Public Domain: The Shocking Truth!

Having been some time since I've talked about the issue of music and cartoons. I've mentioned things quite a bit, but let's face it--music and cartoons go hand in hand.

So now having learned something I somewhat referenced in a past post about music. I vaguely touched on Public Domain music. Where I mentioned "the older the better".

Turns out, that's only a half truth. Why? Well let me tel you.

While an old song may be public domain, that really only covers the sheet music, any lyrics.

The catch here is, any recordings or productions made from that music are protected by copyright and belong to that particular creator. And that recording won't enter public domain until at least 75 years after the death of that creator.

So even though an old dusty piece of classical music is up for grabs, every individual musician or group are the rightful owners of their respective recordings. And therefore you cannot use that 150+ year old song unless you go about getting the proper permissions to use it.

Of course you could always time travel 100 years or so into the future, make your toon and then come back.

Dig That Funky Pattern

If you know of Cartoon Network's Chowder, then you know one of the show's trademarks are the funky animated patterns on the characters.

I'd been trying to think up how in the world they're able to pull that off. Actually lots of people are and it's been quite tricky trying to track down any sort of specific information.

One day after watching an episode of Chowder I got to thinking about how I might be able to pull off an animated pattern like in Chowder. Before you run to Flash, don't. Animating this is beyond Flash's capabilities. I had tried it a while back with masks but it just doesn't work.

I did throw the scene and "Soup" together in Flash and I made a "background" pattern with the Deco Tool. 

For Soup all I did was make sure the parts of his costume that was getting the pattern were a solid bright green. A color that in no way was going to end up in the scene. 

I then set about animating Soup's walk and him going back and forth. 

Once I had a decent enough loop animated in Flash, I then took the whole set up into Adobe After Effects. As that was one way I figured they could pull off those animated patterns.

So once I had everything imported into After Effects I simply set about applying a chroma/color keying effect. Also known as "green screen".

As you can see, it worked. However as far as my experience level goes, After Effects is only good for one pattern. Since you set the pattern on a layer below your animation.

If you've never worked with After Effects before it works with a layered timeline similar to Flash, but way more complex.

You could also likely pull this off with Adobe Premier, maybe. The results would be the same, good for one pattern.

So it seems that for now the secret behind those animated patterns in Chowder will remain a mystery. Unless of course there's some technique you can use to tying specific color key colors to specific patterns, in After Effects or Premier. There very well could be, but I've not stumbled across them yet.

Til next time, toonsters! 

Change is Nigh-ish

So I've been deciding how to go about better building a presence for Hoot'Nanny Productions. Though, I must say I have managed to generate a couple of bucks via ads between here and my website. So I'm still weighing the options of going the website/blog route.

I've been working on setting up Cartoon Syndicate It's far from finished but it's coming together and it's letting me see the potential I have for Hoot'Nanny Productions. As my site is right now I must always wrestle with the restrictions of my current hosting plan's templates. I would have a bit more design freedom with the website/blog combo with the price of getting used to Wordpress, but that is a bit of net design experience I can apply to other things in the future.

I'm also learning the ins and outs of web promotion/marketing to better my chances of generating passive income for additional funding and exsposure for my toons. As such in a bit of further unrelated news I've launched PanzerBanana.com. To have a general non-cartoon site/blog so my my official cartoon sites won't be cluttered with too many unrelated topics. Just follow the link for the full story.

Til next time, toonheads!

Toon Boom Studio "Review"

I was sitting around working on some things when I realized, I haven't really given any product reviews. And that's something aspiring cartoonists/animators that are just starting out wonder about. So I thought I would mention one that seemed really fancy when I first read of it.

If you're cartoon minded like me, you likely pick up Animation magazine whenever you can, and scour the net for all things related to the craft. If you do, you will have likely come across mention of Toon Boom Studio.

Toon Boom is a powerful program. It features bones and is capable of many different animation techniques. When I read of it Toon Boom sounded like the program I was looking for. Then I tried it out.

Before I continue I'd like to say it is really important to at least familiarize yourself with all of the basics of making a cartoon/animation happen. Since it's more than just drawing, you've got story boards, animatics, exposure sheets. there's a lot of things that go into keeping the entire project on track. Things that keep everyone on the same page

Now if you're a solo cartoonist, as many web cartoonists/animators are. Some of those things don't seem all that important . Until your ideas and planning get to the point where you realize you really do need to keep a more reliable record of your progress than your memory. It's very important to at least be aware of the basics. Especially you find like minded artists to collaborate with, because they don't have the convenience of knowing what you're thinking.

With all of that being said. Toon Boom Studio is, in a nutshell, the process of animation digitally reconstructed.

There is a time line and things some will find familiar if they've dabbled in Flash or anything else. That's where the similarities end. You cannot animate frame-by-frame with Toon Boom, not like with flash.

Toon Boom has and uses an Exposure Sheet like real animation. What an Exposure Sheet does is show you what animation assets and elements are in use for a particular scene. How many frames they're in, or length of a particular action lasts. You cannot do anything on the the time line of Toon Boom, unless you set everything up on the exposure sheet.

Toon Boom whether intentional or not, is geared towards paperless animation. They have a suite of products that are digital versions of aspects of animation, and ways of tying everything together so a studio can work digitally.

Which is all well and good if you happen to be a professional studio or students looking toward traditional animation, but want to be eco-friendly. And I think that's great.

However, for anyone just starting out Toon Boom is not the program for you. Unless you're specifically interested in being an animator. Then Toon Boom Coupled with the resource any and every cartoonist/animator should own The Animators Survival Kit Then you'll have a means of familiarizing yourself with things covered in the book.

Toon Boom is cheaper than Flash, but quite a meaty purchase unless you're really serious about being an animator. Definately try before you buy.

Basic Flash Things I Wish I Knew: Part One

Currently I am outlining the things I would like to cover in blogcasts/tutorials. Which might seem odd since I'm still learning my craft. However there are things that I've discovered that I've not found mentioned in books or other tutorials, at least not any of the ones I've found.

I'll touch on these things in the tutorials as well. Well, I guess I'll demonstrated these things in the tutorials. Right now I'm just going to start with one of the most basic things in flash....

SYMBOLS!

Symbols are the building blocks of flash, nearly everything that enters your project will be a symbol. There are three flavors. The two most fitting for animation, at least what I do. Are Graphic Symbols and Movie Clips, the third being Buttons.

You can also place symbols inside symbols, inside symbols. An awesome "feature" which can, and in my case did for sometime, lead to confusion. Organization is an important thing.

Graphic Symbols. Graphic Symbols, are the "least fancy" of the two. However, if you're simply doing frame-by-frame animation, and you don't need the object to do much else, Graphic Symbol is a good choice.

Graphic Symbols, unlike movie clips, have the advantage of playing any animation you do inside the symbol(examples to come) when you scrub or play the timeline. UNLESS! You've added animation to a Graphic Symbol inside that one, then you won't see that animation at all. Also you won't see the animation loop of a Movie Clip, but you will when you test your movie.

A SPECIAL NOTE ON GRAPHIC SYMBOLS

To see any animation inside a Graphic Symbol, you have to make sure your main timeline spans the same number of frames or more.

A SPECIAL NOTE ON SYMBOLS IN GENERAL

Any change you make to a symbol on the stage, will change it in your library, and any other symbol it is in. My book never told me that.

Movie Clips. Movie Clips are the symbol of choice when you need to do "fancy" things. Things such as, to loop continuously regardless of the number of frames in your timeline. The animation in a Movie clip loops independent of the main timeline. You can have one frame in your main timeline and 100 in your Movie Clip, it will still play. This is great for things that have persistent motion, such as a fire or a pulsing light.

Movie Clips, will not show animation when you scrub the timeline. So if you need to see how a symbol is animating in relation to the background or anything else in the scene, don't choose a Movie Clip.

Movie Clips do have the added benefit of being able to apply filter effects to a symbol. Such as glowing, blur, drop shadow. Depending on your needs filters can be a fun effect.

That's a good start for now. Next up will be tweens and comps. Stay Tuned!

Kinda Fighting

So long time, no post. I don't know how I neglected to post this when I finished it. Here is my most recent practice animation.

More simple characters. But it's mostly so I get a feel for the ideas I've had for my animations. I tried a few techniques out. Once I'm a bit more comfortable with my animation set up I'll put together some "tutorials". Or at least share the tricks I use.

And So It Begins

Well I've done it. I've begun setting up my new website! No more domain forwarding or free webhosting for me. It's simply not good for your internet visitibility and generating traffic. Ok if it goes to another site...it means when I accidentally re-forwarded my domain, things haven't been processed yet and I haven't been able to cancel the forwarding. Oy, we lrean more from our mistakes though. yeesh.

Finally http://hootnannyonline.com finally just goes there! Which means I can now submit my site to directories around the net and better my odds of getting more search traffic, more google loves, and hopefully some funding via ad revenue.

Eventualy this blog will actually have more cartooning information that is directly about cartooning. Still I figure any information I can provide to others like myself whom are trying to get their studios and projects off the ground may be of use.

I've stumbled across things in my efforts I never thought I'd have to think about. There is way more than simply putting up a site and waiting to be found. It's an adventure for sure. Hopefully the things I discover and share will be of use to others.

Cartooning Baby Steps

At last something animated! Yes it isn't much but it's a start. The last few days, no this didn't take that long, I've been getting the creative juices flowing.

I've been in a bit of a creative slump, or rather an animating slump. Too many ideas, not enough time, and I've not found many good tips for putting characters together in flash. So at long last I've decided to just try out all the theories I have and decide what techniques best help my ability to work quickly.

Aside from practicing effects with the vampire, I was also trying some of my "theories" about symbol composition. I think I'm on to something. As i become more comfortable and confident in those abilities I'll be sure to share those tidbits.

Hoot'Nanny Productions is now on YouTube! Not much there yet though. But it's all part of getting your site out there.

A Sound Idea Redux: Flashkit.com

While looking through my stock music I ran across some catchy tunes that I could not remember where I'd gotten them.

Anyhow, long story short I finally thought to check the file's properties and found they were from Flashkit.com I can't believe I'd forgotten to make mention of such a great resource.

They've got music, sound effects, tutorials of all manner and many other flash related goodies. Most importantly IT'S ALL FREE. Or free-ish. I've not yet found any particular restrictions or anything. Seems many may share the music and sounds for promotion. There are a few royalty free services that offer samples on Flashkit.

And there you have one more resource for your creative needs.

Music Service I Forgot

I'm not exactly sure how, but in my previous post where I listed some royalty free music sources, it would seem I forgot to list Shockwave-Sound.com .

Anyhow, they're another good option if you're looking for tunes. If you've just stumbled across my blog go checkout my archives for my posts on royalty free music and music services.

And looky, Shockwave has banners! They also have an affiliate program. So hopefully I'll increase my chances of making money online.

Yeah, shameless plug I know. But I've actually managed to make some money with blogging and google ads....Ok 2 whole cents in the last two days! Hey, it's a start. Besides if things start going well, I'll start sharing my online money secrets. FOR FREE! After funding your projects is a part of being your own studio.

The Cartoon Syndicate

I'd like to give a bit of info on a pet project of mine. I know in the previous post I mentioned adding more publishing info, which I will.

Anyhow, The Cartoon Syndicate is an idea I've had for a long time. I'm trying to find ways to make it a site/service/resource for other cartoon minded folks out there, especially the little guys and fledgling creators like me.

The main focus is making animated toons, and I would hope it would become a place for cartoon loving individuals of all applicable talents to mingle with the potential to come together to make their own toons. The name isn't just catchy, it's quite litteral.

I'm ever stewing the structure I would like for the site and just the right associated community set up. Infact, when I have time I must again edit the site.

Also when I can I'll be dropping my free host to do away with the need for having all my domains forwarded. That way I can hopefully get more visibility and traffic to my sites, and hopefully make some advertising money at last.

I do have some really big plans for Cartoon Syndicate, that I have not and shall not go into just yet.

So for the time being I figured I could at least shed a bit of light on it here. Also there is a Cartoon Syndicate Blog With over lapping information with this one. Because they're both mine. The CS blog however I have new ideas for.

Please do check out the Syndicate's site, in all of it's neglected glory. Also if you're a toon-minded person, aspiring creator, that likes the sound of it, please do let me know. It helps me know where I need to focus my efforts.

Til next time!

A Sound Idea: Part 2

In the previous post I touched on the benefits of using music you're in control of in your productions. Now I'll make mention of a few of the sites and services I've encountered thus far. In no particular order. Though I will start with the absolute cheapest option of the things you pay for!

1. SoundSnap - SoundSnap began life as a VERY noble idea. That being that it was absolutely free. All of the music and various sounds provided were largely contributed by talented individuals of the industry. Sort of a side project throwing us little guys a bone. There was a vast assortment of quality music and effects, it was in fact too good to be true. It's not hard to immagine that quality all at the very affordable price of FREE did wonders for their PR. It did. Of course that means higher opperating costs and means of the minds behind it making more money. Now SoundSnap isn't as free as it used to be.

At the most basic level you still have free and complete access to SoundSnap's library. HOWEVER! You can only download 5 files per month. Depending on your particular needs that may be good enough. If you need more than that, you can upgrade your membership to one of their several subscription plans. The lowest being $29 per month for 100 downloads per.

$29 might be a number larger than you wanted to see, but that's still a great deal if you're working to amass a library for your projects. Especially considering that most royalty free places charge that per track!

So go checkout SoundSnap Their library is quite vast and you'll likely find the style tunes you're looking for, or get pretty darn close.

2. StockMusic.net - One of the more "affordably priced" options out there. They have a good and largely original library. I say that because I have actually found some sites selling the same music found on their competitors. You can also download their track demos. Buuuuut, they're "watermarked". So if you plan on using it for anything, you'll have your work cut out for you.

3. Music Bakery - They offer a quality, varied, and original selecion of music. Tracks going from $14 and up depending on their production work/quality. They do offer Lo-Fi selections of their music. The samples are VERY LO-FI. But you can down load them. What I downloaded didn't seem to be watermarked, or it could very well be I didn't hear it. Yeah, that Lo-Fi. All in all they're still an "affordable" choice, depending on what catches your ear.

Music Services and Networking

Apart from royalty free tunes there are a couple of options I've found so far where free is still the name of the game. Including social networking. Basically the sites are geared toward musically talented folks to mingle and share their audio creations as well as mix-and-match the submissions of other site members with provided audio mixing as part of the site.

So you not only have the ability to find new and free music for your production, you might just find a talented person to make tunes for your project and getting a bit of exposure for themselves too.

1. Jamglue - Jamglue is a good place to start rooting around for music or a contributing artist. The site however, is a wee bit buggy. I always had an issue with the mixer freezing up or crashing. Also when combing tracks and loops the mixer doesn't really allow you to seamlessly combine and edit samples. Maybe the place just doesn't like me.

2. Splice Music - I think Splice Music may have been merging with someone else. At least that was the word the last time I tried checking them out. I heard of the place, like Jamglue, while watching Attack of the Show on G4 a long time ago. I have yet to actually see how the site works. Not because I haven't tried, but because no matter where I was or who's PC i was using the site just didn't work. Either the site would crash, or the blasted thing just wouldn't load. So if the link works for you, good luck, the site likely won't. I never said all the options would be good ones.

All in all there's a lot of cyberspace to be covered when looking for sound and music for your toons. I know it's incredibly easy just to use tunes from your favorite CD's or downloads. And the vast majority of independant toons out there on the net do just that. Which I guess is all well and good if you never plan on profiting from it.

Even when you're still learning the ropes, going that extra mile to find music you control for your projects and practice lends a little bit more of a professional touch to the whole thing.

A Sound Idea!

Sound effects and music are a vital part of any toon. For now I don't believe I'll get into the effects, as stock effects are a bit easier to come by than music.

"Music isn't hard to come by," you say? It is if you don't want to be slapped with a cease and desist order, or worse, sued if your project starts becoming profitable.

So what's a plucky creator to do? Well, there's always the option of seeking out music that is more or less public domain. In that regaurd the older the music or deader(yes, deader) the original creator the better. It's basically music old enough there's not many around to legally claim it. Aside from the unique vibe it lent the series, that was some of the reasons "Ren & Stimpy" featured such old music. They didn't have to pay for it.

From the realm of Public Domain we move on to "Royalty Free Music". Sorry to say, but "Royalty Free" doesn't mean free. You do have to pay for it. Although once you do the music is yours to do with as you please. All that trademarked licensed music in your favorite movies and such, unless they paid big bucks for the use, the companies likely have to pay out royalties to the artists featured in the sound track.

For the obvious great advantage of Royalty Free saving you from legal issues that may arise from selling a project with someone else's music, there is one big downside. Depending on the company or service providing the royalty free tunes, you may be paying the price of a full CD or more per track, which are sometimes only a few seconds long!!!

Royalty free is a great idea, but why so much? Fact is, it's a VERY niche market. The people behind it all are assorted artists and talented people and companies providing a product to a rather small market in the grand scheme of things. And their clientel are generally various companies, corporations, and studios with the money to afford the big price tags on royalty free tracks and libraries. Also when they sell that music they sell all the rights that go along with it. Some places actually sell tracks exclusively. Meaning that once a client purchases the music they aquire ALL RIGHTS to it. But that's something we little guys need not worry about.

If one is lucky, they can track down companies that offer a selection of free samples. A Google search can generally provide one a good place to start.

In the follow up to this I'll cover a few of the sites and services I've run across in a search for cartooning resources