Hello everyone!
I recently came up with a fun idea for an animated video I wanted to make for my youtube/newgrounds/etc involving Team Fortress 2, and realized it could be awesome if I made it into an open collaboration involving as many people as possible.
THE IDEA:
I never been to a TF2 CON but I thought about what it must be like to meet other TF2 fans IRL… and I can only imagine, based off of the funny, silly, absurd, darndest things that people say and do in this chaotic game, what these people must look and be like. I’ve heard people screaming, talking about 8th ad politics, discussing fecal pantry over rick roll music, making indiscernible, alien noises, chainsaws and printers and other inanimate objects…. The list would go on so long another update might be out by the time I’m done.
So I thought it would be fun to try and put a face to these noises! (If a “face” can even be made) Or more accurately, draw a face.
For the video I wanted to make an animation of “TF2 players” at a convention, but it’s what I (or WE) think these players would look like using short clips of game play as inspiration to draw them.
OK THE ACTUAL IDEA:
I made a short example of what it’s basically going to look like here:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/12ae1ObGvso_aDwWK15_M5CvM6i7NsPTb/view?usp=share_link
(Each of those anims were made in 3-4 hours each, yours can be even quicker though)
Get a 3-7 second long clip in TF2 of somebody saying something funny or interesting in the voice chat, and make and animate a character to it. We are aiming for quantity over quality here, so make the animation VERY SIMPLE. Make a character and put them in a good pose, and basically just do lip sync to the audio. Maybe some other movement if you want, but keep it simple! DO NOT use a clip of a meme or well known audio being played over the mic on its own… Let’s use only audio that is unique in the moment (It can be a unique combination of memes or a meme and someone’s voice however).
The character doesn’t have to be human, or even a living thing. It can be WHATEVER YOU WANT. Get creative! BUT since these are supposed to be parodies of TF2 players at a con, give them some kind of recognizable cosmetic to make them seem as such. Give them the soldier’s helmet, or the scout’s gloves, or the engineer’s wrench, just to list a few examples.
Animate as many clips as you can (quantity > quality)! You can have multiple characters for 1 clip, but try to have it focused on 1 of them. The drawings don’t have to be too detailed; the only minimum requirement is having decent line-work + basic colour. Shading + more is not required, but you can do more if you want too! Any style is alright. The more different looking animations we get, the more we will get that feeling of diverse characters I think.
I’m aiming to get this done and uploaded sometime early-mid June, so the final date to get to get these animations in to me will be May 31st, but the sooner you can send me them the better!
TL;DR + quick guidelines:
- Get a short clip of some silliness from TF2 voice chat
- Make your own character and animation inspired by the audio! Doesn’t need to be human or even a living thing.
- Give the character some kind of cosmetic or outfit to make them look like they are a fan dressing up for a TF2 convention (soldier’s helmet, pyro’s mask, medic’s ubersaw, etc)
- Please do not use a clip of someone just playing a meme noise or something on it’s own. You can use a clip like that if it’s being mixed with some other audio or voice however, as long as it’s some kind of unique combination. [First anim in my example]
- Can have multiple characters for 1 clip, but make sure it’s focused on just 1 character [Cat anim in my example]
- Make sure the animation is 30fps, 1920x1080 (width x height)
- Needs to have a transparent background. If you can’t provide an mov of that, a PNG image sequence will do!
- Minimum requirement of having line-work + colour, but more is perfectly acceptable
- 3 seconds minimum, 7 seconds maximum
- Try and keep the animation on 2’s, but it’s not that important lol
- Due date May 31st
If you are interested or have any questions/suggestions, message me here on Newgrounds! You can also ask or suggest in the comments (or just say whatever you want I guess lmao)
We’ll discuss it more when you get to me!
Thanks people :>
My social stuff:
https://youtube.com/@metallisanimation
https://metallis.newgrounds.com/
