Creating Individual Scenes

chowderofmonkey1 · Post by **chowderofmonkey1** » Sun Jul 22, 2007 4:43 pm

Ok, so I know how to animate my character perfectly well, but now I am wondering how I can make individual scenes with different characters in them and cut from one character to another (like they are having a conversation). Any ideas?

Ricardo · Post by **Ricardo** » Sun Jul 22, 2007 5:06 pm

I guess you are talking about different "takes" and not different scenes, right?

Are u looking for a way to have more than one character on scene and make dialogs or having different scenes?

jhbmw007 · Post by **jhbmw007** » Sun Jul 22, 2007 5:37 pm

Either put one of the characters off screen (outside of the camera view) and switch back and forth by stepping the camera translation back and forth, or create 2 seperate anme files and put the cuts together in a video editing program after rendering in AS5. As long as it doesn't bog down my computer I like to have everything in one file, but animations with several different scenes will require seperate files.

dlangdev · Post by **dlangdev** » Sun Jul 22, 2007 10:48 pm

1) you can try this book ...

Setting Up Your Shots: Great Camera Moves Every Filmmaker Should Know

http://www.amazon.com/Setting-Up-Your-S ... 0941188736

i borrowed this book from the library and it is by far one of the best documentation i've seen about cuts and scenes.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0941188 ... eader-link

2) build your scene in one group. then you can make it show and hide using the layer visible channel.

3) to make a cut, simply move the camera to a different lookat() and then point it to some point in space, which is the target.

i also borrowed other books as well, so you may have to look up more books in your local library to supplement that one.

Ricardo · Post by **Ricardo** » Mon Jul 23, 2007 12:26 am

3 web pages that shows the basic of the camera shots, cameras moves and camera technics.

http://zimmer.csufresno.edu/~candace/ba ... ooting.htm

chowderofmonkey1 · Post by **chowderofmonkey1** » Mon Jul 23, 2007 3:59 am

Hey, thanks guys! I figured out how to create new "cuts" in my cartoon. I understand the camera angles and shots and what they're called (I've taken classes) I'm just trying to work out the bumps in Anime Studio.

For one, how can I have multiple audio files play in my cartoon? I've uploaded a soundtrack to the thing, of which is one phrase that a character says, and it won't let me load any more soundtracks. I'm trying to make a conversation between characters, so what's the best way to do this?

heyvern · Post by **heyvern** » Mon Jul 23, 2007 6:07 am

AS only allows one sound track. One way to handle this is to combine the conversation into ONE sound track. Both voices in one sound file. You would combine them so the timing is how you want the final shot to be. The sound file would dictate the timing of the animation.

Or you could animate each "side" of the conversation and edit them together in post.

Doing cuts from one character to another in one "shot" is actually a piece of cake. Just have a switch layer with both characters and key them back and forth during the "conversation".

The cool part is that the layers inside the switch can be as complex as you need and contain background elements, props, more switch layers whatever.

-vern

mooncaine · Post by **mooncaine** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 9:02 pm

I face the same dilemma, I think. I have 5 episodes to create, one as long as 15 minutes. All will be elementary, Hanna Barbera style, mostly 2 characters talking with some hand gestures, a few props, occasional characters appear and leave the screen.

I've got my soundtrack edited, and I've exported separate tracks for each the 2 characters who have dialog.

So I've got, for one example:
1 audio track of everything [both characters, all sound effects]: the "mixdown".
1 audio track of just Sean's voice from the mixdown.
1 audio track of just Tracy's voice from the mixdown.

I did that so I could feed each char's voice to Papagayo to speed up lip synch.

Destination format is Flash, for online delivery [bandwidth not a big issue; it's designed for LAN use or to be downloaded and played from the hard drive].

What I wonder is, how to break the 15 minute movie into manageable chunks that Papagayo and ASP can handle. I don't know whether I should animate each "scene" in my storyboard as a separate ASP animation, and assemble them in Flash, or try to do long stretches of many scenes in ASP?

mooncaine · Post by **mooncaine** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 9:05 pm

In a way, I'm mostly concerned about this: Is there a "maximum length" that Papagayo can handle? A maximum length limit in ASP? I'm asking from your experience: what's a good sized for a "chunk" of the animation to do at once?

mooncaine · Post by **mooncaine** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 9:15 pm

I can have Flash load a scene, then the next. That's no prob. I'm comfortable with Flash doing that. But warn me if Papagayo craps out on files over a certain size, or certain length in minutes, etc. Same for ASP, please: how many minutes is too much for one ASP file? Can a soundtrack audio file be too large or long for ASP?

Thanks. As you can see I'm pretty nervous about starting this.

heyvern · Post by **heyvern** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 9:35 pm

mooncaine wrote:In a way, I'm mostly concerned about this: Is there a "maximum length" that Papagayo can handle? A maximum length limit in ASP? I'm asking from your experience: what's a good sized for a "chunk" of the animation to do at once?

It isn't really how much the application can handle. You should focus more on how the production is set up.

Even if you COULD put an ENTIRE 15 MINUTE ANIMATION in one gigantic project file you would NOT want to do that.

It is easier to break it down into small easy to manage scenes and shots.

I would do an animatic and break the completed project into logical chunks that are labeled and numbered.

You can do pretty long scenes in AS although sound gets "funky" when it's really really long. Papagayo has more trouble with really long files because performance suffers the bigger the sound file. It also can get cumbersome dealing with huge long chunks of dialog.

I wouldn't have single scenes in Papagayo or AS that are longer than a minute (or even less). Depends on how long the final is and if you are using another program to put everything together.

I like to break it up based on the actual scene. If there is a "logical" end to a scene that is one shot in one file. If it is dialog between to characters or cuts back and forth each of those would be a "shot" with in a scene.

If you were to see how Pixar does movies they have very very small short scenes. Every time the camera cuts is a separate scene and is probably animated as a separate shot.

-vern

mooncaine · Post by **mooncaine** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 9:56 pm

Thanks, Vern! I was relieved to see your advice.

It's all storyboarded and most scenes are quite short, and the audio chunking will be easier than dealing with a long animation that "gets funky", as you put it. I'll do the animatic thing starting today.

Next time we meet, drinks are on me, Vern. I get to SIGGRAPH about once every 2 years or so. We haven't seen each other since San Diego, but I've only been to 1 SIGGRAPH since [Boston, last year].

dlangdev · Post by **dlangdev** » Wed Jul 25, 2007 11:44 pm

I'll buy you a beer too, Vern.

I owe you.

Remember that.

Anyway, I think grouping of scenes can be managed in different ways. Though I still need to hear from the Pros how they do it.

Creating Individual Scenes

Creating Individual Scenes

How best to "chunk" a long animation [15min.] &

Re: How best to "chunk" a long animation [15min.]

Re: How best to "chunk" a long animation [15min.]