CES 2012 Approaching: Animated Show Begins!

CES 2012 is approaching and the hype is accelerating. Of course, I will be attending and making fun of the experience. To get an early start, I created several animations and updated some old ones.

The software used:
Toon Boom’s ANIMATE PRO and HARMONY.
Number of animators: One. Just me.

Harmony allowed some extra effects not available in Animate Pro:
1. Pencil Lines that look like a real pencil (Overall, I’m not sure this added much.).
2. The ability to import 3D objects, seen in these animations as the Stealth Bomber.
3. Particle Effects, seen accompanying the Stealth Bomber.

The 3D Television Studio and show floors were created in Animate Pro.

Interesting problems encountered in the creation of these animations:
1. The Steve Ballmer address has many layers of crowds that were placed in a 3D manner to allow a sweeping camera motion over the crowd. I managed to choke my computer with the excess processing power. I played with various methods to not kill Harmony with an epic crash. Would a video upgrade card have helped? Maybe. My current card is not too wimpy, so I was surprised. The problem was severe enough that rendering beyond NTSC resolution was impossible.

2. Time is always an issue. The goal is to crank these out with reasonable quality, but fast enough to be useful. This means lots of short-cuts and limited fiddling when issues develop.