Moho Forum

Thank you for your detailed and speedy reply. Your enthusiasm for the course is enough to make me give it serious consideration. As I stated, time is my biggest problem.

I just mailed Dr Eddie about your wonderings, maybe he'll leave a more detailed plan of the course here, we'll see..
ulrik

Hello All!

Sorry, I did not notice these questions sooner. I am in the midst of cleaning and packing my house for sale. Tons of fun ... NOT! As a result, I have not been online as much, except for my ANIME STUDIO Class.

My class is Basic. It is especially good for Beginners and possibly Intermeditate students of MOHO / Anime Studio. I designed the Class to be progressive. You learn the basic tools use them. I add more tools. I show how to go from a still picture and add animation. I keep adding more variations.

We work through 3 Major Projects. Each project is broken into two parts or Lessons.

Project 1: The Arrival: Part One, add the background and UFO and animate it. Play with Key Frames. Second part: Make the Alien City and Animate it.

Project 2: Part one, Create the underwater set, sand, ocean, seaweed, coral. Part 2, create the Yellow Fish, Shark, and Red Fish and add bones, animate them.

Project 3: Create the Ocean, Island, Volcano & Smoke, and Bird, add bones, animate them. Part tow, Create the Pirate, add bones, animate, place on ship, work with camera.

All along the way, you learn more tools and tips and suggestions. By the end, you have a method of approaching any project.

In the beginning, I hold your hand a lot. By the end, I describe what to do, but I expect that you know the tools well enough that I do not have to show them to you. To me, the proof of the Class is all the wonderful animations my student have been making.

Another aspect that I believe is super valuable is the student interaction. We have fun! We kid. We joke. We ask questions. We argue definitions. We clarify. We answer. We suggest. We bring in outside approaches as well. Sometimes I point students to the Tutorials that come with ANIME STUDIO.

I always try to give an answer that will help in the long run. Sometimes students come up with things I don't know about. (It is so hard to be omniscient!) I encourage students to share that info with each other. I also encourage Adlibs and experiementation! This tends to inspire students to try new approaches.

I critique the Animations. But not to find fault. I try to find what is good ... and what needs to be improved. I encourage improvement and excellance. I tend to be more demanding of the most talented students.

I have plans for future classes the will involve masking and much more, but I want to be sure people have the fundamentals down before the try more complicated stuff. My goal is to have beginning, intermediate and advanced Classes. I think ANIME STUDIO is a pretty amazing program.

One of the reasons I have so enjoyed teaching for the Eclectic Academy is that they are not money hungry. At $20 for 6 weeks of instruction, no one is making a fortune. At the same time, my Lessons are filled with lots of screen captures and text. On average, they took 15 to 20 hours of work per Lesson to create. So I don't mind being paid a little for all that work.

I have all the books, The Art of Animation, TheAnimator's Survival Guide, Cartoon Animation by Preston Blair, etc., etc., and I plan to bring more and more of this in as the Lessons progress. But you have to know the Basics first. That is what this Class is about.

I have experience with Animation Master, Carrara, Bryce, Poser, and a lot of others.

I hope that answers some questions. So far the students taking the class seem to feel it is worthwhile. They like what they learned. If you are Advance in your knowledge of ANIME STUDIO, this class is probably not for you.

Best wishes to all & Keep on Animating!

DrEddie
dreddie51@verizon.net

I did decide to sign up...but for the Cinema 4D course, instead. So far it all seems pretty organized. I'll let you know about the classroom experience down the road.

It sounds like most of the topics covered in the Anime 5 starter tutorials. Did you make all of your graphics in your class files? There are a few things i saw that would be nice to learn, but not sure i want to pay for it, especially since i`m in debt at the moment :\

buijon wrote:It sounds like most of the topics covered in the Anime 5 starter tutorials. Did you make all of your graphics in your class files? There are a few things i saw that would be nice to learn, but not sure i want to pay for it, especially since i`m in debt at the moment :\

Not all was made in class, what graphics are refering to?

first i should apologize, i totally missed page 2 of the posts so i may have sounded a bit rude. after he explained a bit. The graphis i mean are well...all of the graphics in the final projects you posted up. I am terrible at drawing of any kind so its my biggest hurdle I see thus far, but i may be able to get by tracing if my friend does all the freehand drawing first.

@buijon: I think that drawing is so essential to animation, that you really should put some effort in learning how to draw both cartoons and from life. This way you are able to draw your own or modify exisiting characters. C'mon all it will cost are some drawing materials a big stack of cheap drawing paper (newprint paper) and lots of time. If you think that paper is too expensive for your early simple drawings (circles and squares), you can even draw on old newpapers.

Here is a good set of short webtutorials to get you started on drawing from life and drawing cartoons:

http://www.prosketch.com/welcome_folder ... ng101.html
http://www.prosketch.com/welcome_folder ... wing2.html
http://www.prosketch.com/welcome_folder ... sign2.html

You start with circle, squares and triangles, and within a few weeks you start drawing the objects around you. Once you're able to draw what you see (instead of what you think you see), the biggest hurdle of being a draughtsperson is taken. Then it is practice, practice, practice... It may takes some years to become a good draughsman, but what the heck, if you don't start now, you'll never be able to draw properly.

Of course, you can do this while you're taking classes with Dr. Eddie.

BTW I recently started blogging on my attempts to become a draughtsman, because I stink at drawing as well. If you like, you can follow my progression over the months.

http://wanttodrawanimation.blogspot.com/

Here's a simple cartoon drawing I made after just a few days of drawing circles and such (for hours on end, that is). Of course, I have taken classes in the past, so I'm not a total newbie, but that was a class in painting and painting is something very different from drawing.

dreddie wrote:
Project 1: The Arrival: Part One, add the background and UFO and animate it. Play with Key Frames. Second part: Make the Alien City and Animate it.

Project 2: Part one, Create the underwater set, sand, ocean, seaweed, coral. Part 2, create the Yellow Fish, Shark, and Red Fish and add bones, animate them.

Project 3: Create the Ocean, Island, Volcano & Smoke, and Bird, add bones, animate them. Part tow, Create the Pirate, add bones, animate, place on ship, work with camera.

Hey Dr Eddie -- Thanks for the reply and the synopsis of the class. Knowing this ahead of time will help alot.

IMO $20 is a steal! Really looking forward to the class.