Multiple bone layers or just one bone layer?

[Zingam]

I really have no idea if I get how the bones work.

I've read the tutorials. They use a single bone layer for the rigging the whole character.

What if I use a new bone layer for each limb or parts of the limb? Is this a good idea? That's how I started with my first animated character and it seems to work pretty well...

Is there any book that describes the complete animation process with Anime Studio?

[GCharb]

Anime Studio - The official guide

Anime Studio 6 - The official guide

But the tutorials get around bones setup pretty thoroughly, maybe you need a second pass at them.

G

[slowtiger]

It's completely up to you how many bone layers you use, and it only depends on your style of animation and your very personal workflow.

I found it helpful to have a separate bone layer for
- the legs
- one arm
- the other arm
- rest of the body
because this way I can easily have a walk cycle separate from any arm or body movement and time them completely independently.

[AmigaMan]

I use one bone layer for everything except separate Switch layers, which have bones in for multiple hands all with jointed fingers. For example I might have two to four separate hands in a switch layer. Each hand will be rigged with each finger jointed.

I'm currently putting together a .pdf tutorial on creating a character (the way I do it anyway) in Anime Studio. I was creating something for myself in the interests of uniformity in creating characters and decided others might find it useful. That does mean I have to now create it to a higher standard though so it will take a little longer

Just uploaded this to illustrate what I mean about switch layers with rigged hands. This has two hands in a switch layer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkZoc_TjXrE

[dueyftw]

Start out slow and simple. Try using just two bones on a log. See what happens when you add more points, move or scale a bone. Then add more bones, adjust their strength and parents. Try a pogo stick, render to see the timing. Last, get a few books on animation. You need to know how the program works but more important you need to know how to animate. Bones are only tools to help you.

Dale

[Zingam]

Thank you everyone. I'm actually not making an animate movie \for now\. Anime Studio looks as a good to to helm me animate the sprites for a game we develop.

Something that bothered me at first was the amazing amount of extremely poor animations that claim to be made with Anime Studio. My first impressions were that it could be impossible to make anything that looks very well. In contrast Toon Boom has lots of nice videos and tutorials.
Accidentally I have found a couple of good animations and I have decided to give AS a second try.