mintyroot

[mintyroot]

Final post

I originally planned to make the previous post my last Tumblr post, but I want to end this properly. As in a few hours Tumblr will strip away a large part of their content from the site, I thing a full transition fits at the same time.

The original URL of my Tumblr, MintyRoot.me is now redirecting to a new page that will be hosting links to my animations, blog posts and links to tools and info. I have included a Discuss tab so people can ask questions, voice their opinions or just add their two cents to the conversation. For the moment it’s pretty bare, but soon I should have new content.

This will now return to MintyRoot.Tumblr.com and be used as an archive for my old posts, but that’s it. The only way I would return to this platform is if Tumblr reverses their decision, but as it seems it will not happen.

[mintyroot]

Ending this Tumblr account

Due to Tumblr making an end to NSFW content, effectively killing a large portion of artists on this platform, I have decided to no longer support this platform.

Thus, when the time comes, Mintyroot.me will direct to a new page away from Tumblr. At this moment I don't have a lot of time to dedicate to start a new website, but I think by the end of the year I should have something ready.

Tumblr has proven to be grossly incompetent in their management, lacking innovation and doing a lackluster job at dealing with abusive content. Seeing them get rid of NSFW content that is otherwise perfectly fine but staying completely passive with bullying is a clear sign of their skewed priorities.

This blog will stay open for archival purposes, but shouldn't get anymore updates.

If you want to stay up to date with me, I suggest following my Twitter at @Minty_Root, where I will announce the replacement blog and keep people updated.

Farewell Tumblr, you used to be a great place for blogging, but now it's time to go.

[mintyroot]

Featuring the voice talent of Anna Chloe M and the music from Radiarc, have a look at the second animated teaser for The Fall of Sunset Shimmer.

And not seen here, but Wubcake provides the voice of Sunset Shimmer.

[mintyroot]

Fire Update

My house is gone.

Upper and lower Magalia has all burned and I found confirmation on the fire map that my house was consumed.

If you would like to donate to help my family get by for now, the button is in the upper right corner of my page, http://www.jayisbutts.com

Thanks in advance and thanks for the donations so far, I’ll be buying gas, food, and new brakes for the motorhome today with that so we can be safe and have a motorhome with working brakes.

[mintyroot]

I don’t exactly remember how that happened, but next month I will be part of the guests of Ponyville Ciderfest 2018.

It’s my first year, so I don’t really know what to expect of the convention at all. They have announced that this would be the biggest lineup of musicians, so while quantity doesn’t directly mean quality, the ambition they have on this is pretty amazing.

So, yeah, I think I want to provide something new as well. I have some panels for the convention, but I want to do something new and fresh because I don’t want to just keep repeating on the usual animation panel formula.

I will have some previews for my next project to show at the convention, as well as some behind-the-scenes too. 

I hope to see you at the convention!

[mintyroot]

The Fall of Sunset Shimmer: Animated Teaser

Animated in Toon Boom Harmony, Maya and After Effects. Inspired by the comic of the same name.

[mintyroot]

Project update

So the project is going well, although a bit slower than I thought.

I got the worst con crud of my life at High Roller Pony Con, which took a toll on the production of the project. It got so bad I had to take a sick day right in the middle of the day. Fortunately, I got better since.

The current challenge right now is getting used to animating characters in Toon Boom. They behave a lot more like 3D animated characters due to the way the body parts are placed on pegs that I rotate and move rather than the classic layers with tweens from Flash.

I don’t have an ETA for the project release at the moment, some elements out of my control are still not complete, so until then I can’t make a good estimate.

The project is a bit weird, I’m not bound to a strict animation timing like I was in Luna’s Determination so I can afford to tweak it according to the flow of the animation, but this also means I don’t have a solid grasp of the actual flow of the scenes until it’s animated.

I’m also currently running in parallel the outline of the script for my next project. I think I found a nice story that works well on visual storytelling rather than dialogue. 

So, one thing I want to do for the next project is to move from a PBR unbiased renderer to a realtime PBR renderer. Arnold 5 is good as a renderer, but the very long render times make it more difficult to make nice 3D elements with good lighting. I’m also looking at how to produce a more stylized look from it, rather than the photoreal lighting that Arnold has by default.

[mintyroot]

A convention announcement video, I’ll explain some of the VFX in it later.

[mintyroot]

if Toon Boom allows Importing Vectors from Flash to TB, do you think it also allows to import from Illustrator?

According to Toon Boom themselves, it does, and I don’t think they are lying.

https://www.toonboom.com/resources/video-tutorials/video/importing-illustrator-files-part-1

Personally I prefer vectoring in Flash, it does the job faster for me

[mintyroot]

[mintyroot]

Things Flash still does better than Toon Boom

So I brought up my transition to Toon Boom Harmony, but here’s a few things it still struggles at that will still require me to use Flash to get done.

Title cards. For example with credits or placeholders. In Flash you can set keyframes and put text into them easily, but not in Toon Boom Harmony.

Vectoring for props, cutie marks and other elements. If you need vectored assets, Toon Boom is a bit confusing to work with as it doesn’t automatically outline elements and doesn’t have a very convenient snap to object option like Flash does.

Things with too many colors. Toon Boom uses indexed colors so you can swap them later all at once without worrying about changing every individual instance of that color in your scene, but if you have objects like props that have a countless number of facets with individual colors, you will have a bad time making all the individual colors.

So yeah, if you transition to Toon Boom, keep your old copy of Flash nearby, it can still be useful. Also, you can import vectors from Flash to Toon Boom, so you’re not losing everything.

[mintyroot]

hello! I hope i'm not bothering but how did you get toon boom harmony?

I started with a 21 day trial of the software, then when it ended I got myself a student license of Toon Boom Harmony Premium.

The student license is around 23 CAD a month, it’s a bit expensive but it’s worth it for a rather specialized piece of software like that.

[mintyroot]

Do you have any tips for aspiring artists? I think that your mlp animations are the most awesome thing and I kinda want to be, ya know, exactly like you.

Okay, it took me a while to figure that out, but it’s about replacing “I wish I could do it” by “How can I do it?”

Now, why not “I can do it” instead of “How can I do it?”. It sounds more inspiring sure, and it doesn’t resolve to doubts, but it doesn’t get work done in the long run. You want to ask yourself the right questions before starting a project because otherwise you’re starting with no actual clue of how to do things.

Asking yourself the question will force you to answer it. 

“So how do I make the pony rig? How about making sourcing a lot of screencaps from the show, make a turntable out of them to scale, then vector them.”

“So how do I get to cast parallel godrays out of a pony? Wait, how about rotating my pony by X°, apply a vertical Minimax with alpha, then rotate back by -X°”

“So how do I get volumetric lights out of parallel lights in Arnold? Do I generate a ton of tiny particles to catch the light, then I average the thing? What about generating them out of a renderer that supports it then I composite it with the rest? Wait, I got it, Maya has smoke simulation that doesn’t involve the same type of volumes, can I try that for volumetrics instead?”

And there, a big part of the problem is figured out, now you got to see if it will work. You start small, you do a test with a bit of geometry or something you already made, and once you figure it out, you’ve got a lot more far with that.

But that doesn’t mean you can’t go ask for advice and guidance as well. I got a lot of advice from other animators like Pikapetey, Duo Cartoonist and Tiarawhy.

Animation is about learning how to learn. There’s no guide on how to animate good, there’s tutorials on techniques and softwares, but you have to learn how to learn, and learn from experience and observation. Look at real life, how people move, how they react to things, how light affects surfaces and volumes. It might feel odd with something cartoony, but we base cartoons out of a stylisation of real life, so if you learn better how real life works, you learn better how to make cartoons feel better.