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CharlesAlanRatliff

https://www.charlesalanratliff.com

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Playing with Fire

This is my second animated short using the Source Filmmaker beta. I started it shortly after finishing my tutorial test video on the 7th and got finished with it today. Except for eating and sleeping, all of my time the past three/four days has been spent on this.

Originally, the concept for the video was for it to open up with the scout telling the second half of a joke, with all the other classes laughing afterward. Unable to find a second half of a joke that I liked and would be able to deliver well via voice recording, I decided to make the video about a scout hitting on a pyro with negative results. The idea was to make a video that focused on facial animation and lip synching using custom dialogue in order to get some practice with the tools.

0:00 - The first thing I wanted to do was make the scout look as douchey as possible while still being able to see all of his face (meaning no sunglasses), so I removed his default hat (you can see it in the cubby behind his left shoulder. I actually moved the mic up and angled the hat based on its position and weight of the headset) and placed the backwards cap on his head, locking it to his movement. I then added a pair of headphones which I couldn't figure out how to attach. The cord is actually going through his body, but I tried to make it look like it's going under his shirt.

I recorded some dialogue (using a $30 Logitech headset I got at Walmart a couple of years back), beginning with the winky-kiss thing, and then used the automatic lip synch to get something to work with. I then spent several hours tweaking every millisecond of the shot, editing the movement of his face, eyes, and mouth. I even animated his tongue properly, though I don't think anyone can really see it. There are a lot of subtle touches that aren't noticeable on their own, but I think they make the whole thing better. I didn't have any reference to go off of, and I'm going to film my face while recording dialogue in the future to make it easier. I also darkened the scene a bit so his facial movements would stand out more.

I bought a professional recording mic with a pop filter so I can better record audio. I guess I'm about to find out whether I'm a good voice actor or not seeing as I've never done it before!

The music didn't come until much later, when I came across the "scout_boombox" WAV files. This is 04 on loop.

0:09 - Nostril flaring is funny. I really proud of the scuzzy look the scout gives here.

0:11 - When the second shot begins. I knew I wanted HER (that's right) to turn her head as she does in the video, but I went back and forth on whether or not she should have any dialogue. I originally used the announcer's voice from Team Fortress 2 as a sort of inner monologue saying, "Kill him! Slaughter him like a dog!" but later changed it to the 'negative vocalization' sound for the pyro. I wanted her to have sound when the first two shots were a bit longer before transitioning to the final, much louder shot since there was too much silence in between, but after trimming the clips I found it to be funnier if she is completely quiet. I also cut off the music. I tried to find a record scratch WAV file but was unable to.

0:14 - The final shot and probably what I spent the most time on. I wanted a high enough vantage point for the scout to launch through a window and fall, but there really wasn't a proper place on Sawmill, the random map I chose. I lowered the angle of the camera and staged everything at the very top of the building. There actually isn't any flooring up there, and both characters are on the level below. Since I don't know how to animate a window breaking (I don't even know if that's possible), I made it so only the very top of the window can be seen. I then used volumetric lighting to make it look like everything inside is on fire.

There are five different audio things happening here: the scout's footsteps, the pyro laughing, an explosion sound effect to simulate a flamethrower, the scout's dialogue, and some ambient forest life sounds. For the footsteps, I used the five "footsteps\wood" WAV files and put them together. I mixed them around so it wouldn't sound like an obvious pattern of them going in order and put a delay before the window break so it would seem like the scout is either jumping or getting blown off his feet. Since the pyro's laugh and the explosion sound effect are currently behind a window, I lowered their volume.

0:17 - I increased the intensity of the light to simulate an explosion and added glass_largesheet_break1.wav for the window breaking, along with increasing the volume for the things I lowered previously as sound is now able to escape the building. Animating the scout falling out was by far the hardest thing of the whole project, and I eventually settled on what I have now since I just wanted to move on. There are a lot of small movements that aren't noticeable at the speed he is going. I even came up with a pretty great "fear" face and turned his dogtags around his neck so they would be flying behind him. I increased the volume of his scream as he gets closer to the camera and lowered it as he passes it and added a "crackling fire" noise to indicate things are burning inside.

0:24 - That was a long fall. WILL HE RECOVER

In total, I have one track of dialogue and 46 sound effects, 42 of which are in the last shot.

Proof of my commitment:

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13 Comments

13 Comments

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CharlesAlanRatliff

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@SomeDeliCook: I have seen some videos made in SFM in that same style recently. It'll be interesting to see how much crazier people can make things now.

@Ravenlight: @csl316: Thank you!

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csl316

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Edited By csl316

Well done, man.

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Ravenlight

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Edited By Ravenlight

Haha, this is great. I love the slow head-cock the Pyro does. Keep up the awesome work!

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SomeDeliCook

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Edited By SomeDeliCook

I will say it will definitely be nice to see videos now being made not using Garry's Mod. I've been getting tired of the same old frame by frame crappy animations people do to try and get lip sync done and the stupid walking animation is just just them twitching a ragdoll a shit ton with the physics gun.

Some actual real animation is definitely welcome

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CharlesAlanRatliff

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@JCTango: Thanks! It's going to get crazy once some pros master it.

@ShadowKnight508: Thanks!

@CaptainTightPants: They really are super helpful. I often had them playing while animating.

@SomeDeliCook: Awesome! I didn't realize they opened it up to everyone today. Can't wait to see what people make!

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Seedofpower

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Edited By Seedofpower

Man that's pretty good! Stuff like this is getting more excited to see what people are able to create with the engine outside Team Fortress 2. When they start creating their own assets with source and start making awesome movies.

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SomeDeliCook

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Edited By SomeDeliCook

@CaptainTightPants said:

Ha!, loved it.

I just got accepted into the beta, I'm really excited to go through the tutorials.

Its an open beta

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CaptainTightPants

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Ha!, loved it.

I just got accepted into the beta, I'm really excited to go through the tutorials.

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ShadowKnight508

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Edited By ShadowKnight508

Wonderful work so far. I look forward to any projects that you will be releasing in the future.

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@CharlesAlanRatliff: nice job! It's amazing what you can do with that thing... I can imagine weekly webisodes being shot in that format in the near future by rabid TF2 fans.

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CharlesAlanRatliff

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@49th: Thank you!

It's public now. I had it unlisted until I could post a link to this blog in the description.

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49th

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Edited By 49th

That was pretty good, you should make it public though, I'm sure lots of TF2 fans would love to watch that, it's pretty high quality compared to some other stuff that's been made.

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CharlesAlanRatliff

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This is my second animated short using the Source Filmmaker beta. I started it shortly after finishing my tutorial test video on the 7th and got finished with it today. Except for eating and sleeping, all of my time the past three/four days has been spent on this.

Originally, the concept for the video was for it to open up with the scout telling the second half of a joke, with all the other classes laughing afterward. Unable to find a second half of a joke that I liked and would be able to deliver well via voice recording, I decided to make the video about a scout hitting on a pyro with negative results. The idea was to make a video that focused on facial animation and lip synching using custom dialogue in order to get some practice with the tools.

0:00 - The first thing I wanted to do was make the scout look as douchey as possible while still being able to see all of his face (meaning no sunglasses), so I removed his default hat (you can see it in the cubby behind his left shoulder. I actually moved the mic up and angled the hat based on its position and weight of the headset) and placed the backwards cap on his head, locking it to his movement. I then added a pair of headphones which I couldn't figure out how to attach. The cord is actually going through his body, but I tried to make it look like it's going under his shirt.

I recorded some dialogue (using a $30 Logitech headset I got at Walmart a couple of years back), beginning with the winky-kiss thing, and then used the automatic lip synch to get something to work with. I then spent several hours tweaking every millisecond of the shot, editing the movement of his face, eyes, and mouth. I even animated his tongue properly, though I don't think anyone can really see it. There are a lot of subtle touches that aren't noticeable on their own, but I think they make the whole thing better. I didn't have any reference to go off of, and I'm going to film my face while recording dialogue in the future to make it easier. I also darkened the scene a bit so his facial movements would stand out more.

I bought a professional recording mic with a pop filter so I can better record audio. I guess I'm about to find out whether I'm a good voice actor or not seeing as I've never done it before!

The music didn't come until much later, when I came across the "scout_boombox" WAV files. This is 04 on loop.

0:09 - Nostril flaring is funny. I really proud of the scuzzy look the scout gives here.

0:11 - When the second shot begins. I knew I wanted HER (that's right) to turn her head as she does in the video, but I went back and forth on whether or not she should have any dialogue. I originally used the announcer's voice from Team Fortress 2 as a sort of inner monologue saying, "Kill him! Slaughter him like a dog!" but later changed it to the 'negative vocalization' sound for the pyro. I wanted her to have sound when the first two shots were a bit longer before transitioning to the final, much louder shot since there was too much silence in between, but after trimming the clips I found it to be funnier if she is completely quiet. I also cut off the music. I tried to find a record scratch WAV file but was unable to.

0:14 - The final shot and probably what I spent the most time on. I wanted a high enough vantage point for the scout to launch through a window and fall, but there really wasn't a proper place on Sawmill, the random map I chose. I lowered the angle of the camera and staged everything at the very top of the building. There actually isn't any flooring up there, and both characters are on the level below. Since I don't know how to animate a window breaking (I don't even know if that's possible), I made it so only the very top of the window can be seen. I then used volumetric lighting to make it look like everything inside is on fire.

There are five different audio things happening here: the scout's footsteps, the pyro laughing, an explosion sound effect to simulate a flamethrower, the scout's dialogue, and some ambient forest life sounds. For the footsteps, I used the five "footsteps\wood" WAV files and put them together. I mixed them around so it wouldn't sound like an obvious pattern of them going in order and put a delay before the window break so it would seem like the scout is either jumping or getting blown off his feet. Since the pyro's laugh and the explosion sound effect are currently behind a window, I lowered their volume.

0:17 - I increased the intensity of the light to simulate an explosion and added glass_largesheet_break1.wav for the window breaking, along with increasing the volume for the things I lowered previously as sound is now able to escape the building. Animating the scout falling out was by far the hardest thing of the whole project, and I eventually settled on what I have now since I just wanted to move on. There are a lot of small movements that aren't noticeable at the speed he is going. I even came up with a pretty great "fear" face and turned his dogtags around his neck so they would be flying behind him. I increased the volume of his scream as he gets closer to the camera and lowered it as he passes it and added a "crackling fire" noise to indicate things are burning inside.

0:24 - That was a long fall. WILL HE RECOVER

In total, I have one track of dialogue and 46 sound effects, 42 of which are in the last shot.

Proof of my commitment:

No Caption Provided
No Caption Provided

-----

SmugMug Version

List of Videos

-----