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FA MAG news, updates and articles

Bringing Back Creativity In Stick Figure Animations

TABLE OF CONTENTS----------------------------

ANimATiON WOrd OF ThE dAy - Audio Syncing by Murph

CrEATOr iNTErviEWS: - Interview with Phillips “Terkoiz” Lacanlale by Mesmay

ANimATiON ANALySiS: - In depth look into the details of SHOCK 3 that make it such a marvel

FA mANSiON - FA’S FirST hALLOWEEN COmpETiTiON - Nearing it’s dead line, great parts already flowing in. BSE v3 rOuNd 2 - Now with swords! FA rEdSigN WTF? - Actually, more of a clean up and re-organization ThE FrENCh vS FLLFFL + ThE FrENCh hiSTOry Ep 2 - Coming out this October 25th!

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Animation Word of the Day By Murph

AudioSyncing

Syncing, AKA synchronization, has to do with audio-animation cooperation. For example, let’s say an animated mouth says “hello!” Of course, you want to have audio to go with it, so you add the audio of “hello!” Syncing is placing that audio in the exact right place so it actually looks like the mouth says “hello!” at the right time.

In our contextual purpose, let’s talk about punching and punching sounds. You animate a punch, then throw the punch sound in there. Let’s say you show someone your anim and they say, “You really need to sync that sound.” What do you do? Not ig-nore their confusing terminology. No! You go back to your anim and make sure to place your punch sound RIGHT as the fist hits the enemy. For some sounds, there is a slight delay, so you might have to place it a bit earlier.

Sometimes, you might want to use gunshot sounds for a gun. These might be a little different. Personally, I think it is best to put the gunshot sound a frame or two BE-FORE the actual gunfire. The reason for this is that in real life, our ears would hear the gunshot before we saw the gunshot blast. You may place it right on the gunfire frame, but in my experience, the frame before is a better place for it.v

Music. This has become a big frustration for someone who wants to sync their anima-tion with music. Syncing with music isn’t the same as syncing with sounds; for ex-ample, you may want to start an “epic” combo when the guitar solo of the song you’re using starts playing. This is a good idea, but be sure to know how to do that. First of all, always, and I mean ALWAYS, make the song you’re syncing is set to “stream”. You can change this in the “properties” window while clicked on the audio within the timeline. You want “stream” instead of Event, which makes the audio play on and on. Stream allows the animation to go precisely with the music as you see it on the timeline. Most of the time, you’ll want your music on “stream”.Anyway, now that this helpful setting is enabled, you simply need to find where in the timeline that special guitar solo begins and start your epic combo at that moment. Simple, right? As you practice, you’ll be able to sync your movies more easily with the music.

There are not many things more unattractive than badly synced animations. Go forth with this knowledge create some kick-ass animations (as long as that kicking sound is synced correctly).

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a d v e r t i s e m e n t

BONuS TErm:

I’ll be explaining the differences between pinging, highlighting, and tabbing on IRC. This is a common, common misunderstanding between the three. First of all, if you are not aware of IRC itself, you may find it on the bottom of the portal page on fluidanims.com. It is a chat service that many among us at FluidAnims use to communicate. If you must get the attention of another IRC user, there are many ways this can be done. The simplest way to do so is to highlight (not to be confused with pinging). To do this, you simply type the exact name of the person you are trying to contact. Depending on the settings they have on their IRC client at the moment, they will most likely get alerted with a sound. Either way, their name will appear in red on your line. Use your highlighting cautiously, though, because some users may get angry from ma-licious highlighting.

As for pinging, this is much different than highlighting. The command: “/ping [name]” lets you determine the network distance between your computer and other users, by returning a report of the network delay between you and another user on a channel. In short, you most likely don’t even need to use this command.

Tabbing is in the same category as highlighting. A “tab” is a private chat you have directly with the other person. No one else can listen in. To “tab” someone, you can click on their name inside the channel or right click their name on the list of people in the room. Tabbing someone will alert this person similarly to highlighting.

Yes, pinging might be easier to say to talk about any of these three, but more learned users will not understand what you mean. The more you know!

Written by Murph

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Creator Interviews: PhilliPs “Terkoiz” lacanlaleBy MesMay

70% WINS

30% LOSSES

Age: *Syntax Error

About:”Created out of the division of zero”

So what’s your RHG called?

Phil: FLLFFL but if you see it right, it's actually ALFA.

What’s the story behind the name? Any special meaning?

Phil: there actually is a story behind the name but is yet to be revealed in a later game

Cool! So what weapon does your character use?

Phil: My RHG character uses this sword modded with some jet-like properties that basically propels himself or just for the use of fire.

Did you choose the sword for a special reason too?Phil: the sword all on itself seemed very traditional. Nothing special, just a slice and dicey thing. A jet, wasn't so traditional. I combined those two together and tadah! Something a little different.

Most of fllffl's fans seem to appreciate the originality that you manage to produce from the sword-jet combination. Do you try and change the animation to be more fan-friendly, or is it all spontaneous animating?

Phil: I try to be original with what I can do with a jet-sword thing. At first it was primarily just spontaneous animating, just busting out animations without really any thought. Now I'm trying to actually be a little more fan-friendly with my RHG animations by bringing back some favourites (secret) and trying to keep up with a story

So, fllffl has had 10 RHG battles so far, 7 of those have been wins. What was your favourite battle to animate?

Phil: Um my favourite battle so far was actually against Hyun's RHG character, YoYo. One, for being strictly 2-dimensional, and two for me

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actually losing the battle. I love when a person can outdo me. That way Ihave some aspirations to where I'll be progressing next and how to do better and keep striving for improvement.

Regarding the fllffl and yoyo battle, everyone was seriously impressed by the effort that went into both entries. Is there any chance of a rematch between you two?

Phil: a rematch would be fun. I loved animating Hyun's RHG. Hyun if you're reading this... you wanna?

What do you look for in a challenger then? Is it someone with a power/weapon which inspires you, someone on the same skill level, or just plain anyone?

Phil: Anyone who's up to it. I like to get a general feel for how well people animate. Like testing the waters kind of. Either I test how the animator is doing, or I'm like a random encounter with, really, no sense of what I'm doing sometimes. But yeah... I try RHG anyone who's willing to challenge.

What’s your favourite RHG out there at the moment? Excluding your own, of course.

Phil: Mr pix. Lol

Co-incidence, I’m interviewing him too. Why is he your favourite?

Phil: it's literally creative freedom. You can do literally anything with him. Also, I think he'd be fun to animate as well.

Thanks Phil! Let’s hope your future RHGs are even more exciting than your previous ones

POWERS/WEAPONS: 7.5/10 (nothing too ridiculous, just a good all-rounder.)

ANIMATOR’S SKILL: 10/10 (one of the best stick animators out there!)

CREATIVITY: 9/10 (always pushing forward with new concepts and ideas.)

VERDICT- Don’t challenge fllffl if you just want an easy win! You’ll have to pull out the big guns to take this one down.

-Article by Mesmay

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Animation Analysis By Syn

SHOCK 3

Hitting the stick animation scene with an explosion of approval, Terkoiz’s 4day efforts will most likely go down as a historical sequence of events to re-member in the context of animation history. By exceptionally defining the current state of stick animations, this represented one of the best efforts to expand the horizons of the genre for new ideas and new people to be infused into the public eye.

SHOCK3 is the continuation of Terkoiz’s famous Shock series, and the one that is most likely to stand out on his current portfolio while fans roar towards the much anticipated finale. However, this continuation of the series was in all but name as a very large portion of tendencies of the other two animations were replaced or modified to give an entirely different feel.

One of my main issues with this particular animation was the exposition scenes, and unfortunately furthers the stereotype of poor story in these sorts of animations. A noticeable lack of care towards the animation itself was apparent during these scenes as a double-framing tactic seemed very obvious in compari-son to the slick action. Appearing almost choppy at points, more in-betweens would have been much better to keep the consistent quality of action going. Mid-way through the animation for example displays Mr. Red puffing and panting over the previous fight, but only two frames in all were used while being repeat-ed over and over again to display this. The definitive low-point in SHOCK3 really places a black mark on the otherwise clean slate of animation quality.

These scenes unfortunately come fast and often, creating an odd sense of overall pacing throughout the animation. Adding almost nothing to the qual-ity of the animation besides a chance to reflect back on the previous scene, the lacklustre story takes center-stage as the idea of an ‘employee-check-up’ wears itself out. Why should we even care about Mr. Red in the first place? Besides the point of ‘he is trying to get a job’ and ‘he is trying to keep his job’ we know lit-erally nothing else about this otherwise blank character. If you are to include a story into your animation, you must be able to convey a strong sense of attach-ment with your protagonist as this compliments the intensity/impact of the action itself.

In spite of this primary flaw of exposition and story development, the ac-tion sections are quite interesting. In comparison to the previous SHOCKs, it feels much more grounded in its own reality as all of the actions appear to be more controlled and less chaotic. Instead of a frenzy of random manoeuvres, SHOCK3 represents greater emphasis on the coordination of combos and how these moves compliment and interact with one another. It is simply amazing how

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the animation really got the feeling of actual fighting down pat with accurate at-tack/defence mentalities rather than just always attacking or countering (most notable in SHOCK2) or just a quick one or two hit sequence to take down anyone (SHOCK1) that is seen in so many other stick animations. While counters were still apparent, they were done much less frequently but to more overall effect in influencing the direction of the fight. By creating this feeling of each move having a significant effect on the action, it creates a better sense of anticipation for the audience as to what may happen next; this is a great way to keep audience in-terest up and engage them with the sense of not knowing what will happen next. This maturation towards a better fighting style/action also builds upon Terkoiz’s switch from 1nt3rn3t t@1k to regular English as both symbolize his own personal growth as an animator and as a person over the last three years.

While on the topic of comparisons to the previous entries, the obvious cam-era-shake effect wasn’t used at all within SHOCK3. This lack of an effect ampli-fied this idea of control and realism, and gave it an almost entirely different feel all on its own merit. Effects can dictate a very large majority of how the audience interprets your animation, and must remain consistent with the overall sense you are attempting to dictate with the animation and fighting styles themselves. Basi-cally, it was a fantastic non-use of effects.

T he fighting environment itself retains much of the original however, with mild modifications here and there to keep consistent with the ‘clean-up’ that would have occurred between SHOCK2 and SHOCK3. Overall, this version of the environment is used much more effectively than in the previous SHOCKs that generally moved in one, consistent faction; SHOCK1 for example really only had Mr. Red going right across the screen, then very quickly upwards, followed by a contained battle, and all while using the nooks and crannies to his advantage throughout. SHOCK3 used almost the entire environment to its advantage, as best represented by the exposition scene where Mr. Red attempts to figure out which clone is the real person (the reflection of the previous action scene, as stated previously). Within this scene in particular, we get a recap of the envi-ronment used thus far in the animation, as well as the utilization of movements across the entire stage as he attacked different clones in his effort to find the real one.

To sum up, the main lessons that can be learnt from SHOCK3 are the im-portance of the story if you decide to include one, the selection of fighting style you attempt to display, how different themes/ideas presented within your anima-tion can connect to one another, the usage or non-usage of effects, and the envi-ronment chosen and how you decide to utilize it. As for SHOCK3 itself, its current position within the Top 50 is warranted but so is its absence from the Top 10. Its awesome action and fighting mechanics are to be praised, but the blemish of the careless attempts at story-development unfortunately bring this animation down.

Written By

- Syn

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Fluidanims.com Official Halloween Competition for 2010

What Is This Competition About?

This competition is specifically created for Halloween, obviously. However, this time we’re throwing in some of our FA ingredients for a delicious competition. This competition is based off of the “FA Mansion”

What is the FA Mansion?

The FA Mansion is where your animation will be visiting this competition. This is a place of horror and mystery, your job is to examine each of the various rooms in this mansion and choose which is best to your likings. Some rooms maybe haunted, may contain a mystery, How Can I Enter?

First, you must be sure to read all rules and descriptions regarding this competi-tion ( this whole page. ) Choose which room you wish to animate in the FA Man-sion. To see which room you’d like, simply read the descriptions under ‘room’s below and decide which sparks your imagination. Once you’ve decided which room you’d like to venture into, your job is to animate what occurs in this room given the inspiration of the description of that room.

Bedroom 1: Theme: Terkoiz/Phil’s previous ghost characters.

Upon entering this room, one might feel an icy chill run down thee spine. Look to which ever direction that you want but all that is in this room is a small tele-vision, nothing but a small television, that displays nothing but static images of dead bodys. In this very room a fellow animator has died, you may know him as Phil, yes at one point you might have loved him but upon entering this room, u pray that U have never met him. after Stabbing his heart with his own tablet pen due to the community demanding shock4, he died and now haunts anyone who enters this room.. One door, opposite to the television is your only way in, but can it be your way out or will Phil himself cause you to breakdown the way the demanding community did to him before he had killed himself.

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Bedroom 2: Theme: Traps/Mazes/Parkour

They say this used to be a childs room..As you’d enter you could feel the cold, dangerous breeze upon your skin...As you further set foot into the room you sud-denly feel alone...trapped inside a box like the poor soul Jomm used to be.. Once a small lively kind child, to one that had lost hope..Never having a play-buddy made him believe his toys and stuffed animals were actually real..He was very protecting they say..The little boy would do anything to protect what was close to him.. therefor his obsession with martial arts & dangerous TRAPS and LOCKS began.. Some even say little Jomm still guards his toys...

Bedroom 3: Theme: Many vs one

Oh look, it’s the bedroom of Moan and Groan, the twins of the household. These two rambunctious rascals were always getting into mischief… especially when that mischief included luring other children into their bedroom, torturing them, and hiding their corpses underneath their bunk bed at the far side of the room. Kids do the darned’est things. Rumours have it that the two died during their acts of misbehavior, but many claim to have seen their shadows looming in the window, as well as hear their naughty laugher as they plan their next torture session. Be very careful upon entering this room, as one may be confronted by the twins and fall victim to their ‘childs play’, involving the many torture devices they once used. Those who enter this room will find a new meaning to the phrase ‘The Terrible Two’s’.

Kitchen: Theme: Kitchen Equipment Coming Alive.

No one really knows the story of how Invert, the houses faithful cook, suddenly lost his life while working in the kitchen one fateful day. Maybe it was Andres constant orders of sandwiches and other demeaning food, maybe it was malnu-trition from the poor payments they gave him, or maybe it was the shoty knife rack that constantly dangled over Inverts’ forehead…. Although his body lies dead in the kitchen, the enraged spirit of Invert remains, waiting to take out his anger at anyone who enters his former workplace. Upon entering this room, one will be greeted by Inverts enraged, but invisible, ghostly form, who will kill intruders us-ing the very supplies that ended up being his grave. So, anyone still hungry?

Living room: Theme: A lot of weapons Vs Ghosts/Andre.

The living room..Territory of the big guy Andre. Head of the family, and holder of all its treasures and riches. You would expect a man of his might to provide for the rest of his children, but instead stories say that he only cared for himself and his money..Blinded by his self centered Greed, he did not notice the horrible side effects of his actions.. Children not having known love, workers being disrespect-

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ed, lead to depression and eventual suicide of some. Every attempt to separate his mind from his money and countless ancient weapons would just be futile..An-dre would simply threaten to kill everyone with his Hammer..No one knows how he came to pass..But by looking at the skeleton in the corner and the hammer next to it, people would suspect he died a slow lonely death. In the end, money couldn’t buy everything..Although it is believed that mr. Andre still roams around and makes sure no one touches what is his.

Content on this page requires a newer version of Adobe Flash Player.

Prizes!----------------------------------

First Place

$50 Sent to Paypal Account of your choice + ‘4’ Day Poster signed by stone + FA Decal.

Second Place

‘4’ Day poster + FA Decal

Third Place

FA Decal

---------------------------------- Requirements and Downloads

- Your animation MUST include the fluidanims.com Halloween Competition Pre-loader.

- Your animation MUST include a link during the animation which opens FA in a new window.- Your animation MUST include the fluidanims.com intro.

- No length requirement, however in order to win you’re gonna have to put some time and effort into this puppy!- Send all completed entries to stone via pm.

Deadline

October 28th!

a d v e r t i s e m e n t

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In the Community

BSE V3 Round 2 - Sword Action!

After the closing of the first round with Nhazul on top and Blaster close behind bring up second place with their round 1 animations. We had to come up with something to take BSE to another level. So, for round 2 we brought in the added heat of a weapon. Everyones favorite, a simple samurai sword.

Now in creating your combo you’ll be asked to also use a sword to wreck your opponent. This is a first for BSE. In the past we’d had enemies attack back, longer combos, impossible combos, combo breakers and much much more but never have we had an a weapon into the equation.

So far so good, the entries are already coming in. One key question for those who may have missed round 1, you may compete at any given point and time in these competitions. You do NOT have to participate in the first round in order to participate in the entire event! With that in mind, enter!

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Fluidanims.com v10.2 - “Clean up”by stone

Woah, What? Yup, you heard me right. FA is getting a little bit of a face lift. Don’t freak out, it’s not an entire overhaul. I’m simply just re-adjustign some section as well as cleaning up the site’s sections. The front page will have more focus and a cleaner feel. We’ll also be having the “FA Network” a secured spotlight on the site. What is the Fluidanims Network you say? The FA Network is essentialy all of the sprouting social networks and sites linked to fluidanims to help provide an overall larger audience for your work and the work of those a part of FA. Already we have a growing twitter fan base, closing in on 200 followers. Youtube now has over 2.2k subs and nearing 400k overall submission views with the success of ‘4’ day. Facebook, connect with all the ani-mators you know in love on our facebook group which is now closing in on 1k members! To top it all off we have our FA Radio, how to stay in touch with what’s going on and just hear mindless ramblings from stone, mike(plaguedsoul), ter-koiz and much much more. You’ll also see that it’ll look a bit more sexy with my favorite style of design. Kind of a ‘clean grunge’ that I’ve developed over a few designs and wallpapers we have in the downloads section. Overall this is going to be very exciting for FA and I plan to have it up by the end of next week ( but don’t take that as a promise, I’m doing my best here! lol. )

- stone

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Remember, Remember

the 25 of October

Wait, have I heard that before? B)

Avanz, of the fluidanims.com crew is going to be releasing a duo of epic proportions. The French History Episode 2 along with FLLFFL vs The French on the 25th of October, 2010.

This is been long anticipated from Avanz. With his extremely beautiful designs and back-grounds it will be a sheer wonder to watch. You can expect a lot of action, suspense and drama like never seen before.

It will be interesting to see how The French stands up against what could be his most dif-ficult opponent of all time.

Be sure to check the animations out on the portal as well as FA Tv ( youtube.com/fluid-animstv ) to support Avanz and what will be on of his largest releases in animations to date.

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WanT To be aParT of The fa Mag TeaM?help develop the fa magazine for issues to come. Contact ‘stone’ at

stonewebsolutions@gmail.com