Blender Movie Project: Flupps
Arondix Animations have just released ‘Flupps’, a short animation about a red ball who has his first encounter with a mirror.
After two months labor-intensive work the Arondix-Team proudly announces the release of their first short filmproject with the title “Flupps”. Of couse we hope you’ll like it and we were very happy, if you could send us a small feedback. Read the full story, the interview with Arondix Animations Director Richard Nespithal, look at some production-photos and of course watch the movie!
You can find the background information and a link to the movie on the Project Flupps Page. Enjoy!
lol! That was…odd.
But not bad ;)
Very cool! I loved it. The quality is very good. You can tell there was a lot of time and effort spent in getting the look, lighting and animation just right. I look forward to your next production. Top marks, up there for thinking, down there for dancing.:)
O.k., I think that was an interesting short story. And I liked your environment. I think you gave a lot of attention to it which was great. On the other, the animations were a little lacking, for instance when the mirror hits the floor, it would normally hit with greater impacts whereas it just seemed to float to the floor, more use of the IPO curves maybe able to give you a little more control over the motion afetr basic keys are set. Maybe if you get a chance check out Jeff lews videos on Character animation techniques, very insightful. But as for a first short I give you thumbs up, and hope to see more from you and your team.
I thought the mirror slowly hitting the floor was done on purpose. Certainly it seemed the traditional thing to do, and added to the tension (like people who jump off of 90 foot waterfalls and get several seconds to watch the ground rush up to them :) ).
Joe
To be honest the animations sucks, there no life in it. shouldn’t a bouncy ball be one of the first thing you learn to animate? ;)
Very nice …
I think the only thing the animation lacked was that bouncy effect of veggietales. :D
Yeah, I pretty much agree with Gustav.
My advice would be to do LOTS of reading about basic animation techniques.
Also, take advantage of the physics engine.
Cool movie…. You did great in modeling things, lightings, shadings and textures….
Animation needs more realism though. I think there is a need to develop more on the character; because he is the main center of attraction here. The character is a bit unstable…with rounded base. It lacks feet for locomotion. The character’s means of communicating to the audience is only through its eyes; and perhaps a jumpy movement. Not to mention the big nose. What for? Adding arms, hands, legs and feet should convey more meaning to the action. Also add squash and stretch to the jumpy movement to create a more natural effect unless you really want the odd thing to happen.
I am looking to a better movie….more…more…success!!!
Get “The Animator’s Survival Kit” !!
Very basicly…
But funny to watch :)
Nicely done. Rich environment and good story. Although, animation can be improved upon.
Greetings,
Satish.
In general it was a nice piece of work.
I thought that in the opening shots, the camera moved a bit too fast. Also, in a few places, there could have been more effective timing used – to increase the dramatic impact.
In terms of animation, as people have said, it could have been better than it was. One contributing factor is that there was a lack of squash+stretch when ‘Flupps’ bounces up and down. Also, there could have been a bit more variation in the speed at which it blinked. In addition to this, some variation in some aspect of the nose would have been nice. If these three things were used in combination to convey the emotions of the character more, then it would have been more effective.
Having said all this, the atmosphere (set/lighting) was quite nice. Espcially considering that all the 3d was apparently done by one guy, that’s not too bad.
Regards,
Aligorith
nicely done… and funny little character !
lol
at the beginning, the camera movements are a bit hooky…
but then, it get’s smoother.
Great environment.
Excellent materials.
Lacking Animation.
It really feels like you set your priorities backwards.
Good idea for a story and nice work on the set. As most of the constructive criticisms have noted, animation could use some work, but hey, I’d bet most of the people who blasted the animation didn’t have much better animation on their first projects. They just aren’t willing to show them off. I admire you for showing your work.
Another useful resource of animation is the Digital Character Animation series from New Riders publishing. It is not application specific, and it focuses on the actual techniques of animation rather than the specific tools used in one application or another.
Hi everybody,
special thanks for your comments! For the next project (Release: July 2007) we will spend much more time for the creation and animationg of the main-charakters. This movie will be much funnier as Flupps – so be be curious!!
Best regards
Richy
Yeah, environment is cool but even your logo says ANIMATION.
For me, that’s not even basic animation,
basic animation should be able to do a bouncing ball!!!
Here’s my two cents:
The Textures were well done, the lighting was decent, The camera movement and angles were pretty good, but the animation took away from the overall quality.
I think that you should have added a little more ‘bounce’ to the ball’s movements and especially to the mirror when it falls.
Flupps eyes would look better if you brought his lower eyelids up a bit when he squints, as well.
Overall, though I would say that it is very good, in my opinion.
Congratulations on doing something. This has lots of nice modelling and excellent sound (I had earphones on – BOOM!) but as others have said – where was the character animation?
Your movie page says “Flupps is a small red living elastic ball.” – but in fact, he is as solid as a lump of concrete. He isn’t elastic or stretchy at all :( except when he’s under the mirror and even here we don’t see him “pop” back into shape.
Put a lattice on Flupps and pleeeeease remake this with heaps of squash and stretch before embarking on another project.
I agree. Congrats on finishing this project, but animation could have been better.
Oh dear. I think they need an Art Director/Character Designer and a Script Writer. Nice environments though.
fyi,
this looks awesome.
http://www.david-laserscanner.com/
a (almost) free DIY laserscanner
sorry bout the spam and the no relevants to the subject
anyone tried it ?
nice. weird and funny. great quality for only 7.6mb!
Well I still liked the character. But yeah he wasn’t done all that well. I suspect the main problem is that one guy did the entire thing, which frankly is a TON of work. I’m not surprised one aspect of the piece is lacking, I certainly might skimp out on the animation after spending so much freakin time on the environments :)
Joe
Hey!
Very nice job indeed. Your texturing and modeling skills are superb. The thing I would improve on(like everyone else said) are your animation skills!
My main suggestion is…
Your guy needs more anticipation(maybe squish more before bouncing? It builds up to the actual action rather than the action just happening)
You also need to make it more fluent!
Also, one book that’s helped me a bunch on this subject is the animator’s survival kit by richard williams. You can get it off of amazon for about 20 dollars…a very good deal. It cover EVERYTHING you could want to know about character animation.
Well…great work!!! And I hope to see more from you in the future!!!
-Chris
really good Project Flupps
Nice start :). Animation needs more work, I won’t say anything else about it. It’s really tough to put all the pieces together to make a movie and it’s obvious you guys are trying hard, so congratulations !
Hope to see more from your studio in the future !
Regards
malefico
OMG no squash and stretch AT ALL, this guys need animators badly
I’m sorry people – but seems the comments are a little harsh – it certainly doesn’t “suck” – just needs the squashy effect – Let’s see what you all can do better… :)
Congratulations!
Great job! The next movie will be better. This is a great start.
Holy Cow….those were some MEAN comments. I guess no one else will be debuting their FIRST animation on blendernation. Perhaps their 4th or 5th one after they get good enough to survive the criticisms. There were some great constructive criticisms like “Your guy needs more anticipation(maybe squish more before bouncing? It builds up to the actual action rather than the action just happening)” , but some like “basic animation should be able to do a bouncing ball” were just plain mean.
He was just excited at creating an animation – not something trivial – and wanted to share with others.
Hang on ERM, read back again…
It wasn’t that mean. Just honest criticism, which is healthy. The vast majority of the comments were quite positive.
IMHO, honest criticism is much better than politely lying by saying “It’s fantastic!”, when it isn’t.
Some of the comments might seem mean but the reality is that the reason the lack of animation was so apparent is that the rest of the production was so good. From the logo to the character to the environment to the sound, this was an excellent piece of work and nothing to be ashamed of.
However, if you set up a professional looking website with a good looking logo and call yourself an animation studio, you need to put the animation first. It really would take comparatively little effort to get some interesting animation into this – and it seems a shame not to do it after all the other work that’s been done.
Nice work!!!