2 color character shading

[sarahg]

Hi,

I'm 6 seconds into my animation and I like the color and movement I've achieved, but want to add a darker shade to part of the characters to hint at fuller shape and lighting situations.

I managed a simple one-layer shaded mask over the entire animation but to get all the different layers having a correctly animated shaded mask seems way difficult - I was probably a bit naive thinking I could do it in one shading layer.

I know I can copy the full character and offset/distort them and use that for masking instead of a hand drawn shape, but by default this just gives very simple shading, I wouldn't be able to have the shadow dance around from one surface to another as the character turns etc.

Any hints?


I've uploaded a still picture here to give an idea of the flavour of shading I want; the character of course has several layers, bones, etc so its not just nontrivial but too hard to have a simple shape keep up with them

What would be ideal is something thats based on a copy of the character's movement, so basic motion matching is automatic, but lets me easily drag the shapes around from there to adjust it.

I understand masking at a very basic level, I'm guessing this will involve stepping up my understanding of it a few notches?

[slowtiger]

I think the easiest way would be to incorporate the shade into each body part. That way you move the body and the shadow will follow. Masking is not necessary to do this.

[Genete]

Look this post and the rest of the thread:

viewtopic.php?p=58496#58496

-G

[sarahg]

That does look really good. I've started to experiment with a translucent white or black shape over each other shape in the image; and adjusting it with bones then by hand.

It works really well, but it's nearly doubled the drawing effort on each key frame. Oh well, the price we pay...

I experimented with a top level lighting layer, and this works well for the occasional specific effect but doesn't do the right things with depth sorting; so 2 shapes per major body part it is.

Thanks for the help so far, and if others have different ideas I'd love to hear them!

[synthsin75]

Okay, here's the hard way to make it easier. This only works if you have AS Pro, since it requires an embedded layer script, but should achieve what you're looking for.

First you'll need the fa_meshinstance.lua script. It should be easy enough to track down in this forum. This allows you to control duplicate vector layers from one vector layers point motion, whether by bone or otherwise.

You'll need to embed this script in all of your character's layers, and duplicate each at least twice, depending on the level of shading you want, and rename the duplicates according to the script's directions.

Your originals will be the mask ('add to mask') layers. The duplicates above those will be your character fills, etc. The duplicates above those will be your shading/lighting. Of course everything needs to be in a masking group/bone layer.

Those top, shading layers can be placed in a single group within your masking group. Now you can just translate this shading group layer as desired. It will follow both the point and bone motion of the master layer, and the layer offset will be the shading.

This way all you need to do is translate the shading layer when you want to change the 'lighting'.


If you don't have Pro, I'm sorry I mentioned it. But if you do, feel free to ask me to clarify. This is a rather whirlwind explanation.

I may work up an example if I have time later.

[chucky]

Synthsin, do I believe my eyes? Instances?
Must.... get.... script....

[DarthFurby]

Wow nice one synthsin. I'm going to try that out. I've avoided adding any kind of shading to my characters because it's just too much work to animate. Hopefully this is enough to reduce the workload, because shading really adds a lot.

[heyvern]

I've always used the duplicate layer/masking technique for shading. Since I use bones to control all my layers I haven't had a problem controlling "extra" layers. Once in place I don't worry about them (accept for changing order... which is much easier now).

This of course doesn't cover point animation which that script would handle very nicely.


-vern

[synthsin75]

http://www.firkafilm.com/moho/index.html

Here's where you can pick it up. It's a truely awesome script. Once you duplicate a vector layer, you can change everything but the points. That includes fills, connecting vector lines, etc. It just won't let you move the points, except by doing it in the original layer.

Let me know if anyone needs help with it.

[slowtiger]

Back in the olden days, when we actually had to hunt down fresh pencils in the Ghastly Pencil Groves, and had to draw all our animation by hand, even the inbetweens (gasp!) ... where was I? Oh yes. Shadows had to be animated as carefully as any character movement. If not done carefully enough you ended up with shadows creeping over faces as if they were sent by some Dark Lord and had a life of their own.

So don't expect you can add shadows automatically via some magic script. It's a no-brainer in 3D, but it still is hand work in 2D.

[JCook]

synthsin,

I've got the meshinstance script, but it doesn't show up in any of my script menu groups. Where should it be put in order to show up? I'm using ASPro 5.6 on a Mac, and I have the script now in the Other folder inside the Script folder, but I've tried it in the Layer Effects and Tools, and Utilities, but no luck.

Jack

[chucky]

Thanx for the link synthsin.
what you do is open the layer palette and go to the embedded script check box, then import it from there. The script can be located anywhere you like. This tripped me up the first time I tried layer scripts.
I agree with Vern who said recently that Anime should support some kind of plugin scenario.

[JCook]

Thanks, chucky. So, what you do is make your layer, animate it, choose the script, and duplicate the layer. That works really well. This is a great way to make shadows.

Jack

[synthsin75]

So, what you do is make your layer, animate it, choose the script, and duplicate the layer

You don't even need to animate it first because the script makes all of the .dup layers follow it.

So don't expect you can add shadows automatically via some magic script.

Of course you're right. This technique won't automatically do contour shadowing, but for the realism of most animation, it's a fairly easy way to add some depth.

[sarahg]

One of the reasons I'm doing shading is to add a few contours and to specifically show how light from a window reaches the characters. If you want "quick & dirty" shading then its fairly easy - duplicate at an offset, or just use the Layer properties to choose layer shading options. But I specifically want the shadow to move from one feature to the next during a face turn as each part of the face because tilted away from the light source.

So it's hard way for me. I did find good help with that; partly in doing lots of shading shapes built into the main model, and partly taking that same idea but adding a few extra layers for bulk shading across areas where its not so detailed.

I'll post a small part of my animation so you can see what I'm doing (although having described lighting in detail you might be dissapointed to see the drawings are so simple; I would like to animate really nice high quality stuff but with my current skill level I'm doing well to keep it looking less fake than South Park... only one cure for that though - practice!)

Here's the (temporary) link: (Removed as already taken down movie)