Our first idea was to go for traditional animation, thinking
that software could generate the time consuming in-between
drawings needed to produce smooth animation. While this
proved correct, we ultimately gave up the approach because of
the limitations it placed on camera and character movements.
It took us a year to come to the above conclusion, and in that
time we made several tests and even most of a short cartoon
showing trolls smithing a sword to the music of In the Hall of
the Mountain King.
Below are some images and video-links from that phase of our
project.
In this test scene we tried to
create the illusion of the
camera moving into the scene
towards the three white stones
in the lake.
Almost from the start we
thought that to create
believable movements, we
had to use motion capture
of some kind.
The Trolls short was never finished, but the few
completed scenes still give an idea of the visual
design that we planned for the 2D project.
GROS
DK
Turning a head in 2D using
the morph technique proved
to be more that we could
master.
In order to create smooth
movements and to avoid
excessive work we hoped to
do much of the animation
with morphs instead of
traditional cell
animation, but it never
really worked for us.
This very early test of the
background for some entre'acte
titles shows both promise and
the opposite.
