Which tipe of character building is the best??

[skiblueplayer]

1.- Different angle characters with bones and switch them.
Good:more angles.
Bad:can't switch only a layer (for example the right foot)

2.- Blend morph (right/left actions) of all character and animate them from parts.
Good: can switch only a layer (for example the right foot)
Bad: no back angle.

3.- Other option.

Reply with reasons please.

[Víctor Paredes]

ok, but don't worry, the red giant words aren't necessary.

First, there is not an official exclusive way to create characters, so don't expect much consensus.
From my personal experience, I can tell you it depends of the project you are working and the effect you want to get. Sometimes you will need blend morph, some times a good dissimulated switch works fine, some characters don't even need to make any rotation, etc.
Now, the important thing is the character construction are not exclusive. You always can hide an entire layer and put another on its place. I think the better is not to think about a character that could do every pose you imagine. Look at your storyboard and look what is needed, then setup the character.
Of course, if you need to re use a character a lot, it's better it has as freedom of movement as possible, but many times is simply better to make a new specific rig for an specific action.
You can change the character during the animation. If you are animating it well, nobody will notice the cut.

Another important think is to animate points. Most of the magic is there. If your rig can't get some pose, move the bones until get something similar and then adjust the points. If your blend morph aren't giving you the desired gesture, just adjust the points.
Many times we lose a lot of time rigging characters with features we finally don't even use, or so much complex that it's a pain to animate them.

I hope to help you.

[skiblueplayer]

Thank you. It was very helpful.

And the red giant words...

I LOVE THEM.

[madriver]

Thank you. It was very helpful.

And the red giant words...

I LOVE THEM.

Then if you can't follow simple web protocol, you probably won't get (or deserve) many respectful responses.

Giant letters---except as used in acronyms like LOL---come across as screaming and demanding.

If you want to respectfully ask, fine.

btw, Selgin's response is dead on. Major shows like Batman, Teen Titans and other Cartoon Network shows generally design every turn as a plug-and-play type of process. This is mostly because they have huge teams of people who need to work uniformly and deadlines are a priority.

Shows like Family Guy use a combination of 2D flat for the standard shots and 3D animated cel shaded characters in Maya whenever they have fight scenes that move quickly and show many angles. Like Selgin said, it really depends on you show and concept. For indies it's probably best to "build as you go".

[Mikdog]

I vote for "build as you go".

Once you have a script and storyboard and know what kind of shots or angles your characters will be used in, you can then decide how to build them. For example, you may be just fine with a 3/4 left, front, and 3/4 right view. Perhaps you don't even need a back view, or a front view. Perhaps two 3/4 views would work alright.

When I did my Happyland pilot I went overboard with switch interpolation for mouth movements (kind of like blend morphs). Spent time making sure each mouth had the same number of points so that one mouth shape could morph into another. When it came to animate things, I didn't really need that feature. Straight switching from one shape to another looked just as fine if not better. So I spent time on something that I didn't really need. I get the feeling that blend morphs, though a cool feature in principle, in practice isn't that practical. You'll hardly ever need a 5/8 head turn, or a 7/9 head turn. Rather: Front, 3/4 and side I reckon. But, this isn't a hard and fast rule, if you want to go ahead and build a model that can do a full 360 degree head turn, go ahead. My feeling is that you'll end up using common views anyway, and really, it sometimes looks weird when your character spends a number of frames turning from one angle to another, and sometimes looks better switching straight from side, to 3/4, to front, to other 3/4, to other side for a 180 degree turn. So you really need all that extra interpolation? Sometimes even works by just flipping the character to turn it around.

For my Beatboxing Dave short http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1OAx23QtAU that I'm doing in Toon Boom Animate I just have one view that works ok for me. If I need more, I'll add as I go. I'm adding mouth, leg and eye positions as I go that I can use for the next episode.

[Imago]

There is no fixed method.
For example I've developed my own character building method, mixing Cut-out, bending shapes and animated layer order.
Try many times and many methods until you are satisfied of the result.

[skiblueplayer]

Thank you for all responses, i'll make my animation mixing all techniques.

I'll try to do them with 3 or 4 views and manipulate them. And do some blend morphs for especial movements.

And, I'm sorry for the giant words. I didn't know that they are "screaming words".

[AmigaMan]

Just to add .....here is a tutorial of a studio showing how they animate in Anime Studio Pro...

http://www.vimeo.com/4877727

[lwaxana]

Thanks for posting that tutorial, Amigaman. It's incredibly helpful. :D