thrusting action towards camera

basshole · Post by **basshole** » Mon Apr 07, 2008 11:51 pm

No, nothing pornographic. I want to have a front view of my character, where the camera faces his body from a dead on, flat, front angle. This view is mostly for things like punching toward the camera, throwing things (shooting fireballs) toward camera, etc.

I was wondering if there was a way to do these kinds of actions. Let's say you start with a character standing, arms down, and the arms come up and thrust toward the camera.

Only way I can think of to do this is with an action, and then just deforming the arm manually for several frames with point manipulation to simulate the forshortening, maybe a switch layer for the hand, have several hands it goes through to make the change from the arms down hand to the one that's punching/shooting something at the camera.

I realize this is really really not the best thing to try to do in 2D, but just wondering if a decent solution had been found. Thanks.

Genete · Post by **Genete** » Tue Apr 08, 2008 1:32 am

For the particular case of an arm raising towards the camera I would do the following:

In one or in several layers try to divide your arm into three parts: hand, forarm, arm. They can share points and outlines but group them in different named groups if you have them all in the same vector layer.
Use the group thing to select only the points of each part. Use the scale and perspective tools to create some sort of deformation manwhile the arm rises up. The magnet tool can also help.
An arm raising toward the camera has not perpendicular rotation to it so it would be difficult to use bones to animate fingers movements for example. I did a 3D hand with bones some time ago that can aid you as a reference. Search "3D hand"... I'm lazy today.

It would be diffciult to do without use point animation. Good luck.

-G

Rasheed · Post by **Rasheed** » Tue Apr 08, 2008 1:38 am

I think I would do it with handdrawn animation. Extreme perspectives aren't Anime Studio's strong point IMHO. You could trace the handdrawn frames and put them in a switch layer, to keep the vector look. This kind of SFX is expensive. If you want to do it within AS, it will cost you more time than doing it in analog and trace that into AS.

basshole · Post by **basshole** » Tue Apr 08, 2008 1:56 am

Thanks. Maybe I could just cheat and have a blurry mess that's supposed to suggest motion so fast you can't make sense of it. So, hands down at sides, blurry mess, and presto, hands are pointing at camera.

Rasheed · Post by **Rasheed** » Tue Apr 08, 2008 1:59 am

It is always good to be creative. If it works, it works. However, if your director (and that might be you, yourself, judging your own animation, if you're a one-person operation) doesn't like it, you have a problem. Don't you have thumbnails or a storyboard to guide you?

basshole · Post by **basshole** » Tue Apr 08, 2008 3:02 am

Oh man, if I had an actual client and had to post as many questions as I do, I'd be in trouble! No, I am doing this for myself, one-man band.

Don't have boards, but front view guy is just for a few actions. . .a few expressions, and a few action bits.

slowtiger · Post by **slowtiger** » Tue Apr 08, 2008 4:51 am

Oh man, if I had an actual client and had to post as many questions as I do, I'd be in trouble!

At least you know about this. Knowing one's own limits is a Good Thing.

Don't have boards, but front view guy is just for a few actions

Hm, I think you are too lazy. You must be able to draw the pose you have in mind, otherwise you could never do it convincingly in AS (or wherever).

Drawing an arm in shortening perspective is one of the most difficult tasks anyway. No wonder why most animation cheats its way around this. Anime likes to enlarge the fist so much that it covers the arm completely. Have a look at some, or at something really good: the "Gorillaz" videoclips.

Once you're satisfied with the pose, think of how to get your character into it. Basically you've got two options: the push, where the fist come in a stright line from the sholder - this doesn't need much animation, it's so fast that it can even be done in one frame which gives greatest impact. Second option would be to raise the hand from hip to camera. This can be a very slow and theatrical movement and needs more inbetweens.

Again, board first, construct and animate later.

basshole · Post by **basshole** » Tue Apr 08, 2008 12:43 pm

Well, yes I AM lazy, but that's really beside the point. . .I had planned from the start to do this project more or less like Aqua Teen or the new Sealab in terms of the angles. . .only having a three quarter/side view, and a front view. I'm even forgoing back views. The three quarter view will take me through most of the animation, but there're a few shots where seeing the character from the front would be more effective, so it really doesn't need to be able to do everything. I like the idea about simply enlarging the fist to cover the arm, and bringing it "forward". I think that, blended with some animation of him lifting his arms away from his sides, will get me there.

human · Post by **human** » Tue Apr 08, 2008 1:33 pm

There's nothing wrong with being lazy, for heaven's sake.

Listen up--you have a box of angels behind your keyboard.

Make THEM do the heavy lifting.

Ha, I see you don't believe me.

Then look at what I made my angels do for you in the space of 20 minutes.

Does this help?

[EDIT] If you want this, better grab it quick. I don't want to drain bandwidth on my server indefinitely.

basshole · Post by **basshole** » Tue Apr 08, 2008 4:15 pm

that's pretty cool! Is that just hand drawn animation?

human · Post by **human** » Tue Apr 08, 2008 4:40 pm

basshole wrote:that's pretty cool! Is that just hand drawn animation?

It's angels, baby, angels.

Still curious to know if this helps you, though.

basshole · Post by **basshole** » Tue Apr 08, 2008 4:44 pm

I'm not sure. . .how was it accomplished? I didn't see anything I could download in your post, if that's what you mean, except for the picture/gif itself, which simply wants to be saved as an image. If there was a link to a ASP project, I didn' see it.

human · Post by **human** » Tue Apr 08, 2008 5:47 pm

I have no intention of animating your scene for you--but on the other hand, I just got you more than halfway down the road to doing it for yourself.

Rasheed was right when he said you would have to animate this frame by frame in a switch layer.

Here are tracing guides for each frame.

Break apart the animated GIF and fish them out.

Trace over them in AS.

To answer your question, the animation was generated in MovieStorm.

Then I applied tooning filters to it.

( PS -- you're welcome ! )

basshole · Post by **basshole** » Tue Apr 08, 2008 5:58 pm

Thanks. . .wasn't trying to get anyone to do the work for me, just wondering if there was a more elegant solution than the hand drawn animation. I will take it from here, gentlemen (or ladies).

basshole · Post by **basshole** » Wed May 07, 2008 4:22 am

Ok, I've been working on this predictably difficult animation using the inchworm tutorial as a guide to the process.

What I don't understand is, how do you insert a frame by frame animation like this anywhere in the timeline? Since you have to tell the switch layer which of its sublayers must be active at a given frame, it seems the process is frame-specific.

Like, if I want to start using the animation on frame 530 of a given shot, I'd make 1 the active sublayer on frame 530, then 2 the active sublayer on frame 531, etc.

Is there no easier way?

I'll upload and post a quick animation, if you guys want, when I get this done.