A little question...

[energizerbuni]

I am making a cartoon short and I need to make a characters eyes move and blink...
I've been having a hard time finding anything on how to do make eyes blink.
I would be very thankful if anyone knew of any torturials or instructions on how to do such.

[synthsin75]

I think some users (mikdog?) uses images made in Photoshop, in which case you'd use switch layers to 'switch' between open and closed eye images.

I prefer to do all of the drawing in AS, as this allows much more flexibility while animating. With AS vector art you can accomplish things like eye blinks in many ways. (switch layers, bones, point moint, all with or without masking)

If you work through the Help tutorials, these will be explained and help you decide which method best suits your style.

[energizerbuni]

So by using switch layers I can create a blinking motion?

kk

thank you!!

[PARKER]

I make all my characters in anime studio.
A blinking motion in anime studio is very easy to make, read the tutorials of the program.
Peace of cake.

[energizerbuni]

I don't have any toturials for the program...
and I've never done switch layers before.
Infact, I'm kinda a noob at the whole program.

[synthsin75]

The tutorials are in the Help.

[Mikdog]

Hi.

I draw the face without eyes, then I draw eyes open on a separate layer, and then eyes closed on a separate layer. I then put the 2 eye layers into a SWITCH layer. A SWICTH layer is like a group layer than will ONLY show ONE of its child layers AT A TIME. So it will ONLY show either the OPEN eye layer or the CLOSED eye layer at any one given time on the timeline. SWITCH layers take a while for the penny to drop, but once it drops, you'll save yourself a lot of time with them. Instead of fiddling around with layer visibility of one layer and then making sure the other layer has appropriate visibility. SWITCH layers for blinks. You can even put a cycle on a switch layer, so that every 50 frames your character blinks for 3 frames. Awesome.

[energizerbuni]

Thanks so much!!! :]

[Canny Valley]

I recently designed a character in Flash, exported that as an image, loaded the image into Anime Studio standard edition, and then traced it with the Add Points tool. I did it this way because the joints of the character needed to be perfectly round circles and Flash was the best drafting tool at my disposal at the time.

I haven't really worked with eyes too much yet, so I can't help you there.