The three most confusing anime studio obstacles in my path

SJHooks · Post by **SJHooks** » Sat Apr 04, 2009 3:21 am

Everytime I animate something, it's hard enough to make the animation by istelf, but then comes the shading. If you've ever seen an anime, then you can see the shadow shadings (like on the face there are shadows on the rinkles of the face or clothes or something...) If your confused on what I mean, please ask me to clerify, but I would really like to know.

Ok, next are the actual pro animations. We've all, if not most of us have seen animations by Grey Kid, and we all see the realistic movements, the 3d movements, and all that amazing stuff did with anime studio... I've tried just making a head turn with layers (and when I mean head turn, I mean just the head of old Solid Snake [as in I traced in image from the game] turning in 90 degrees, talking, turning again, talking, and so on, so I can get the hang of it all. Even on that subject, simple for many users here, I coudn't finish. ITS IMPOSSIBLE!

Last I guess would be realistic movements. If you go on youtube and see an anime studio video, most of them have really unrealistic movements, and One time when I was just making a simple animation that was suppose to immatate the flash known as SHOCK. Everything went fine, but it took a long time to get the hang of making smooth movements, having to go back and check each frame, having to resize the bone everytime I see the foot going through the floor, It was just too hard. I'm just asking for a decent bone animation tutorial, and by that I mean how to make everything smooth without having to go back constantly to change the bones' position to make them actually look like they don't go through anything.

Well I guess I pointed out some of the harder points of the program,
(at least for me

) I hope you guys answer soon, cuz I'm trying to get into the hang of things so I can make my first REAL (and good) animation. Thanks to who it may concern that answers!

synthsin75 · Post by **synthsin75** » Sat Apr 04, 2009 4:12 am

1. Fill and line effects can handle most shading, but contour shadows that move along the topography of stuff requires manual animating.

2. For any kind of turns that simulate 3D, it helps to be familiar with modeling in actual 3D.

3. Movement is something that needs to be studied and practiced.

Sorry to give the short answers, but how broad these questions are would require a tutorial for each. Not many have that kind of time. Each of these really needs to be broken down into specific and detailed problems. The movement problem with bones would really be explained better with an example file. If nothing else, someone may rework it and post it back with a simpler/better approach.

Actually providing example files that illustrate each problem would be a good idea. These would give people a starting point for explanations or tutorials without also requiring them first create new (and often sharable) content.

Not to mention that usually an obvious effort on your part helps inspire people to help that much more.

Just some ideas and opinions.

SJHooks · Post by **SJHooks** » Sat Apr 04, 2009 4:49 am

Thanks for the advice, and its fine if they're short, as long as they help. First of all, When you say manual animating, do you mean animating in a JPEG sequence and then animating each frame in programs like photoshop or flash? Next, when you say familiarize in actual 3d modeling, does that mean with LITERALLY a 3d modeling program, or modeling in 3d with 2d images and layers, because a 3d modeling program would be pointless when making 3d modelling in 2d. And last of all, I expected as much of an answer from part 3... But sure! Though someone would have to teach me how to post images and fiels on the forum. I know there are the buttons and source words like [img] that would give this stuff, but I still don't understand how to post stuff on... Oh well. Anyways, I'll make two example files, one with unrealistic movements and one without them. Then, when I learn to post the files on the forum, I... would... post them....

...

synthsin75 · Post by **synthsin75** » Sat Apr 04, 2009 5:21 am

By manually doing the shadows I mean point motion.

As far as 3D goes, you really need to be able to visualize in 3D space. Actual 3D modeling may not be needed, but if you don't have a natural handle on this, I don't really know of any better way to understand it. It just really helps to be able to visualize in 3D even if only working in 2D. At a minimum I'd suggest maybe trying to find some models for Wings3D (as this would be free). That way you could view the 3D model from various angles in wireframe to see how it would have to be constructed in 2D (as what you see on the screen is still 2D anyway).

For posting files, go to a site like Mediafire.com. You can upload your file there, and they will give you a sharing url to copy. Paste that url between. Once you paste that sharing url into a post here, you can highlight it and just hit the URL button in the reply screen to add these.

SJHooks · Post by **SJHooks** » Sat Apr 04, 2009 5:28 am

ok, I already made the two animations, I'll post them as soon as I can

Afterwards edit: Okm I uploaded the files, what is the URL exactly? Is it after I upload it and click view uploaded files, or do I have to log out and do some other stuff... sorry, I'm new to this stuff

synthsin75 · Post by **synthsin75** » Sat Apr 04, 2009 5:45 am

Yes, view files or use the 'my files' tab at the top. This should give you a list of uploaded files. To the far right is a 'share' button for each one. Hit this and it will expand with the sharing url to copy.

SJHooks · Post by **SJHooks** » Sat Apr 04, 2009 5:52 am

for the anime studio smooth file the URL is http://www.mediafire.com/?5lmkoy2dyz2

for the smooth AVI http://www.mediafire.com/?nztyykymyho

for the unsmooth AS http://www.mediafire.com/?frxmgqmogdm

for unsmooth AVI http://www.mediafire.com/?qrqdu1myjz1

Ok, that should sum it up... sorry about the animations looking a bit rough, I did it in a rush. Anyways, you can tell the unsmooth by the feet going through the floor, and the smooth by the foot keeping a constant boundary between the floor and the stick guy.

slowtiger · Post by **slowtiger** » Sat Apr 04, 2009 10:04 am

SJHooks: Welcome to the challenging world of animation. Yes, it's hard work, and it takes much longer than what you expected. Be assured that it's not any different for seasoned old farts like me, we only know a bit more about workflow and are a bit faster because of our training, but we have to touch every limb in every frame just like you to make it look good.

Because we know which parts are expensive (= time-consuming) we tend to skip them - like shadows or realistic movements. I don't need shadows on my characters. Wrinkles on the clothing are done with two additional strokes, that's enough. "Realistic" in the sense of "looks like life action" isn't what I want to achieve. It only has to be convincing enough within the coordinates of my own self-created world.

I I wanted "relistic"; I'd do life action. If I wanted shadows, I'd do 3D.

synthsin75 · Post by **synthsin75** » Sat Apr 04, 2009 3:25 pm

First thing you need to do is quit scaling the foot bones to keep them from going through the ground. This should be done by translating the character's root bone up and down for the rise and fall during the walk cycle. Watch some actual people walking or a good animated walk to see what I mean.

When the legs are directly under the body they will push the body higher then when the legs are in full stride length.

Post by **Víctor Paredes** » Sat Apr 04, 2009 4:11 pm

most of your problem can be solved learning animation. AS is just a tool, just like pencil and paper, you can't expect AS make the creative work for you. This is not a preconfigured software with a lot of specific effects and movements for a character.

To make your characters don't look robotic, just animate them thinking you must convince us they are live (and, in animation, it's about life, not about reality). I recommend you to think how you would do some specific movement, then animate it, anticipate it and exaggerate it. Your animation should look nice this way. If you want to start animating seriously, buy the Animator's survival kit, don't even think about, just buy it. It will give you a lot of tips (not dogmas, tips) of animating.

To make a smooth turning head, first, make a plan of the movement. Draw the head in all the angles you want (this will be faster if you draw them just in paper) and use it as reference. Organize your character in several layers inside a bone layer, for example, in a turn from front position to side position, one eye will travel from the front to be behind the nose and even behind all the head. So the eye, the nose, and the head must be in separated layers. This way you can animate its ordering. It's hard to explain to me this, but look at my avatar, eyes and bill pass from to be on top of the character to be behind the all head.
Anyway, make a good head turn doesn't implies necessary to make a rigid and mathematically thinked 3d turn, it's about to make feel the spectator your character is actually turning his head. You could make it even just primitively flipping the head layer with style.

SJHooks · Post by **SJHooks** » Sat Apr 04, 2009 4:43 pm

Wow, that clears a lot of it up for me. Ok, this will be hard: thanks synthesin75, I can't beleive I never considered the body motions!

Ok, thanks slowtiger, I know that it is time consuming, but its also the finishing touch. When you make an animation, it looks pretty weird when there are no shadows... Ok, I said the question pretty horribly, lemme rephrase it: (First I was expecting you all the layer shading or fill shading effect, so that no matter where the person turns, the light source is still in the same spot -according to the shadows-). What I was asking was can you shange the position of these shadows, like when the lightsource moves and the shadows correspond to the moving? And for that matter, can you change the layering of the shadows? And if it's possible to change the shape of the shadows if you're using these effects?

Ok, and selgin, nice work on the avatar, would you ever make a tutorial on how to make something like your avatar? or on that matter, make a file of a simple head turn like your avatar's and then post it on media fire and give us the URL? And on a different note, the animators survival kit? I've never heard of that before... could you give me the URL to find out more about it?

Thanks for the quick results, you gotta love this forum!

Post by **Víctor Paredes** » Sat Apr 04, 2009 5:12 pm

here is my avatar anme file. I have no time right now to make a tutorial, but maybe the file could help you.

And the animator's survival kit is a book, a big one. You can get it at amazon, take a look here here. It's a priceless resource.

I remember Ullebulle has uploaded some simple tests he did using the Survival kit, take a look here.

SJHooks · Post by **SJHooks** » Sat Apr 04, 2009 5:24 pm

Wow selgin, I can't belive I was so stupid! When ever I would order the layers for depth, I would go inot the layer settings and check the sort by depth box, and then I would manually type in the values of each layer using the z axis. I didn't know that over time you could move the layers in the layers panel and it would keep track of it all. PS, you're avatars really interesting, I could learn a lot from it! Thanks!

Post by **Víctor Paredes** » Sat Apr 04, 2009 5:31 pm

SJHooks wrote:I didn't know that over time you could move the layers in the layers panel and it would keep track of it all. PS, you're avatars really interesting, I could learn a lot from it! Thanks!

The layer ordering feature is new, just from version 5.6. And I hope it be better in AS 6. Anyway, it's a big time saver, but must be treated with respect, it's easy to make it go crazy deleting or adding new layers. And remember, layer order keyframes only appear when you are on bone or group layer which contains the moved layers.
I'm glad to help you.

SJHooks · Post by **SJHooks** » Sat Apr 04, 2009 6:03 pm

I hope so too. There really should be an eyedropper tool to pick up colors on the canvas in version in AS 6, I mean, I can't tell you how many times I had to color an object but I lost the original color and had to go find the exact rgb coordinates to get the same color tone and then have to do it all over again, and on that note there should be some new tools that let you add and remove points on a vector and it keeps track of everything in the timeline, cuz when you make a headturn with a head full of hair (and I mean the spike anime hair) then you're in deep when you change its position!... Anyways, I was studying you're avatar file, and trying to make the headturn of that old snake thing, and things are coming good!