[ART] A New Stop Motion Animation Series

Autobot Bandit · Post by **Autobot Bandit** » Fri Mar 30, 2007 1:29 pm

News of the Live Action Movie inspired me to create this pilot episode here:

You Tube

Could anyone see this having any potential, or is it just plain awful?

More information found here:

My Space

Cliffjumper · Post by **Cliffjumper** » Fri Mar 30, 2007 2:28 pm

Well, the stop-motion is absolutely stunning stuff, really, really well done - I can't really emphasize just how impressive it was, even if I'm never, ever going to be able to take Carcat seriously. The "title sequence" was an absolute blast too - it'd have been impressive enough if they'd just all transformed in pairs, but I loved the way each duo did something different.

My only criticism would be not too much happened... What jokes there were were funny (the tapedeck, Wheeljack half-inching the tyre, etc.), but there were lots of bits where we were just watching the stop-motion - which, don't get me wrong, was stunning, but if you're making more, sharper would be better

Excellent stuff, though!

StoneCold Skywarp · Post by **StoneCold Skywarp** » Fri Mar 30, 2007 3:15 pm

Gotta agree with Cliffy here. Stop motion stuff was amazing & if you've got a GOOD quality copy of it, I'd love to host it here at TFArchive for you.

However, the entire thing could've been cut down to roughly 2 minutes with less of the slightly more clunky moments.

on Hound and Swindle scrapping and Sideswipe/Sunstreaker's bit.

Autobot Bandit · Post by **Autobot Bandit** » Fri Mar 30, 2007 5:40 pm

Thanks for the offer to host StoneCold... at present, I have a 50 MB .wmv copy of it sitting on my harddrive. The quality is as best I've seen it on my end, but perhaps the quality on whole may not be as good (in your opinion) due to the Logitech Webcam that was used.

IF it is good enough, I'd be willing to let you look at it. How could I get it to you?

StoneCold Skywarp · Post by **StoneCold Skywarp** » Fri Mar 30, 2007 7:03 pm

If you've any personal webspace (usually included by most ISPs) then you could upload it to there & send me a link to download it from. Failing that, there's always e-mail stonecoldskywarp@tfarchive.com make the subject clear though.

You say you used a webcam to produce that? stunning really. You should do a piece on how the project came about and how you went about creating it.

Post by **Clay** » Fri Mar 30, 2007 7:38 pm

There's also Mega Upload.

That's the kind of thing I've wanted to do with all my customs, but I lack the equipment and patience for it.

Curious, how many frames per second do you shoot the transformations at?

Rosalie · Post by **Rosalie** » Fri Mar 30, 2007 8:41 pm

Hey like I said on Youtube good work! I'd be happy to help you out with the voices. It shouldn't be hard to find a couple more people to do them too at least until you get a better mic.

Pun-3X · Post by **Pun-3X** » Sat Mar 31, 2007 2:26 am

Awesome work! Absolutely stunning, and very clean animation. I've done a little stop-and-go myself, so I know how tedious it can get. That must have taken you quite some time.

andersonh1 · Post by **andersonh1** » Sat Mar 31, 2007 2:33 am

Very nice animation!

slartibartfast · Post by **slartibartfast** » Sat Mar 31, 2007 3:43 am

great, smashing, super !

I watched this at woek eearlier with the dound off, and i wad like :"**** dude, check out the animatiubn !" itryed to do dome acrtion man stuff once with a friend... it took all bloody afrternoon to make two blooody 10 second acrion sequences that wereall aver the placerythm-wise. Your timinf is amazing, and the the trandsforming spots mindblowing

then i gor home and checked it oit with the soiund and was like "aahahahahahaha YEAH !" the footstepFX is awesome and ravage is a hoot...

then istareted looking tor a link and forgot what i wad typing. sorry...

...buy yoursilf a proper camera

Autobot Bandit · Post by **Autobot Bandit** » Sat Mar 31, 2007 7:13 am

Thank you all for the wonderful comments/ positive criticism. It really means a lot to know that an entertaining product can be enjoyed by all and have all my hard work not be considered a waste of anyone's time.

StoneCold and Clay, I'll look into what you guys had mentioned sometime early next week. Thanks for the support.

Post by **zigzagger** » Sat Mar 31, 2007 7:20 am

Originally posted by Autobot Bandit
Thank you all for the wonderful comments/ positive criticism. It really means a lot to know that an entertaining product can be enjoyed by all and have all my hard work not be considered a waste of anyone's time.

No, thank you. Wonderful stuff you provided! Out of curiosity, and you do not have to answer, who considered your hard work was a waste of time?

Rosalie · Post by **Rosalie** » Sat Mar 31, 2007 8:19 am

Hey man, I'll make one suggestion though. We didn't really need to see Ravage licking himself for half a minute. I mean, things like that you can just not animate to begin with, to save yourself time. Try to only keep the action going, and re-use clips, or have them only move slightly, if you can. Try and do it like an anime :P Only move when necessary. That way it'll be a lot less stressful. The smoothness of the animation is impressive but not all of it necessarily needs to be that smooth.

Just some tips so you don't kill yourself to death with frustratings making the next one.

Autobot Bandit · Post by **Autobot Bandit** » Mon Apr 02, 2007 8:33 pm

StoneCold, I took Clay's suggestion and uploaded my 50MB file up to MegaUpload and I'm not sure if I did it right or not. It spit out a link and I'm going to email that to you.

Clay, does one need to be a member of MegaUpload in order to download from it? If so, membership was free SC. Oh and Clay, I shot at 24fps.

TSFC · Post by **TSFC** » Mon Apr 02, 2007 8:54 pm

The animation is incredibly smooth, and the humor...top notch.

Highly recommended.

Rosalie · Post by **Rosalie** » Tue Apr 03, 2007 7:53 pm

Originally posted by Autobot Bandit
StoneCold, I took Clay's suggestion and uploaded my 50MB file up to MegaUpload and I'm not sure if I did it right or not. It spit out a link and I'm going to email that to you.

Clay, does one need to be a member of MegaUpload in order to download from it? If so, membership was free SC. Oh and Clay, I shot at 24fps.

That's why it took so long then. I think most stop motion is done at only 12. 24 is "movie quality".

Post by **Clay** » Wed Apr 04, 2007 12:43 am

Originally posted by Rosalie
We didn't really need to see Ravage licking himself for half a minute. I mean, things like that you can just not animate to begin with, to save yourself time.

That was actually my favorite part...

Originally posted by Autobot Bandit
Clay, does one need to be a member of MegaUpload in order to download from it? If so, membership was free SC. Oh and Clay, I shot at 24fps.

As far as I know, anyone that you give the link to can download the file.

snavej · Post by **snavej** » Wed Apr 18, 2007 11:09 am

Animation - really good for amateurs.

Music / dialogue - can't comment due to lack of speakers.

Gremlin · Post by **Gremlin** » Tue May 29, 2007 3:27 pm

Mind blowing,worth all the effort.Cudos. Did one with kinder eggs toys, and comic action figures,turned out half speed of your show,that
was eight hours. Very talented. Gotta convert the cvhs tape and ship
it to you guys,slow frames but humerous.