John Kavanagh : Indie Web Developer

In 2006 whilst working for Catalyst Pictures in Manchester we were offered the opportunity to produce a “Habbosode” for Habbo Hotel (a large on-line children’s virtual world). As part of the pitching process, fourteen animation studios from across the globe were invited to create a short animation using very specific characters and with a huge bible of guidelines covering everything from environmental settings to character temperament (remember: this was aimed specifically at children). We were allowed to develop our own storyline and cast our own voice artists though.

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It’s difficult to find anything at all about the competition now: I know we didn’t win, but I don’t think anything ever came of it, and the only place you will find remnants of it now are on YouTube, although ours never made it there.

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Judging by the other entries I have been seen, the overall quality of work was very high and even so, we did pretty well. The project itself was a dash towards the deadline from the very start. Having entered the competition late, we were disadvantaged, but even more disadvantageous was the time limit on the animation itself: no longer than five minutes. We had an excellent script, very talented animators and excellent voice artists and yet we ended up being force to cut out a lot of the jokes and reaction timings in a crash-diet attempt to slim the animation down and avoid overshooting the time limit.

What we were left with was a very beautiful to look at short, but with content that reflects a little too much of inside jokes and only-funny-if-you’re-there type of humour. I’m sure I’m more critical of it than anyone else who watched it but the script was great and would have been far better suited to a longer animation.

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From character design to animation, to sound tracking (we were given that by Habbo too), to recording, to rendering, to mastering. This was the first project where I was entrusted to lead the production: with four of us, the accountability rested on my shoulders. The final animation isn’t perfect: some scenes needed further work but looming deadlines didn’t permit it; the lighting on some of the shots (the hardest part about 3D) is a little out, and the time restraints (both in development time and actual shot length) cut out a chunk of everything that was funny about it. Even so, I’m proud of our Habbosode, and I think it reflects really well on the skills of everyone who worked on it, especially considering the time constraints and pressure it put us all under.

Click here to visit Habbo Hotel