TweenMaker

[teotoon]

Check it out! It would be interesting...

http://poseidon.cs.byu.edu/~mdsmith/tweenmaker/

[cribble]

Looks like really interesting tool for those who still like, and have the time, to do traditional animation. The product could do with abit more.... explaination though.

[Barry Baker]

Really interesting, I wonder if you have to draw all the vectors, or whether it converts pencil drawings and then inbetweens them - now that would be REALLY clever. No downloads available yet, but I'll watch out for more on that one.

[SNL]

I would not raise my hopes. I found the website for this program about 8 month ago, and when I email them inquiring about the price, I never got the reply. It seems they are going to be sellling it to the studious, and my best guess it will cost more then 100 dollars. But that is my opinion.

[jeff]

I'll believe when I see it. Admittedly, I have met a few stupid inbetweeners, but none as stupid as a computer.

Jeff

[kdiddy13]

...but none as stupid as a computer.

That's the truth. If any of you have read Richard Williams "The Animator's Survival Kit", every example of bad inbetweening is almost always the default for any computer claiming to do so "automatically".

Cheers to Moho and it's bone system for taking vector animation away from the linear 'tween!
________
MOTORCYCLE TIRES

[cribble]

That's the truth. If any of you have read Richard Williams "The Animator's Survival Kit", every example of bad inbetweening is almost always the default for any computer claiming to do so "automatically".

Cheers to Moho and it's bone system for taking vector animation away from the linear 'tween!

So how would one do this traditionaly? Is it just imagination and general know how or something??

[spasmodic_cheese]

Hrmm, a technique to do it traditionally is go through and do all the key poses, then go study real life to see how your object moves, you can use rotoscoping to learn from. and then you have to draw each frame by frame between each keypose.

[kdiddy13]

So how would one do this traditionaly? Is it just imagination and general know how or something??

Understanding how things move is a big one. Some imagination doesn't hurt.

You really should check out "The Animator's Survival Kit". It focuses on drawn traditional animation but could easily be applied to Moho. Good animation is good animation. The tools are secondary.

Also, check out any of Muybridge's photo books. Widely reguarded as the best animation reference to real life (aside from actual real life). Definitely worth having in your animation library. That and they make cool coffee table books.
________
HONDA AIRWAVE

[mdsmith]

I know this is an old thread, but I just came across it and thought you might want some more information about TweenMaker.

TweenMaker is the result of research I did as a Master of Science student at Brigham Young University. We were looking to develop algorithms that helped the artist make inbetweens with "life". We realized early on that you cannot remove the artist from the inbetweening process, but you can build tools that let them do it quickly and focus on the key artistic aspects of inbetweening while removing much of the redundant work. In practice, we are able to get about a 4 to 1 with TweenMaker over non-autoinbetweening methods.

Sadly, I do not own the rights to the technology and it is currently being licensed to Toon Boom. If that falls through, BYU may let me market and distribute or sell TweenMaker on my own. Personally, I don't think there would be any real money in it given the current state of funding for 2D animation projects and the fact that Toon Boom already has a huge market share while other companies like Cambridge animation are dying off. My goal with TweenMaker was to help revitalize 2D animation for the independent animator/small studio as well as make it more cost effective for larger studios.

If I ever get permission to release a demo version--the current beta version--I'll post a thread on the LostMarble Forum.

Until then, I guess you can just keep checking http://www.tweenmaker.com or send me an e-mail so I can keep you up-to-date on the latest.

Thanks,
-Mike

[kdiddy13]

Awesome. Thanks for the update. It really does sound like it could be very useful for the independant. It's too bad that it went to Toon Boom (a bit pricey for independant projects), but we all have to put food on the table (and we tend to be a bit biased here )

Definitely keep us posted. Anything that can help me realize the crazy stuff in my head quicker/easier, is always welcome.
________
oxygen vaporizer

[mdsmith]

Just got word that ToonBoom has decided not to license TweenMaker. So BYU is looking to get it out as soon as it can to the public! I'll let you know once there is something you can download (most likely a free demo).

Thanks!

-Mike

[spasmodic_cheese]

yeh! googogogog

[F.M.]

One of Toonboom's new applications has an example that is very similar to an example done with tweenmaker, If they are not licensing the technology perhaps they will not be offering this feature anymore.

[mdsmith]

One of Toonboom's new applications has an example that is very similar to an example done with tweenmaker, If they are not licensing the technology perhaps they will not be offering this feature anymore.

Yeah, I actually talked with them about that example. It's just linear interpolation between 3 key frames. The character is made multiple layers that stay in the same order on the inbetweens.... Oh, and it's only included in their $10,000 version.

TweenMaker will need a little polishing before release. We don't want it to crash and burn before it gets a chance to fly.