animating a hand with drawing pen

Galbatron · Post by **Galbatron** » Fri Jul 24, 2009 1:49 pm

I'm wondering how to animate a hand making a drawing on virtual paper in realtime. Is this possible in ASP6 or should I use other software for this (although I want to incorporate the result in an ASP6 animation)?
The hand shouldn't be the problem, only the naturally developing lines that make up the drawing.

Imago · Post by **Imago** » Fri Jul 24, 2009 11:18 pm

Anime Studio has a very useful function: the Onion Skin.
You can activate it by pressing the buttons below the frame number on the timeline window and it shows how many frames you need.
Your hand developing will be easier with it, but I suggest you to search in the forum, somewhere are a thread about hands made whit bones that are very easy to animate.

Galbatron · Post by **Galbatron** » Sat Jul 25, 2009 8:03 am

Imago wrote:Anime Studio has a very useful function: the Onion Skin.
You can activate it by pressing the buttons below the frame number on the timeline window and it shows how many frames you need.
Your hand developing will be easier with it, but I suggest you to search in the forum, somewhere are a thread about hands made whit bones that are very easy to animate.

Thank for your reply Imago. Yes, union skining is very handy (almost indispensable) for smooth animation.
However it's not the hand I'm worried about (althoug that requires some animating skill

) but the developing line that's drawn by the hand. It's not possible to animate adding points to a line in ASP6. When I move the last point of a curved line, the line itself also often changes shape, so it doesn't look like a 'real' drawing on paper anymore. Maybe I should use the old fashioned way and compose a series of fixed drawings in a bitmap program and import them in ASP6.

DK · Post by DK » Sat Jul 25, 2009 8:42 am

This might help.

Instructions on using The Layer Trail effect:
Import an image with your writing as a reference guide.
Create a vector-layer and draw a little circle (that will be your brush).

Use the Translate-Layer Tool (1) and move it into your starting position.

select Set Origin (0) and move it into the same position.

Now start animating your brush-layer with the Translate-Layer Tool along your
chosen path of your image (move your time-slider to your chosen position and
drag your brush-layer along, you will see blue squares (your keyframes) and
a thin blue line between them (your path).
Don’t forget to check show path (top of your viewport).

If you are done go to Script/Layer Effects/Layer Trail...
choose your settings and click OK.

If you don’t like to see your brush, open the Layer Properties and uncheck Visible.

Render your movie.

Cheers
D.K

Touched · Post by **Touched** » Sat Jul 25, 2009 9:06 am

That looks like a great tool! I never knew what I'd use that tool for before. The way I'd always done it before was to have all the writing complete on a layer, and use an animated mask layer to gradually reveal it as the pen/brush moved over the lines.

Post by **Víctor Paredes** » Sat Jul 25, 2009 4:42 pm

Anyway, there is a pretty cool script to animate frame by frame, I use it always to make little velocity effects, check this thread
viewtopic.php?p=78235#78235
Look above, on my 3rd post there is a link with the script.

Galbatron · Post by **Galbatron** » Sat Jul 25, 2009 10:36 pm

DK wrote:This might help.

If you are done go to Script/Layer Effects/Layer Trail...
choose your settings and click OK.

Wow, DK, that's very cool and exactly what I wanted to achieve. Didn't know this was possible so easy.
Thank you for your tutorial!

Touched · Post by **Touched** » Sat Jul 25, 2009 10:42 pm

One thing I noticed when I tried out the Layer Trail script is that it creates keyframes on the point motion, shape fill, and shape outline channels. Only the shape outline channel keys appear to be necessary, as I deleted all the keyframes on the point motion and shape fill channels, and the writing animation remained as it was.