Hey guys I experimented about a year ago making a video with just pictures using pan and crop and so forth. I liked the way it looked. So fast forward to now and I made an entire cartoon using only Sony Vegas and MSpaint. MSpaint doesn't have transparencies so everything had be chroma keyed..LOL. I would draw the spaceship or whatever and paint the background green. Here is an example.

http://www.angelfire.com/al/metalalien/video/death1_sm.jpg

I'm not saying you guys will like the movie but it's neat to see Vegas used in ways it was not intended. Well at least I like to see that.

Run time is 22 minutes (I know that is way too long) Crude language and at least one pair of cartoon boobies so not safe for work.

Drawn entirely with old school MSpaint and a trackball mouse. Animation and SFX created with Sony Vegas.

It has music so it might be blocked in Europe (on youtube) for some members so I put it on Vimeo as well.

720p on Vimeo as a single file.
Heavy Metal Vs Star Wars on Vimeo

On youtube in 1080p as two files.
Part 1
YouTube - Heavy Metal vs Star Wars (part 1 of 2) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgLLzXupiyY)

Part 2
YouTube - Heavy Metal Vs Star Wars (part 2 of 2) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbtP86GX2pQ)

Also helps if you are familiar with the old movie called Heavy Metal so here in the original movie trailer.
YouTube - Heavy Metal Movie Trailer (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGwn_0k_TQo)

That was a fun romp, especially as I had just watched Heavy Metal the other day on crackle.com.

That is an amazing bit of work - and without an alpha channel!

Thanks for posting!

Thanks Gene. People who have never seen the movie Heavy Metal seemed kinda puzzled by the movie I made. :) It was a lot of fun to make but SO much work. Not sure I will make another. That cartoon took 3 months to do! I still see errors I wanna fix.

You're a god if you did 22 mintes in three months. It took me two and a half years two do a 13 minute movie with software MEANT to do that.


Speaking of which. . .if you do any more in the future, I recommend Anime Studio Pro software. It's meant for just this kind of thing. They have their own message board and everything.

Thanks Josh! Hey do you heve a link to your movie? I'd love to watch it. I'm not sure if I have it in me to do another cartoon. I basically had no life for 3 months... terrible! :)

I don't have it publicly available online for fest reasons. If you want to email or pm me I'll give you the super secret magic link.

Here is another short one. Only 2 minutes.This is a mixture of animation and video taken with the EX3. A UFO discovers something strange and goes in to investigate.

The clip with the sparks floating around the tree took my computer 3 hours to render and my computer is pretty stout. :) Also near the end look at all the reflections on the table. That was a lot to work out in Vegas.

The Christmas Tree (animated short) on Vimeo

Great video, Erik!

Thanks Adam. I'm just glad it didn't take 3 months to do like the last one! :)

Really outstanding, Erik. And that was all done in Vegas? I thought I pushed the limits sometimes but this is a whole 'nother level! Did you use any third party effects?

No sir Ian. The only programs used were MSpaint to draw the pictures and Vegas pro 8.1. Wasn't easy..LOL Thanks for watching!

I used a mask to make the UFO appear to go behind parts of the tree. Cookie cutter was used to make the spotlight. Then it was just levels of blur to match the focus of the camera. The reflections were a little more complicated. I took all the elements that needed to reflect and rendered them as a separate clip. Brought them back into the project and used 3D Source Alpha so I could flip it upside down properly. Then is was linear blue.

Erik, I really enjoyed both of these also. Especially the first one. Heavy Metal was quite the thing when it first came out, but I almost forgot about it... gotta try and dig it up on NetFlix sometime soon.

The Christmas one was fun, but... what could be in such a small box???

=)

BTW... you really should spend some time with GIMP, Inkscape and Alchemy... lemme drag up some links:

GIMP - The GNU Image Manipulation Program (http://gimp.org/)
Inkscape. Draw Freely. (http://inkscape.org/)
Alchemy | An open drawing project (http://al.chemy.org/)

The alchemy video on the front page is silly I think, but take a look at this you tube video:

YouTube - Chaos & Evolutions Open Movie Workshop: 03 Alchemy (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGOtGDQ-K-g)

It's from the Blender Chaos & Evolution DVD. Very nice for quick concept stuff.

Hope there's something useful,

Thanks Craig, I'll check all those links out! Thanks for watching. Heavy Metal wasn't even available for purchase on VHS for most of the 80s and 90s. Right about the time the Playstation 1 came out they finally started selling it again. I hope it makes it to Blu-ray one day. Already have the wonderful DVD.

Oh as for the present, my bet is a Black Hole. :)

mmmm..... singularity !!!

How else to say "merry x-mas" !!! (heavy on the X!)

Very clever.

>>>>The Christmas one was fun, but... what could be in such a small box???<<<<

A big idea.

The ending was wonderful! Usually the hardest part is to come up with a good ending and this little film has everything focused towards the tiny surprise without us even guessing it. And there's an old message in that tiny little box too...

Sorry for the bump of an old thread but this cartoon is back on vimeo. I didn't see a way to just edit my original post.

Heavy Metal vs Star Wars (Fan Film Cartoon) on Vimeo

Also on youtube with slightly different music for the ending since it was blocked in 244 countries including mine...lol

Heavy Metal Vs Star Wars (Fan Film Cartoon) - YouTube