Automatic Jack posted:

I go to animation school and we use Flipbook for pencil testing, Photoshop (some use FB) for clean-up, After Effects for compositing individual scenes and Premiere for putting it all together with sound and whatnot. Some use Flipbook for coloring but I think it's kind of janky, so Photoshop is a decent bet, though there's probably better programs out there.

Here's a short graduate film I helped out on (I colored the dog animation in Photoshop) using roughly the process I just described. I can give you more details if you like. The animation was done on paper and scanned though, so if you're planning to do it digitally, the process might be slightly altered... But After Effects will handle pretty much everything after the coloring stage.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBGACBGenG0

Hinchu posted:

Is the Thief and the Cobbler worth seeing? I read Richard Williams' animation book which was really good, but the movie looks like a bad Aladdin rip off from the trailer.

spicybackpain posted:

I thought I'd share my most recent cartoon -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQOQBzju_GI

I based this cartoon off of a conversation I had with someone who was actually concerned that their 2 year old son preferred a pink tea set over a monster truck toy. Not fully understanding that grown men do drink tea, they lamented over the fact that he might become confused genderwise in the near future.

I suggested that Mattel come out with a manly coffee set instead of a tea set. Although I was joking, they insisted that I try to patent this 'amazing' idea.

I made this instead.

moss piglet posted:

I was thinking of making some animations from photographs of people I know, and wanted some advice as to how to go about it.

The idea was to take a decent 3:4 ratio photograph of the top half of a person, then lay an animation cel over and trace with a Sharpie marker. I'd do this maybe 5-8 times, then scan and put the resulting images in a loop. I know it'd look like Squigglevision or the characters from Hotel Dusk:





but more static, as these would just be from still photographs, with no attempt at motion or change of expression.

My question is, what materials to use for the first try? I was thinking of using the cheapest animation cels I could find (I can get those at the average comic book or campus art supply store, right?) and Sharpie markers for the tracings, then scan. After that, I was thinking of printing the tracings out on bristol and then using brushes with different dilutions of sumi-e or india ink to put in some wash shading.

Am I thinking in the wrong direction as far as materials?

moss piglet posted:

Excellent, I hadn't thought about regular office acetone or a static wash. What would be a good way of making one? Scanning one from a line drawing then digitally removing the black lines?


I'd like to hear more

Nate Breakman posted:

Oh man, his bit running up the stairs is adorable. You've got a great, classic style. Do you have anything else to show?

HYMEN.SYS posted:

So I'd like to get into some really basic animation, but I'm really at a loss as to where to start. I understand the principles of a lot of basic to advanced concepts mostly because of the VFX stuff and motion graphics work, but everything I know about traditional animation I just know second hand rather than from actually doing it myself. Is there a good super beginners guide to traditional animation? I just want to do this as an attempt to see if I'd enjoy it as a hobby.

So far, all I've done is a 6 second bit where a stick man's head falls off and he falls over. I'm pretty much 100% sure I have to work on other timing exercises and the likes first though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkTHtrWcZ1k

Pregnant Turtle posted:

The latest version of Anime Studio Pro - version 8, which just came out several days ago - allows a nifty way of animating via Photoshop. Anime Studio Pro (ASP) is an animation program; it costs $200.

Here's how the process works. You make your art in Photoshop, keeping in mind that each layer in your single Photoshop file will be a frame of animation, once imported into ASP. After you import the file into ASP, you adjust the timing of each layer to your satisfaction, then render the final cartoon (for YouTube, a HD home movie, whatever).

Another cool feature: if you have Photoshop and ASP open at the same time, you can make changes to the layer-art in Photoshop and the changes will appear immediately in ASP. Drawing, erasing, etc. No need to save first in Photoshop and re-import. The two programs maintain a live connection once the Photoshop file is imported.

HYMEN.SYS posted:

HYMEN.SYS posted:

They are! Using this and the various books I have, I put together my first video that isn't a man whose head falls off, killing him and forcing him to void his bowels. I give you "Ball that bounces and then for some reason a few seconds of nothing happening because Toon Boom exported funny!"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a44_gXQZmxg

My timing feels all over the place. In some places it feels way too fast, but in others it feels way too slow. I really don't want to poo poo up the thread with my really basic beginner concepts stuff though, is there a place I can go with this, or..?

edit: Motherfucker, I just realised that I totally ballsed up the beginning of each bounce.

HYMEN.SYS posted:

Not yet. When I say I'm just beginning, I really do mean the beginning. So I'm starting on page one of every book and working my way forward from there. I've made the mistake of starting somewhere other than the beginning in things far too many times.

redjenova posted:

I too am a pretty painfully-new beginner to animation, and as much information as I've gleaned from the Animator's Survival Kit, I'd love to hear someone else go over charting. I guess I'm just easily confused

redjenova posted:

Here's a new question for those more experienced than I; what's a good way to go about doing pencil tests for someone who is a complete and utter beginner?

Is scanning drawings the way people go about it usually? Photographing? I downloaded the trial version of Flipbook and not only do I have no idea how to work the thing, but I have no real way to keep my images registered to photograph them OR scan them. I was going to try to scan them with a pegbar taped to the scanner but I only have printer scanners and it doesn't really fit in there. If I was back at school I could use the large scanner, but eh... summer vacation.

The only webcam I have is the one built into my macbook screen and it makes using it for this kind of thing unnecessarily cumbersome, not to mention I still don't know how to make sure the images all come out in the same spot. I also have a Canon Rebel, but no tripod or anything like that. And I've no idea how to import images from that camera directly into a program like Flipbook.

Can anyone shed some light on how they prefer to do this and what rigs/programs they use?

Hinchu posted:

My question is how does that help a single person producing a piece of animation? I generally just intuitively start drawing and spacing out action and do my timing then. It seemed like charting was more about laying down instructions for assistants (which I don't have, haha).

Chernabog posted:

Animation supplies are ridiculously expensive, an animation paper puncher can cost you hundreds of dollars.

redjenova posted:

Ah. So is there some super-ghetto, way cheaper than that much money alternative? Heh.

Nate Breakman posted:

Another little doodle I did. Probably about four hours or so.



Character is from GastroPhobia.

tuna posted:

It's looking good, but I have to say that the energy level in the acting is quite far beyond what the voice is giving out in the first half. I'd honestly say his gestures need to be 10% of that size, and closer up.

You're using 4 big poses and gestures on 'you', 'possibly', 'be' and 'dumber' that don't really vary in size or direction. In fact his right arm does the same motion each time. You'd want to break this up quite a lot otherwise the large gestures become redundant and drown each other out as there's no contrast, just big.

You've also got completely locked and squared up feet for these large gestures which is limiting what you could do physically and acting wise. It's an unnatural stance that doesn't really read as to how he's feeling.

The 2nd half is way better because the energy level is matching up great, he's moving nicely and his stance at the end works, although his hips are perhaps a bit too twisted towards the camera. Also don't neglect anticipation on big gestures like 'redeem'.

Honestly I think the root of the problem in the first half is your staging. It's a quiet spoken piece there and having a wide shot of both characters, showing full body is just awkward and needless, with a bunch of wasted space. Cuts are awesome for big changes in energy or tempo or revealing jokes, etc. They're also a great cheat, so use them! You're always going to animate slightly differently depending on how the staging is working, and I think you shoeboxed yourself into acting choices that were clear and visible in such a wide shot, that may not quite be the right acting choices overall.

Dodgeball posted:

Someone earlier mentioned not liking story-boarding walk-cylces towards the camera. Why did you hate that?

Kikka posted:

I've been designing a character for an animation I'm making currently. I've followed John K's guidelines to designing an efficient character for animation, and here's the design I have for my main character so far:




I'm pretty happy with him so far. He's also super fun to animate!

Kikka posted:

I'm not entirely sure if the animation is a bit too fast due to Firefox; regardless, I agree. The jump from the crouched pose to the shocked one is a bit too jerky.

korusan posted:

My friend and I released our first cartoon we're not completed embarrassed by last week for Christmas.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYE8VwEXn7A

I did the script and roughs, and he outlined and coloured it. We both did voicing. The overall narrative might be confusing as hell for some of you, but it's basically a "we're getting our game done next year!" program anyways, so don't pay too much attention to it!

My question is; how good is the animation and voicing? We want to do some more short toons next year, maybe even make a series of them, but we need to know what direction to go in. Thanks for watching!

Imaginary Friend posted:

Still looks a bit unpolished but I'm getting there woop woop
http://youtu.be/WnKqj3rotTs

Feedback appreciated where to add extra frames and stuff >_>

redjenova posted:

Interesting. Could you have just as easily just imported the Photoshop files and animated it with toon boom for rough tests? Or would you just have put that out in Photoshop?

If anybody's interested, these are really fascinating, and they have some making-of bits in there. I guess they painted every frame in Photoshop but also used After Effects for compositing. However they did it these are absolutely stunning.

http://motionographer.com/2012/10/15/process-psyops-prequels-for-dishonored/#more-49278

Chernabog posted:

For rough tests we used Digicel Flipbook with a camera setup. This was about 5 years ago though, and I haven't used it ever since so it might not be so good for that anymore.

Borden posted:

I just started using Photoshop for classical animation. I'm surprised how nice it is to work with. Does anybody else use Phtoshop for animation, and do you know if there's a way to scrub audio on the timeline?

Ethereal Duck posted:

Did a little test with abrupt movement and using the secondary animation to make it work. I'm relatively pleased with it, though the smears need some work.

raging bullwinkle posted:

I've watched this all the way through multiple times now. It's great.

Thanks for making it!

IShallRiseAgain posted:

Also, I think something about how to animate facial expressions would be interesting.

redjenova posted:

Don't know if you wanna go into a lot of detail about this, but timing is always something I want to hear more about. Like how to better make sure every moving piece in your animation is settling/moving/switching direction at the right times so it all looks natural. If that makes sense!