Illustrator CS6 - Anime Studio Pro 9.5 Workflow

[baphomet]

I have a question. I somehow have to find a way or a workflow that will enable me to import the characters I have designed and vector ready in Adobe Illustrator CS6 to Anime Studio Pro 9.5

Is there some magic way? I somehow just feel I can create the characters much faster and easier in Illustrator so I only somehow have to import them or redraw them after import in Anime Studio Pro.

I somehow already found the way to create stunning backgrounds with Maxon's Cinema 4D R15 and now I really somehow have to find a way to get my very own style into ASP.

I think there must be some animators here that could somehow give me some good hints or information on where I have to look for answers to the question what the right way would be. Because i know there is no real right way, but I think you all know what I mean.

Anyways, any help would be very much appreciated. Below you'll find some screenshots of my fast sketches and designs I draw in seconds on my tablet in Illustrator, and I can't help thinking that there must be some better way to get my Illustrator sketches and designs to life in ASP.

[slowtiger]

(Could you please not put that many large images into your posts? I'm on a small mobile machine now and it takes ages to load.)

I don't recommend importing Illustrator files at all, because all outlines will be converted into slim shapes around other shapes, which makes it hard to animate. Much easier to create stuff directly in AS, with the bonus of being optimized for animation. Should be easy since you're working with sketches anyway.

[ddrake]

Much easier to create stuff directly in AS, with the bonus of being optimized for animation. Should be easy since you're working with sketches anyway.

Absolutely agree. I think you have to consider the fact that the time you "save" by drawing in illustrator, you lose by having essentially unusable complex imports. You'd wind up having to remove extra points, and streamline your character for ease of animation anyway. It might take a little more time to adapt to "drawing" your characters in AS, but once you learn it and get comfortable that's when the time saving will really start to come into play.

Honestly if you're looking for a quick fix, or magic techniques that don't take time, then animation may not be your cup of tea. Even with flexible and powerful software, it's still going to take a lot of time and patience. Easily could be hours of work for only seconds of output.

[heyvern]

I agree that Illustrator import is not a good idea unless it's simply as a reference to redraw in ASP. You may actually be better off using "image puppets" from the AI files instead of vectors.

The issues with AI vectors in ASP is always a problem for people new to ASP. They are completely different applications. Quite frankly the import from Illustrator is pretty darn good considering the differences. They really improved it in one of the recent updates.

This isn't unique to this situation, what I mean is that technology changes when used for different purposes. Content for one thing doesn't always "work" for another and has to be repurposed. In my primary line of work, which is website production, we receive content in every format you can imagine, MS Word, PDF, print, jpgs, etc etc. It can NEVER be "magically" imported to a website no matter how carefully formatted and tweaked by our clients. It always requires time to make if work in a different format, and this is simply TEXT.

My brother recently had a situation with a very very... very old computer that had some old plays and songs he had written on it. He neglected to back up everything as the tech changed and now has a new machine with new technology and that old machine is left in the past. He purchased a USB floppy disk drive to get files off the old machine, but had no software to open it on the new one. The software had changed so much that nothing current would open the old files. He had to use the old computer, open the old software, copy the text into a plain ascii text format in a simple text application to transfer it over. In some cases he printed it out, scanned it, and used OCR.

The same can be said for animating from illustrations. To bring "sketches" to life they have to be changed to work with whatever medium you have chosen or like using. Imagine you used "Flash" instead of Anime Studio to animate those sketches. Those Adobe Illustrator sketches probably wouldn't work in Flash without editing and reworking or redrawing. Motion has different requirements. Unless you plan to do "FBF" animation and draw each frame by hand, any solution will require rethinking, or repurposing of the source material.

The desire for Anime Studio to work with Adobe Illustrator format is... well... it's just not possible in the way you want or expect. If Anime Studio worked the way you want it to with AI format, it wouldn't be the same application. It would totally and completely different. If you like how Anime Studio works it is BECAUSE it has a totally different style of curve. It is the way it animates point motion that makes it a great application.

Having said that, it is possible to recreate anything done in AI in Anime Studio. I know this from experience, I've done it many times. I am not saying it would be 100% exact in every detail but so freaking close no one could tell the difference. Because the two programs work differently there is no magic solution to this conversion. It requires learning a new drawing method. It requires designing and drawing with MOTION as the goal. It requires understanding the differences in how Anime Studio creates curves compared to AI. You may draw a character in AI in a specific way for a single position. The curve of an arm or leg may have a specific number of points with carefully adjusted point positions and curve handles. Those points may not be in the correct place to allow for "smooth" animation of the arm or leg in ANY application. Drawing for motion requires thinking and planning for that end result.

Over the years I have started using Anime Studio for "non moving" illustration work instead of Adobe Illustrator because it is "easier" for me. Variable line widths are a freaking PITA in AI compared to ASP. AI has improved but it's still easier and more elegant in ASP. Shape creation is also more logical in ASP. In Adobe Illustrator every shape must have unique vectors. In ASP you can have connected filled shapes that share edges. In AI the files can become so much more complex and it becomes more difficult to edit.

[Maestral]

After so many thorough replies, I`ll ask you a thing - were you up to use these characters (as is) in ASP?

I can`t be sure why would you do that, since this drawing style looks more appropriate for FbF animation. Among the most recent posts, here on this forum, you may find video showing animation done in ASP which looks like it`s hand-drawn. Have you seen that one?

On the other hand, AI import works better if you export .ai as Illustrator 8. You could also try with .svg format as well.

p.s.
Wieger character looks very interesting but that drawing is full of details (I`ll say - unnecessary ones). Still, let`s take him as an example. How would you move his mustaches? Eyebrows? To be franc, everything is possible - but these two will be a tough ones ,) I`ve mentioned a thorough replies - to which I`ll add one more thing - bare in mind that you`ll have to move your characters and spending a bit more time on planing would be your greatest time-saver.

[Lukas]

You could save as .psd file and import the .psd into ASP. (It won't be vectors anymore of course).

If you want vectors, be prepared to draw everything from scratch in ASP. It's easier than importing and fixing stuff.

Illustrator and ASP aren't friends.

[baphomet]

First of all, thanks for all the feedback! Very interesting, and I must say, I already thought it would be this way, in other words, I'll just have to redraw them. I will really keep in mind everything you people gave me as feedback here! And I am really thankfull for all the feedback and replies! So again, THANK YOU!

I just wanted to say that, because not on all fora on the internet you'll get such great feedback or even any feedback at all. Anyways, I will try to work around my import problems and I'll start to redraw my sketches as characters in ASP, and maybe use a *.PNG file version of my Illustrator file as a background reference while designing it in ASP.

And I think it was Slowtiger saying something about my file size, well I am sorry Slowtiger, and I will keep it in mind for the future.

Than there is this part of a comment from Maestral, that I would like to reply on:

p.s.
Wieger character looks very interesting but that drawing is full of details (I`ll say - unnecessary ones). Still, let`s take him as an example. How would you move his mustaches? Eyebrows? To be franc, everything is possible - but these two will be a tough ones ,) I`ve mentioned a thorough replies - to which I`ll add one more thing - bare in mind that you`ll have to move your characters and spending a bit more time on planing would be your greatest time-saver.

Thanks for the compliments. Wieger was about a 4 minute sketch I made in Illustrator, it is only a sketch, not a final EPS. It's the blueprint version. I can draw him out from there in a new layer and ink him in cel shading tones in about 10-15 minutes as a character (face).

Maybe I should even think about setting up a team of animators and create the cartoon as a team. Because everybody has his own specialties. Would anyone here be in for such a project? i mean together with a bunch of people we should be able to create a international well watched cartoon series. Sorry, I am just throwing in ideas here, because I can't help that I am imagining that we as creative people from all over the world could create something very beautiful if we would like to do so.

[baphomet]

After so many thorough replies, I`ll ask you a thing - were you up to use these characters (as is) in ASP?

I can`t be sure why would you do that, since this drawing style looks more appropriate for FbF animation. Among the most recent posts, here on this forum, you may find video showing animation done in ASP which looks like it`s hand-drawn. Have you seen that one?

On the other hand, AI import works better if you export .ai as Illustrator 8. You could also try with .svg format as well.

p.s.
Wieger character looks very interesting but that drawing is full of details (I`ll say - unnecessary ones). Still, let`s take him as an example. How would you move his mustaches? Eyebrows? To be franc, everything is possible - but these two will be a tough ones ,) I`ve mentioned a thorough replies - to which I`ll add one more thing - bare in mind that you`ll have to move your characters and spending a bit more time on planing would be your greatest time-saver.

I decided to spent some time on working out Wieger in ASP in the way I have him in my mind and the way I sketched him out in Illustrator. It did cost me some time (not even that much, I think about 45 minutes) to work him out, but it really helped me to get more knowledge about the way the vectors work in ASP.

Here the result:



So I guess, it really worked, having the sketch as a reference in an image imported to a layer in the background in ASP. At least for me personally it worked out and it did really help a lot having a reference visually present in the screen, when creating in ASP.

[baphomet]

Still working on it, but I roughly started on creating a body as well, lots of the details still need a lot of improvement, like hands and legs and feet, but I slowly am starting to get there.

Here another screenshot:

[baphomet]

With some better hands:

[Maestral]

Carry on, my dear Watson, carry on ,)

Doing well, so far. Looking forward to see him in action.
Compliments on your persistence.

p.s.
There were propositions for collaboration on this forum before, but if you could manage to present a sustainable frame for such an endevour - I`d like to hear more about it and I believe there could be a few more also intereseted to participate.

[baphomet]

Carry on, my dear Watson, carry on ,)

Doing well, so far. Looking forward to see him in action.
Compliments on your persistence.

p.s.
There were propositions for collaboration on this forum before, but if you could manage to present a sustainable frame for such an endevour - I`d like to hear more about it and I believe there could be a few more also intereseted to participate.

Thanks for the compliments, and I will carry on! Thanks Sherlock!

But rigging and the bone system is new to me so that will take time before I have handled that, but hopefully in the end I will get it. I have played around with it, but could not manage to get it working in the righ way, probably a layer related problem, I must be doing something wrong I think.

I posted a question about rigging and bones together with a layered but unrigged * anme file in another topic to see if anybody has some good hints and clues for me where to start from the unrigged but layered * anme file

Here is the link: ->> viewtopic.php?f=13&t=25522

About a collaboration, I will try and see what I can manage to present some more details about a project like that. I will post it in the next week here and let's see where we can take it from there.

[baphomet]

Here is an animation test video of my simply rigged / boned character Wieger:



And here is a download link to a *.ANME file of the unrigged version of my character Wieger:

http://www.filedropper.com/wieger

And here is a link to a download * ANME file of the rigged version with the background from the test file in the Youtube video in the top of this post:

http://www.filedropper.com/wieger2

I still have to do tons of work, such as switch layers for the eyes, mouth and hands, and from there I have to create more views of my character Wieger, but so far I think I have managed to create a lot in just a few hours during this Sunday. Especially keeping in mind that I just started working with Anime Studio pro for only like maybe 2 weeks right now at this very moment.

[baphomet]

And another quick test animation after testing and playing around with AS in the last 2 hours.

[baphomet]

I just keep on trucking!!