" snuck its way into the title of the Bakshi film. It's just called Fire And Ice.

I'm so sorry, I'm so stupid sometimes.

EDIT:
completely forgot about Cool World. i was living such a happy life until you brought it up again.

i fucking LOVE Steven Universe. it's such a cute show!

Well I'm going into an animation degree at Chicago Columbia, it's coming along swimmingly
Here's an animation I did a couple weeks ago

There's a lot more stuff on my tumblr and dA, including step by step processes and walkthroughs for any curious young minds

Fellow animation student fistbump

I'd do more animated gifs if I wasn't always working on animations for other students' films… But at least keeping busy on all of them gives me lots of nice demo reel stuff. Maybe I'll post some shots in here sometime.

ENDO, what is the animation program at your school like? I'm very interested in seeing how different schools approach teaching animation

It's pretty damn cool
I gotta say I'm learning more in the past couple months than the last couple years, our classes are really hands-on
I'm taking Moving Image Art and Production to learn about film techniques, and Hist of Animation is awesome, we spend all class watching cartoons from the early 20th century.
My fave class is Animation though, we've been using those swiveling acme peg-system light boxes to create traditional pencil animations, and been shooting them on Lunchboxes and Pencil Check Pro, it's so much fun
It's amazing how much it improves your sense of timing and movement, 6 months ago my animation was total crap compared to now

I literally was just showed that short by my brother 3 days ago, it was so good
Now I'm hooked on Matt Elliott's music because of the "Making Of" video

Well, with any arts-based major, I'd hope that the classes were hands-on, otherwise, what's the point, y'know?

With how classes are set up at my school, i've done more animation outside of class for other peoples' films than in class. don't get me wrong, the classes at my school are p intense, but we only have ten weeks to get everything in since we work on a quarter system as opposed to a semester system. you learn a lot, but to truly apply what you learn you pretty much have to put in extra work outside of class. but, i guess that can be said of any major, not just animation. my school only makes us use light tables and shooting stations for our Principles to 2D Animation class. for almost every class afterwards we have a choice of whether we want to keep doing paper and pencil or start drawing digitally, at least, within those of us who decide to stick with 2D animation. the animation major at my school is set up so that our classes are spread out through a total of three years, with the last year being completely focused on making our senior thesis film.

At the moment, i'm taking a class called 2D Production, which walks us through the pipeline for making a film, from start to end. We use that ten weeks in order to go through the entire process, from previsualization to compositing. i have a few of the assignments from the class on my tumblr (ignore the question duck post. i think i reblogged that when i was drunk one night). everything is there except for the animation, which is what our final assignment is focused on: animating and compositing.

In three weeks, a new quarter starts up, where i'll be taking Concept, which is the first of the senior thesis classes. in that class i'll be developing the concept and making the animatic for my thesis film.

EDIT:
scroll down enough on my tumblr and you can see some of the animation that I've done for other students' films. Not everything is on there, though, and some of the animation is just the roughs and nothing else since a lot of the films are works in progress. only two of the student films i've worked on are present on the blarge.

Yeah I think my classes are semester structured. We have a lot of prerequisites, all the classes focus on each step of making animation. I really wanna start Storyboarding and Voice Acting next semester, they look really fun

Shit, man. You made that?

Seriously though, that's some really good animation.

I go to the Savannah College of Art and Design. their digital majors (such as animation and motion media) are what they're most recognized for along with the work their sequential art students put out as well.

There's a lot of rperequisites within the program at my school as well. before you can take Principles of 2D Animation, you have to take a class called "Action Analysis" which is basically Life Drawing, except that it's specifically geared towards animation. And before you can take any of the production classes (2D or 3D), you have to have already taken Principles of 3D Animation, and Character Rigging and/or Digital Cell Animation (class geared towards teaching the various digital animation programs. my teacher focused on ToonBoom). AND before you can take any of your thesis film classes, you have to take a Screen Design class which teaches visual language, directing, and film composition. The class also is set up so that way each assignment practically forces you to make a storyboard.

My school doesn't include storyboarding as part of the animation program. instead, it's a minor (also the minor that i'm taking). the storyboarding classes are taught by teachers in the sequential art department as opposed to the animation department, so you get a very interesting look at how animation and sequential overlap. a lot of the teachers in both departments still work within the industry and/or do a lot of freelance work.

Voice acting also isn't a class that's offered within my major. instead, that's offered to both the Sound Design students and the Performing Arts students. the idea is to force us students to approach our various senior projects within our various majors as a collaborative efforts. Film and Animation students have to make a short film. if you're a 3D Animation student, you have to work intensively with the Visual Effects majors. if you're 2D, like me, you'll be working heavily with students in the Illustration department for your layouts. Sequential majors have a choice as to what they do for their senior thesis project, but a lot of them end up pairing off with animation students, creating the storyboards for the film. A few of them even end up making a film themselves, finding an animation student to be the supervisor and direct other animators.

Spring quarter starts up soon. i'll be taking Concept, as i already told ya, along with Drawing for Storyboarding and Character Animation. my professor for Concept worked on the first two Shrek movies and Ice Age. My Character Animation professor is a Disney alum, having worked on Mulan, Brother Bear, and Lilo And Stitch.

ENDO posted a gif of sone of his animation, so i decided to post a lil sumthin sumthin in the Animation general as well.

here's a gif from a film that i worked on. recently finished cleaning it up.

Anyone else still waiting for Flipnote 3D?
Most animations I did on Flipnote were too violent/NSFW to upload, so I only got about 3 followers and a fistful of stars. If 3D is ever released, I'll do better.
At the moment, I'm not drawing digitally, because I'm looking for a decent PC. But afterwards, I'll download animation freeware (I forgot the name) and try harder.

I wish I could art. This is probably the only successful thing I have animated ever. The only thing I drew was the stick body and I found a relatively easy way to animate it in GIMP, but I wasn't completely successful, hence the mismatching arm sizes. I wish I knew how to Flash as well, because this probably would have taken 75% less time and would have looked a whole lot cleaner. lol.

So, about Dreamworks, am I the only one who thinks that it's been putting out lots of "meh" recently? I forgot about "Croods" the day after I watched it. I think the decline started at "Shrek 4" from what I can remember. There have been a few gems in between, but not very many. Dreamworks genuinely used to be major competiton for Pixar, but now it's just kind of there. Pixar hasn't been doing very well either to say the least. I hope "How to Train Your Dragon 2" won't be a bust. I liked the first.

Actually, I thought they were always pretty lame and unsophisticated up until Kung Fu Panda (With the exception of the first two Shreks- those were pretty funny), and then had a general ratio of Pixar-Level to like their other stuff (with How to Train Your Dragon, Megamind, and Rise of the Guardians on the good side, and Shrek 4, The Croods, and Turbo on the bad side). So I do think DreamWorks has gotten better since it began.

Dreamworks has seriously stepped up their game since coming into CG animation only. i mean, looking at a list of their CG animated films, i'd say that a good handful of them are pretty good movies. the only ones on the list that i could think of as being horrendous or overly "meh" are Shark Tale, the last two Shrek sequels, Over The Hedge, Flushed Away, Bee Movie, Monsters vs. Aliens, and Turbo. at least, from the movies i've seen.

Great Animation of Princess UniKitty.

You're right- Shark Tale was horrible, why did you have to remind me of it?

Then Again, they did help produce Chicken Run and The Curse of the Were-Rabbit for Aardman, which are both great!