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Helping animators get critques and get noticed

Animators seem to be coming around a bit more and it might be helpful to have some rough guidelines that will help people get critiques.

YouTube and Vimeo VS Quicktime
?
Why use quicktime format? You can scrub it back and forth.
This is critical when trying to figure out where and what in an animation is breaking down. YouTube and Vimeo just don't allow for scrubbing and it makes it hard for people to review animation and give critiques.

How to post .mov/mp4 files?
Hosting the file externally is the only way to get it on the forums, the site just does not have the resources or the bandwidth to allow you too attach .mov/mp4 files to posts. So where do you host your .mov/mp4 files?

Dropbox is great and its free, you install it and drop the .mov/mp4 files in the public folder and it uploads automatically, you right click the file and get the link and paste the link here. When the link is clicked it plays in another tab or window depending on how the persons browser is set up.

There are other file hosting services like mediafire.com, filedropper.com but in general dropbox is the easiest and most convent way for just about everyone involved. Lets face it clicking a link and watching a video is easier than downloading a file, locating the download and launching the video and you want to make it as easy as possible on yourself and the people coming to look at your work.

Tips on getting people to notice your animation:
Images work great at attracting attention so a screenshot will help followed by a link to the .mov/mp4 file. So something like this:
Hello guys,
My name is Jeremy Fones and this is an animation I've been working on, C&C welcome!
JeremyFones.jpg
http://jeremyfones.net/DaBoss.mov
If you want to get fancy turn the image into a link to your .mov file like this:
Hello guys,
My name is Jeremy Fones and this is an animation I've been working on, C&C welcome!
JeremyFones.jpg (<-Image links to the video)
http://jeremyfones.net/DaBoss.mov (<-link, just in case)
There are two ways to do this one is to Use BB code. Use a url tag with a nested image tag
[ur l=htp://ww.mysite.com/mymovie.mov] [im g]htp://ww.mysite.com/myimage.jpg[/im g][/ur l] (remove spaces in tags)
OR
Imbed an image using the forum tools, click the image and then click the link button to turn the image into a link.

How do you get .mov or .mp4 files?
1) Get quicktime Pro, its not free but for $20, its a minor investment.
2) Max and Maya 2013 will once again have support for quicktime formats so it will make things a lot easier going forward.
3) Upload your video to Vimeo, download the video as .mp4, re-upload the mp4 to your dropbox and post the link. You might as well post the Vimeo video also.


Feel free to add more tips and tricks if you have them and I'll update this post so they are easy to find!

Replies

  • slipsius
    Great start, Mark.
    If you don't want to install dropbox onto your computer, use the webpage. I personally use the site, as I find it uploads things faster. Here is a walkthrough of how to do that.

    Dropbox1.jpg

    Dropbox2.jpg

    Dropbox3.jpg

    Dropbox4.jpg

    Dropbox5.jpg
  • SuperSoupy
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    SuperSoupy polycounter lvl 5
    Dropbox eh?

    Very nice :-)
  • Sukotto
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    Sukotto polycounter lvl 8
    Thanks for this Mark, very helpful!
  • slipsius
    CONVERTING .AVI to .MOV

    Maya and Max currently export all their playblasts in .avi format. Quicktime movies are .mov format which are also WAY smaller than avi files (we`re talking taking a 43mb avi file and converting it to a 7mb .mov file). If you don't already have Quicktime Pro, and you want to be an animator, I STRONGLY suggest getting it. It will be the best $20 you ever spend. All you have to do is open your .avi file in Quicktime, go up to File and click Export. Select your file name and make sure the export option is "Movie to Quick Time Movie". Hit save.

    There are other programs out there that do this as well. Do a google search and you`ll find a bunch. I'm not sure if any of them are free or not.

  • slipsius
    Showing off your work in progress

    If you want to show off your work in progress, do yourself a favor and hold off on the nice renders. If the animation isn't done, and you are just looking for feedback, do PLAYBLASTS, not full renders with nice lighting. They are way quicker, and will save you a lot of time. For Maya, you right click and hold on the time slider and click playblast. Click the box beside Playblast though, so that you go to the options and can choose where to save it.
  • Mark Dygert
    Ahh good points Stefan!

    It is also worth noting that Max and Maya 2013 (which ship in a few days/weeks) will support quicktime 64bit. So converting and wrangling files will be much easier.
  • Mezz
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    Mezz polycounter lvl 8
    Good points! :)

    Okay, okay, I've been convinced. I'll start posting more .movs instead of all my lil youtube vids :P
  • SuperSoupy
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    SuperSoupy polycounter lvl 5
    Also, when making previews it always helps to have the frame count turned on (especially now that we can scrub through frames).

    It's just so that we can look at each other's work, and be able to pin-point the exact place of our crit in the animation.
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