Life has been quite hectic for me lately, so I haven't spent much time online in the past few weeks. First, my brother's wedding, then getting my brother and sister into college. Now that things have died down a little bit, I have had time to resume some of my projects. I am still writing on DA Shadow Phantom. Also, the burning desire has hit me to do a short animation with some of the characters and some music that has inspired me, sort of like a theme song/sequence.
Currently, I am perfecting the run cycle for Dalan, my main character. I think I finally came up with something that I like, and I have been testing it in After Effects as well. It's a handy animation program from Adobe. The first step for me to refine this run cycle, however, was research. I looked up numerous run cycles that other people had done. Still unsatisfied with what I was finding for this particular character, however, I kept looking. It wasn't until I was watching Black Cat, an action anime, that I at last found what I was looking for.
Screen captures weren't fast enough to get me what I needed as a reference, however. What I needed was a frame-by-frame reference. Generally, since the most common frame rate used in animation nowadays is 24 fps (frames per second), the human eye cannot pick up every single one if played in real time. We see it as continuous motion. So what I had to do was open the episode that had the run cycle I wanted in After Effects and pull it apart frame by frame, taking my screen shots there with individual images as opposed to footage, which is what an animation is when we see a movie or show. Anyway, with this run cycle now available to me as a reference, I was able to experiment and adapt a working one that suited my character, Dalan much better.
Just from being able to compare general run cycles with a faster run cycle, I learned a lot about what makes them faster or slower looking. Most normal run cycles are, on average, about nine frames long, not including whatever in-betweens the animators decide to add to smooth them out and slow them down. What I wanted was a fast, sort of choppy run cycle that denotes someone who is very fast, faster than the average human athlete, as Dalan has a few un-human abilities.
The effect I learned towards that end is to clip the average nine frame run cycle down to six or seven frames, seven if you make it a full cycle, repeating the first frame as the seventh one. Even if I add extra frames in between, or keep each frame up for the length of two frames to slow it down enough to make it visible to the average human eye, I discovered that it still gives the impression of the runner moving very fast. Part of that illusion are the sharp diagonal angles the body and limbs are put at in each frame. If the figure was more upright, for instance, it would appear that he is moving at a slower, more leisurely pace.
To see the above run cycle tested as an actual animation clip, visit my FaceBook Shadow Phantom page.
Main page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/DA-Shadow-Phantom/125944890946328
Little by little I'm seeing it come together, and it's exciting. Besides other random art projects for people, this project has me sucked in most of the time. Sometimes, it's days before I surface for air.
For those of my readers who do not yet know, DA Shadow Phantom is an action/fantasy story where Dalan, a shapeshifter, has to come to terms with what he is, the last of his kind living in a society of humans that have all but forgotten the old ways of life. He acts as a sort of protector as he learns to master his abilities, running to the aid of the weak that are oppressed by the strong and violent. Will he have to give up his own desires, even his life to protect people who will never understand him? Or can he somehow manage to find what he wants in the process?
The above image is one of the key frames (images) in my short theme song animation. Time and space have merged as Dalan's destiny begins to be revealed, and his own life seems to be unraveling at the same time.
To find out more about the DA Shadow Phantom series and/or purchase the first book, follow these links:
Amazon
Smashwords
I hope to see you there!
For more artwork and story-related stuff, or if you just want to get in touch with me and see what I'm up to, visit me at these websites:
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