how to animate a character made in photoshop

namavink · Post by **namavink** » Fri Feb 27, 2009 1:58 am

I have a question about my project.
I made a character with photoshop (with many layers) , then I sent it to anime studio with the extra scripts you can install in photoshop.
Now I have the character in anime studio. I've made a simple animation with bones but there are some problems:

1. For example, if I want to correct a bended leg. In the tutorials, they talk about, translating the points. But I don't have points in my character, it's not vectorial. How can I solve this?

2. With face expressions: I want to make movements of the eyes. I drew some eye positions in PS. I put this onder a switch layer, and under the bone layer of my character. But during the animation I don't know how I can use this. I've tried to put some keys in the time line...but it doesn't work.
Do you have some suggestions?

Thank you

heyvern · Post by **heyvern** » Fri Feb 27, 2009 2:15 am

Just right click on the switch layer to select which layer inside you want to be visible at that point.

Bending image layers can be "tricky". If the leg is not bending correctly and you want to "fix" or adjust it the only option is to use more bones and possibly bone constraints. There is no other way to manipulate an image layer. You could also replace a one image "leg" with two separate images. Put the joint where they meet and rotate at that point.

Another good rule to follow with image layer warping is to make sure the image is cropped as tight as possible around the image area. If you have a huge canvas or white area around a small image area and try to warp it with bones you won't get as good results if the image is cropped tightly, eliminating the extra white space.

-vern

jahnocli · Post by **jahnocli** » Fri Feb 27, 2009 2:37 am

To use switch layers, right click on the switch. A short menu comes up of all the switch layers -- choose one. A key then appears in the timeline.

namavink · Post by **namavink** » Fri Feb 27, 2009 2:53 am

I've tried it and it works!!! thank you for your prompt response!

namavink · Post by **namavink** » Fri Feb 27, 2009 3:52 am

is it possible to change an image to a vectorial picture?

thank you

heyvern · Post by **heyvern** » Fri Feb 27, 2009 4:15 am

namavink wrote:is it possible to change an image to a vectorial picture?

thank you

Only by tracing it in AS. Or you could try converting to vector using Adobe Illustrator autotrace tools (or something similar) and importing but... drawing in AS will give you the best vector results for animating.

-vern