Magnetic Pages Article | 1993-07-22 | 51KB | 77 lines
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INFO
Publisher : CARL Inc.
Author : Tony Helm.
Country : Wales
Conditions : Public Domain
Category : Animation
REQUIREMENTS
Drives : 1
COMPATIBILITY
A500 wb 1.3.2 : YES
A600 wb 2.05 : YES
Multi-tasks : Not really
Display : PAL& Problem. Full screen animations of&any length take up heaps of memory and&disk space. Solution? Put lots of&little animations on the one screen&and start a whole new genre. These&three animations aren't moving&pictures but they can each be&considered a moving picture, so to
speak.& CARL Inc. (no relation, the name I&assume comes from The Carlton which is&given as the animator's address) has&perfected this new art form. I know&static animations have been done&before and I've produced them myself&using a ray-tracer but these are all&hand-drawn and seem like a finished&product, not just a demo of what a
computer can do.& The dates given were taken from the&files on the disks so they may be&wrong but a definite progression can&be seen from the Hillbilly animation&through to the Beach one. The first&one has a loop of about four seconds&with about nine separate animations&happening at once while the Beach&animation has more than twenty or so&different animations spread over about&seven seconds. That may not seem a&long time but the more you watch these
things the more you see.& Sound is also used to good effect.&In the Hillbilly Anim for instance&there's a woodpecker but I didn't see&it until I started looking for what&was making the pecking sound. Children&would love these, something the&animator should perhaps consider when&choosing future subjects. A "G" rated&series might prove popular. The disk&icons by the way feature some&gratuitous and totally unnecessary&female nudity. Shame on the animator,
tee hee.& The subject matter and style used&here is in the grand British tradition&of seaside postcards, Carry On films,&Benny Hill, Giles cartoons and all the&rest. To that list, if the animator&keeps this up, could soon be added the&name of Tony Helm. And we can assume&he's serious about this too - he has&an Amiga 2000 with 8 megs of ram and a&50 meg hard drive. Adequate for starters.& It's obvious that a lot of&attention has been put into the&animations but the documentation&leaves a bit to be desired. In all the&docs he's offering another animation&for those who send in
5 which is fair&enough although it seems a little bit&steep if it's something similar to&these disks. Perhaps it's called The&Jam Factory? This is what both The&Boat and the Hillbilly animations are&called in their respective document-&ations. Not exactly exhaustive checking.& Also on each disk are some pictures&and brushes from the animations for&you to use in your own ones. A nice&thought and it helps to fill up the
disks.& I like these, as you may have&gathered. They aren't pushing back the&frontiers of computing, they're just&nice, complete little works of art.&More please and perhaps someone would&like to try a Heath Robinson picture&using the same technique. I looked&long and hard at these pictures as I&have at some of Heath Robinson's&whimsies. Need any more recommend-
ations?
INFO
Title : Hillbilly Anim
Released : October 1992?
Opinion : 76%
REQUIREMENTS
Memory :
meg.& This is the only animation of the&three that will run in half a meg.&It's as well drawn as all of them and&probably has the most expressive human&faces. This I suspect is due to them&being larger than in the other ones.&There's only so much you can do in&lo-res when a face is only a few
pixels wide.& The animation itself seems to lack&humour for some reason though. The man&in the tub is washing bottles while&the woman drinks from the still.&There's a host of other things going&on but somehow it's more a case of&being clever than of being funny.
Great hillbilly faces though.
INFO
Title : Boat Anim
Released : November 1992?
Opinion : 80%
REQUIREMENTS
Memory : 1 meg.& This is just great. There's heaps&of things happening with little&separate scenes going on all over the&place. A bird-watcher jumps up from&hiding to take a photo. A little girl&posts a letter and the postie collects&it. A bird gets dislodged from a%chimney by a sweep's broom and so on.& There's at least fifteen animated&characters here, all going about their&own business oblivious to the others.&A Saturday morning in darkest&suburbia. It's just a pity the faces&were not a little better drawn. But&otherwise it's a neat little&animation. There's also some&gratuitous and totally unnecessary%nudity but you can't have everything.
INFO
Title : Beach Anim
Released : June 1993?
Opinion : 83%
REQUIREMENTS
Memory : 1 meg.& This is by far the most animated of&the three here. The attention to&detail is marvellous. It takes a long&time to notice everything and then you&can't be sure you haven't missed
something. & Did you spot the lobster? Did you¬ice the blind being pulled? What's&that kid doing with the plastic&propeller? Did you watch the Punch and&Judy show right through or were you&distracted by something else? Perhaps&by the gratuitous and totally&unnecessary female nudity and did you&see the muscle-man's expression? And&so on and on. Only seven seconds long?
Incredible.& Oh for more resolution though. For&cartoons like these, 32 colour lo-res&is just not enough. When this animator&gets an AGA machine we'll be in for&some treats. I wonder how many five£s he needs to collect to buy an
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