Newbie ? here. I've been trying to animate a harpist with AS Debut 6. She's been diced into pngs and is in two bone layers with the harp in between with it's own bone layer. The strings are each three vector points, with the ends bound to the harp and the middle bound to a small dynamic bone. each dynamic bone (2 30 10) is parented to a bone which should give it a nudge to start vibrating. Nothing else is moving and the strings all go crazy. I zeroed out the bone strength of everything in the layer and there still seems to be some kind of sympathetic vibration.
This being my first animation ever I'm sure to have missed something. Is there any way to clear the timeline to start over? I've deleted everything many times with no results. Suggestions?
Thanks,
CRay
Vibrating harp strings
Moderators: Víctor Paredes, Belgarath, slowtiger
Hi CRay! A fellow newbie here with just a bit of experience.
First, you can clear your animation by choosing Animation > Clear Animation from Document (at least in 6.1 Pro).
Second, I don't know what anybody else would suggest, but using bones for this sort of thing seems overly touchy...they do tend to influence other parts of the layer or group, at least in my experience. You might try making sure that "Region Binding" is on for your string's layer (double-click the layer in the Layer list and switch to the Bones tab) but even so, I think if your bones are close enough you'll have a heck of a time separating their regions.
My approach would be some sort of fake-out effect that doesn't use bones. How about a layer that contains all of your strings, and another layer called "Vibrating String" that just contains a single string. Make the Vibrating String layer invisible, transpose the layer to the string you want to pluck, make it visible, then cycle its middle vector point back and forth. By a fixed amount. Start with a high blur and an increased layer Y scale, then gradually lower the blur and Y scale while fading the layer out. Maybe turn on the Motion Blur for the layer too, or the layer's "Noise" setting.
Then, move the Vibrating String layer to the next string you want to pluck, and copy and paste all those animation keyframes to follow the next pluck. If you want to have more than one string vibrate at the same time, make multiple Vibrating String layers.
That's how I'd approach it, but I'm sure there are lots of potential methods.
First, you can clear your animation by choosing Animation > Clear Animation from Document (at least in 6.1 Pro).
Second, I don't know what anybody else would suggest, but using bones for this sort of thing seems overly touchy...they do tend to influence other parts of the layer or group, at least in my experience. You might try making sure that "Region Binding" is on for your string's layer (double-click the layer in the Layer list and switch to the Bones tab) but even so, I think if your bones are close enough you'll have a heck of a time separating their regions.
My approach would be some sort of fake-out effect that doesn't use bones. How about a layer that contains all of your strings, and another layer called "Vibrating String" that just contains a single string. Make the Vibrating String layer invisible, transpose the layer to the string you want to pluck, make it visible, then cycle its middle vector point back and forth. By a fixed amount. Start with a high blur and an increased layer Y scale, then gradually lower the blur and Y scale while fading the layer out. Maybe turn on the Motion Blur for the layer too, or the layer's "Noise" setting.
Then, move the Vibrating String layer to the next string you want to pluck, and copy and paste all those animation keyframes to follow the next pluck. If you want to have more than one string vibrate at the same time, make multiple Vibrating String layers.
That's how I'd approach it, but I'm sure there are lots of potential methods.
Thanks very much for the help. I'll give that a shot. I have to admit this is way more difficult than I was expecting. I know that all programs have their quirks, but this program seems really hinky to me. yes it's $50 , but still. Do the bone constraints and dynamics work properly in the pro version? I would have way more control over the individual keyframes. I've seen some nice work out of the forum members, but much of it seems like work-arounds.
Thanks again!
Thanks again!
Hi CRay,
I can't speak for other people's thoughts, but it seems to me that any really flexible animation convenience (bones, for instance) is going to work well for most tasks (animate a running figure) but not well for more unusual tasks. So I don't think that the bone constraints are so much "imperfect" as they are "unsuited for some tasks." I haven't seen your animation so I don't know if you've found a bug, but I do think that the problem is bones being less suited to your task.
I also agree that it's difficult...it's WAY more difficult than I was expecting when I started two weeks ago, but again I don't blame Anime Studio. It seems to me that 80% of the work in animation is tedious tweaking no matter what tool you're using, unless you're just animating rigid boxes and circles.*
That said, Anime Studio certainly DOES have frustrating bugs that have a way of punching you suddenly in the face. But not enough to stop me from being productive.
As for the Pro version, I was asking the same questions last week. Now that I've worked with Pro I can say that two tools have been VERY useful for me: the motion graph (to smooth out camera moves and walk cycles) and onionskins (for the same reasons). The Actions are probably useful as well, but I haven't tried them yet. I think that the Debut version is fine if you don't worry about reusing elements of your work and if you don't mind doing some extra sleuthing to discover what's wrong with your animation.
But even so, here's what I spent 45 minutes doing last night: animating a green bottle's position, scale, and rotation, frame-by-frame, over one second of actual time, and it STILL isn't ideal. That's what I'm taking away from this experience: no matter the tool, you still need to get your hands into everything if you want to make it look even remotely "real."
I have immense respect for anybody who's ever sat down with a pencil and a sheaf of translucent paper!
* Some box-and-circle characters are in the "Share Your Work" part of the forum, but they're dynamic and fabulous!
I can't speak for other people's thoughts, but it seems to me that any really flexible animation convenience (bones, for instance) is going to work well for most tasks (animate a running figure) but not well for more unusual tasks. So I don't think that the bone constraints are so much "imperfect" as they are "unsuited for some tasks." I haven't seen your animation so I don't know if you've found a bug, but I do think that the problem is bones being less suited to your task.
I also agree that it's difficult...it's WAY more difficult than I was expecting when I started two weeks ago, but again I don't blame Anime Studio. It seems to me that 80% of the work in animation is tedious tweaking no matter what tool you're using, unless you're just animating rigid boxes and circles.*
That said, Anime Studio certainly DOES have frustrating bugs that have a way of punching you suddenly in the face. But not enough to stop me from being productive.
As for the Pro version, I was asking the same questions last week. Now that I've worked with Pro I can say that two tools have been VERY useful for me: the motion graph (to smooth out camera moves and walk cycles) and onionskins (for the same reasons). The Actions are probably useful as well, but I haven't tried them yet. I think that the Debut version is fine if you don't worry about reusing elements of your work and if you don't mind doing some extra sleuthing to discover what's wrong with your animation.
But even so, here's what I spent 45 minutes doing last night: animating a green bottle's position, scale, and rotation, frame-by-frame, over one second of actual time, and it STILL isn't ideal. That's what I'm taking away from this experience: no matter the tool, you still need to get your hands into everything if you want to make it look even remotely "real."
I have immense respect for anybody who's ever sat down with a pencil and a sheaf of translucent paper!
* Some box-and-circle characters are in the "Share Your Work" part of the forum, but they're dynamic and fabulous!
Hmm, this was interesting to me so I set up my own harp strings. At first I had the parent bones far away from the dynamic bones and this caused the strings to fly all over because the dynamic bone is rotating around the same center point as its parent bone. You can see if this is happening to you by rotating the parent bone and watching where the child goes. When I moved the parents end to end with the dynamic bones, I got the desired effect. Is that the problem you're encountering?
I think you're better off putting each string on its own layer, and forgetting about bones altogether. Use point motion.
Make the curvature of the ends of the strings 0 and the middle point of the strings a bit more so that when you move the middle vector point out you get a curved line, not looking like a broken stick.
To make this clearer I've posted a file:
http://www.bruandboegie.co.za/random/strings_1.anme.zip
Make the curvature of the ends of the strings 0 and the middle point of the strings a bit more so that when you move the middle vector point out you get a curved line, not looking like a broken stick.
To make this clearer I've posted a file:
http://www.bruandboegie.co.za/random/strings_1.anme.zip