Life's Tough, Wear a Helmet

My latest CrazyTalk Animator 2 short is a variation on a video I created several years back called Where's Your Helmet? That video was inspired by the quote Life's Tough, Get a Helmet that I wrote an article about in my main blog.

This time instead of stick figures on a white background, my new animation is set in an office and uses Reallusion's G2 Power Tools characters and props. Watch the animation below and then read about the behind the scenes stuff afterward.

This animation was made over five days from writing the script to uploading it to YouTube. With it only being one scene I was able to make the entire thing inside CrazyTalk Animator's studio.

As with my previous CrazyTalk Animator productions the actual animation is still very unnatural in places. The result of trying to mash predefined character motions with my own adjustments to get something closer to the movement I actually want. I could probably create much better character animation if I created the movement from scratch but some of my goal is to get good at making animations quickly using the predefined motions.

That said, I still paid attention to details like blinking eyes and moving pupils around so the characters look at each other and appear more life like.

I will say that some of the pre-defined motions are a little too exaggerated. For example the final scene where the characters are talking face to face uses the same predefined talk motions with no changes on both characters. You'll notice their hands seem to move rather more than necessary as they speak.

Character Comparison.

Something else to note is that the characters in this animation are not standard G2 Power Tool characters. I took some time to modify them so that their heads, forearms and lower legs are all oversize. I was hoping the larger heads would make them easier to see when the characters are shown with no black outline.

An unexpected side effect of the bigger head and longer limbs is that the characters movement feels a lot more like that of marionettes. I'm not overly sure I like it but it was worth trying something different.

Aside from the script, I did all the voice work and I created the yellow helmet and wastepaper basket props (using DrawPlus X6).

All sounds came from freesound.org and the music came from freepd.com

I'm definitely getting more confident using CrazyTalk Animator. I still find I'm looking around for things every now and then but for the most part I'm getting to the point where I can really start trying to produce better quality work.

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