Quote from DiPi

I hope you stop after this, Nish


Let's explain what happened


First, Nish makes this post


Considering Nish's reputations in making jokes (as we could see on his other posts on this thread), I decided to make a joke about it
Which is this post


The reason I used the "Terkoiz level" pun was not because you're a Terkoiz fan nor because you talk about Terkoiz. Essentially, I used him because when people talk sarcastically about RHG they tend to use him
But you assumed that what I wrote wasn't a joke and started questioning


However, since you added to that post another joke

I decided to use it as an example to explain to you what I meant

This said, the following post

was to be read in this way:
Q-What is it about ANYTHING that I have ever posted in my 5 years in stickpage that convinced you I would take up this ranking system?
A-The fact that it is a joke just like yours

Ta dah!

However, let's add the fact that you, not understanding the joke, instead of not giving that much weight about it, decided to start a trollish circle-jerking discussion because you didn't get what I meant
I didn't give a proper explanation of it because I feared that I'd have "fed the troll" by speaking seriously (thing that I already did, since I did already answered you)
However, seeing that you got over and over obsessed with it, thus "feeding" the circle-jerking, I decided to try to speak rationally
To someone who makes such a fuss over a joke...

PS
Can we get back to the topic? Are you satisfied enough now?
Jeez

I wish you had just said this clearly when I asked you this. Thank you. I can now go back peacefully to having a higher opinion of you.

Quote from Captainalien72

I'd say that being low to mid beginner makes someone a very new entrant to a vast range of animation concepts. Ranging from realistic movement, construction, visual aesthetics, time, cinematics, effects to actual software interfaces and using them to their maximum potential. By the time you reach what people consider high inter/pro you'll likely have a good grasp on all of these things if not total mastery.

That's the best answer I can give you Hewitt.

Ahahahahahahahah...

Well of course Knowledge = Mastery. EVERYONE KNOWS THAT. What I'm looking for is METRICS. What differentiates these levels from a quantitative standpoint. What you animators see that makes the levels distinct. Because I could go make a thread assigning "Hewittness" to people and tell them theyre Intermediate or High beginner and they wouldnt know why. Why agree. As long as I'm higher right?

Concrete, evidence. That's what I'm asking for. Useless to just say "He knows all these concepts. He's advanced." That's just bullshit.

Quote from Nish

Not until I get an answer to why a troll comment was hurled at me, except "I already explained it" when no explanation was given. How about you stop talking to me like you're a moderator? If he makes a statement about me "I KNOW what your ranking will be, TERKOIZ 1 TERKOIZ 2 I KNOW WHAT U NOOBS ARE LIKE", you're goddamn right I'll ask for an answer. I was accused of being some sort of childish Terkoiz follower, and I proceeded to act that way until I get a proper answer for why that was levelled at me.

Please do ignore the message I just typed in but I didn't want to delete it because I might come out like I'm making fun of you or something.

Quote from Hewitt

1) What is a low/mid/high beginner/inter/advance?

^I'm not asking if you believe in the levels. I'm just asking what being in those levels is "suppose" to mean? Because I see it often spoken or tossed around in the RHG section and I often wonder where those guys stand.

It's really hard to give an absolute answer on this. Like I said, how people see other people with different levels is subjective but I'm assuming this is under the context that almost everyone in the RHG section just started out and wanted to be the next Terkoiz so here's what I think:

"Low, Middle, and High Beginner to Intermediate and Advanced" levels are solely based on the quality of the animation. Beginner means that the output is bad and you're just starting. The Low, Middle, and High are merely degrees of how bad you are. Low being the lowest and high being, well, the highest. Once the output reaches mediocre level or basically an animation that you can at least tolerate to watch, that's when "Intermediate" comes in. Advanced is just a step up of Intermediate in which the quality of the animation begins to keep getting better and better.

EDIT: I just now saw your post Hewitt. I feel like this answer isn't the one you're looking for.

Quote from Hewitt

2) Is there a step-by-step progression to take the tuts?

Do you mean tutorials, say "How to draw a stick", and the person follows it step-by-step then he progresses and gets better by following the steps without learning the concept?

I'm quite confused with this one. Can you expound this further?

I've already reported this thread for derailment btw. Not for a particular user, but hope that they sort out the mess themselves.

Just putting it out there in case someone is getting ideas.

Zones: Fluidity of movement, consistency of figures, smoothness of transitions, planning (includes, but is not limited to: use of 3d perspective, choreography), overall wow factor (includes, but is not limited to: sfx, music choice, creativity, style (includes, but is not limited to: use of color, artistic touches))

Beginner - Obvious shit in most zones
Average - Good grasp at most/all zones
Expert - Great grasp at most/all zones
Terkoiz - Mastery of all zones

subclassifications:
low - the bare minimum. If low-beginner, obvious shit in all zones. If low-ave, Good grasp at 1-2 zones. If low-expert, he's probably just Average lols (no low-exert). There's no low-terkoiz.
mid - so-so. If mid-beginner, shit in 3-4 zones. If mid-ave, good at 3-5 zones. No mid-expert. No mid-Terkoiz.
high - maximum without reaching the next level. High-beg stuff generally would look ok, but there's still something that's very noticeably wrong with the animation (shit in 1-2 zones). High-ave doesn't have a lot wrong with it when you look at it the first time but you'll notice them upon closer inspection, or there's a lack of wow factor, or both (great at at least 3 zones). Expert has little wrongness, and always has wow factor (great at most/all zones). Terkoiz level are usually technically superb, and the problem with them now lies with the preference of the critic.


Obviously this isn't fact. I really only invented this just now. But it's a general idea of what "levels" in animating is for me.

I've had Rank Team experience on both the biggest pivot forums. If anyone needs help pivot-wise, I can help.

I like ranks because they give common goals for animators. The way I figure it, Beginners are, well beginner. Intermediates are people who know their way around the program and can animate the basics well, have started to specialise in an area and have the potential to make good animations. Veterans are people who have mastered the basics and have widened their specialty and can make some damn good shit. Elites are just the cream of the crop, surpassing veterans and making the best shit around. Though Beginner/Intermediate/Veteran/Elite are pivot rank terms, I feel like they fit Flash pretty well.

It would be good if people showed examples. Descriptions only go so far.

Hewitt you said you seen these terms being thrown around. Can you quote them to give us an idea of how they were used?

I admittedly haven't checked the community animations, so I don't have any to give you sry.

Quote from Hewitt

2) Is there a step-by-step progression to take the tuts?

I feel like if anyone really truly wants to get into animation and wants to cultivate a solid foundation as a beginner, this book is one option of many. yeah it's just shy of $50 and it's over 500 pages long but if you're genuinely interested in this as a hobby, I don't see how either of those things are a barrier for you compared to the hundreds of hours you're supposedly willing to put into animating. after reading through that book you should have enough knowledge to formulate a plan of action.

with enough time and effort I'm sure you guys could put together a series of tutorials that will give a solid overview of animation fundamentals, but one doesn't exist yet and when it does I doubt it will be as comprehensive or as useful as resources that already exist. might as well just take advantage of them.

that's something I feel like we should be encouraging as a community, except I doubt many people here have taken this route since it does require a lot of effort initially. at least more effort than going through a few online tutorials and learning a few flashy techniques so you can pump out simple animations. that is a legitimate way of learning but without any direction you wind up with the sort of people who've been animating for over 5 years and never once made anything longer than a minute, who aren't uncommon around here. at least not as uncommon as they should be.





as far as rankings go, I've been saying this since before most of you joined this forum, they're basically a way for people to express their opinion of your work without telling you anything meaningful whatsoever. it's a text-based forum equivalent of a voting system in an animation portal and equally as useless. the only people who consider it important are people who find the idea of being ranked "intermediate" something to aspire towards, which only describes people who really have no fucking idea what they're doing or why they're doing it. it's harsh but I guarantee you not one animator who's done anything you've ever heard of is spending their time on a forum giving a shit whether people think they're a high intermediate or a low expert.

What is 'pro' and 'nub' within this community from what I can see is decided by two things:
1) Perspective: When I was just another newbie around here I thought people like oxob were the ultimate shit and his skill level was something of dreams to me. Now he's still pretty good in my eyes but not as much as before (no offense oxob). His old 'nubish' animations to me were amazing. Why did this change? I improved and I began to see that there were even better animators out there. My standards where heightened.

2) Community: In a world where all animators are terrible by our standards someone who is 'intermediate' level in our eyes is god skills to them. Basically the main decision maker on what is 'pro' and 'nub' is how skilled the best animator is within the community is and how unskilled the worst animator is. Within this community most people looked up at Terkoiz as topshit and to them he was the ultimate pro, so anyone close to his level was considered 'pro' and anyone too far away was 'nub'. Now in the real world there are animators who could be miles ahead of phil in skill. Once you find out about these animators, unless phil improves, he won't look as good as he used to be (you're still top shit phil you been improving a lot but there's still better animators out there <3).

To me right now I don't have a specific 'epitome' of skill that is one animator, but I am very impressed by bahijd. I look at him now the same way I used to look at oxob's old animations when I was a beginner.

I'll go ahead and answer Hewitt's question since I feel like you all are philosophically pissing the whole point of the thread in the first place.

Quote from Hewitt

Ahahahahahahahah...

Well of course Knowledge = Mastery. EVERYONE KNOWS THAT. What I'm looking for is METRICS. What differentiates these levels from a quantitative standpoint. What you animators see that makes the levels distinct. Because I could go make a thread assigning "Hewittness" to people and tell them theyre Intermediate or High beginner and they wouldnt know why. Why agree. As long as I'm higher right?

Concrete, evidence. That's what I'm asking for. Useless to just say "He knows all these concepts. He's advanced." That's just bullshit.

Low Beginner- You pretty much can't do shit right. You're capable of opening pivot, putting a stick figure there, and pressing next frame after gradually moving one joint per frame.
Med Beginner- You don't look as shitty as low beginner. The major difference is the practice of easing. You haven't even begun to scratch the surface of it. Also, the movements aren't as random.
High Beginner- The easing has gotten much better, and you're adding more frames to your movements. Your overall movements aren't that great, but you can now make an animation that doesn't want to make my eyes bleed.

Low Inter- Easing is easy for you now, sort of. Your movements appear smoother and you begin taking physics more into consideration at this point.
Med Inter-You're starting to pick up on how easing is applied to everything, not just the figure as a whole. Your movements are starting to look pretty nice, and fluid. Your animations are generally more complicated in terms of movements and scenery. You have a stronger understanding for how everything works as far as physics is concerned.
High Inter- This is usually as far as people get before going 'pro' and then eventually to 'elite'. Animations are typically longer, more complicated, and overall fun to watch. This is where effects and backgrounds comes into play, because by this time you have enough knowledge and understanding with physics and easing to be able to make them look rather decent. Your movements are more complex, and choreography begins to play a major part in your animations.

Pro?- It's all about angles and flashy effects. You're trying to make your test animations look like a more polished piece of art.
Elite??- As far as animating stick figures goes, you've pretty much mastered that and are ready to move on to bigger and better things. No one will dare challenge your animating skills with stick figures, except for maybe other elites. You are the Terkoiz of your generation. Elite animators are seasoned veterans of animating stick figures, so they know how to 'wow' everyone with insane effects, angles, movements, and all around bad assery.

That's pretty much it. The major difference between them is easing and movements until you get around med inter. It's actually pretty hard to describe the exact stages of easing and what not, and would be much easier to just link some animations for every sub rank I suppose. Once you've been doing it long enough you sort of begin to develop an eye for distinguishing between things.

I'm still about med inter, I believe.

33. I deleted 33 posts.

I will state this now: stay on topic. This is not some silly discussion to just go around messing about and making an ass of yourself. A genuine question is trying to be discussed, and to those of you taking this topic seriously, I thank you. Any further bullshit posts will receive an infraction. Period. I didn't give out any for the 33 posts I dealt with, and I feel that's enough of a kindness.

Quote from Arch-Angel

since I feel like you all are philosophically pissing the whole point of the thread

I like to think my answer is pretty quantitative >:0(

I dind't read yours. I wasn't about to read the entire thread when it was mostly Nish trolling. My post was more aimed at Exilement and the like. I don't mean to point you out like such, Exile, but you're currently the only familiar name that comes to mind <3
After skimming through your post, Smile, I see where you were going and I don't feel that statement applies to you as much, However, I don't think you gave as specific of an answer as Hewbear was looking for.