game avatar needed

[blanius]

I'm starting work on a kids game and was wondering if anyone here would care to help me with making a cute avatar that can be animated to look like it's talking and pointing.

Main things I'd want would be:

1)simple cartoon like character
2)cute for kids
3)simple mouth options for animation of speach
4)at least one arm that could be moved via rotation

I've got specs in mind that I can discuss with whomever is interested.

[cyber reaper]

well after helping me so many times i think i must help you out (since my speciality is animation i think ill be able to help you out)

just have to main questions ,one - what kind of characer you have in mind ?

two - what do you mean "arm that can move via rotation" ?

[blanius]

Character should be something cute, dosen't matter really just cute. If done right it can be used over and over again in different programs. What I suggest is that I can send commands in an array to the character movie as a child and have it move the mouth, eyes and arms according to a script.

[cyber reaper]

ok i think ill leave the programing part to you alone but about creating all the stuff you want i think ill be able to use a few animations - mouth ,eyes ,global face...

then all youll got to do is to make them run in some order when a sound is played make the mouth play and the eyes..

if you realy wanna make it a blast i can make saparate frame to each sound (when the sound of the letter P is on ill make it gotoAndStop to fram x)
of course youll have to make a script wich will run letter by letter and will check each letter so it will change the facial according to the sound played...

let me know wich one do you think of...(simple or advanced)

also it will realy be helpful if you could tell me a basic look you want the character to have...(cute is not very helpful )

also what resolution do you want it to be ?

[blanius]

200x200 seems a good bet as I can scale that down as needed.

As animation would be fine make seperate animations for mouth and the eyes could just be random movemements and blinks

Make a few different mouth shapes, I remember reading somewhere about the different mouth shapes needed for vowels and hard consanets.

As for character I'm open to suggestions. The game is for 5-6 year olds so simple and freindly looking would be good. Even a simple ball type of character would be ok.

[cyber reaper]

ok its nice that you stay updated to an animation stuff , however you never answer my question...

as i say i can make the animation in two ways :

1) simple looping anime of mouth...and will make it stop when its not in use

2)make it advance...one or two frams to each vowl and you will have to make some script that can chack the letters of an edit box and change the frams according to it

this are two diffrent ways of animations...

ill send you along the 3 folowing days some first scetches of my characters

[cyber reaper]

well this is my first idea for character , im not sure what it is anymore (some kind of bear-fox thingy)but i think its cute enogth...
im not so good at this cute things but i think ill be able to make a good job...i think next ill try some ball shaped character like you sayed

[blanius]

I like him.

Can we go ahead with the bear/fox?

[cyber reaper]

sure we can go ahead with it ,your the boss on this project just answere me how you want the mouth to be like ...advance or simple (read previous threads for more info..)

ps - are you sure your happy with this character ?

[blanius]

He's cute. I'd certainly look at others if you'd like. I've been experimenting with the control options and I think the ticket is to use slideshows for the mouth and eyes. I'll put some code in to handle the rest. For the eyes just open, left,right and blink should be enough. As for the mouth maybe open(normal),closed,0 sound, and teeth sound

[Glops]

zoranvedek has made something on the same topic...could be great with xml file for actions...interesting subject...I'll follow...

[blanius]

Yeah I was debating XML for the whole thing but to be honest I find XML cumbersome. I'll probably use simple text file and arrays in the script.

I found a good reference for basic mouth shapes at http://animation.about.com/library/weekly/aa111000b.htm

The real trick is to come up with a good way to "script" it so for example I send a string of commands to the character movie it "speaks" out the command set.

Was thinking something like

xc = close
xo = open
xv = vowel
xt = consanant
px pause for x frames etc

might do it with single commands and have the character always revert to closed after a frame or two.

[blanius]

tests are here
http://bretlanius.com/flash/balldude.html

[cyber reaper]

after trying some more characters i got to the conclusion that a ball type character will not look very good (lake of a body + head)
so i continue with the bear-fox thingy ,it will be ready soon enogth
so hold tight ,also to make your animation easyer to handle with and more life like i made the whole head as a layer and i made it possible for you to tilt the head from side to side with a simple script line

[cyber reaper]

ok i finished it , it was pretty simple actualy....i made him able to look at 9 directions and i also made a small nice animation while it will look nowhere , i also added hands to the arms and made 6 types of mouths for your enjoyment , also the head is rotatalbe around the neck so you can make it tilt life like... the hands are attached to the sholders with and element center so they will rotate easly and life like , i think i made all you asked , let me know if you are satisfied of it or should i give it more work

[blanius]

this is great thanks. I think this will work fine. It might be a little while before I work out all the little things I want to do but this character should do the trick.

[cyber reaper]

im glad youre happy ,if youll need anything at all just tell me...

ps - do you know what is a chiled movie ?

[blanius]

A child movie is just a movie element inside of the main movie

[Glops]

interesting link

damned !

[ForumNewbie]

Apologies in advance for the poor humour. It's been a long week !