Workflow Basics: Character Animation: Ep. 1

[hundleyjared]

Hey all, I made a series of tutorials on how to get started with Anime Studio. My workflow goes from paper to Adobe Illustrator to Anime studio. I cover layers, rigging, and animation in 3 short episodes. The goal here is to make it quick and clear to get from an idea to an animation. Check 'em out and let me know if you'd like to see more. If so, what do you want to learn?

Episode 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifVW63a_MAw
Episode 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qDRWFeZPT0
Episode 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjagQpQR0UA

[jahnocli]

I thought these were excellent. Clear objectives, clean spoken delivery, simple but very effective animation. Well done! Maybe in tutorial 2 you could have mentioned the difference between frame 0 and the rest of the timeline, but that was the only thing I spotted that I would have done differently...

[hundleyjared]

Thanks for watching and taking time to write some feedback on what's working and what can improve. Very happy they come across as easy to understand and simple to accomplish. Frame zero definitely needs some special attention, that's a great call!

[synthsin75]

Not sure why you started in Illustrator (when you could have demonstrated AS tools a bit more), but otherwise pretty good.

[hundleyjared]

@synthsin75 Couple of reasons for not drawing in AS:

1. It's just a personal preference but more geared toward a professional workflow. If another artist or client wants the character artwork to make posters or other materials, you can't give them an Anime Studio file as easily as an Illustrator file. They'd give you a slow blink if you gave them an AS file.

2. I know other people are more highly skilled in AS illustration so tutorials out there must be better than what I could produce.

Thanks for the feedback!

[synthsin75]

@synthsin75 Couple of reasons for not drawing in AS:

1. It's just a personal preference but more geared toward a professional workflow. If another artist or client wants the character artwork to make posters or other materials, you can't give them an Anime Studio file as easily as an Illustrator file. They'd give you a slow blink if you gave them an AS file.

2. I know other people are more highly skilled in AS illustration so tutorials out there must be better than what I could produce.

Thanks for the feedback!

Good points, especially having a more flexible file for print,etc.. I'd probably mention that AS will often produce too many points when importing vector art, requiring a lot of tedious clean up.

[funksmaname]

I've used AS to produce print ready files or export characters in hi res for photoshop mockup, you just have to export a flat at as large a resolution as needed

[djwaterman]

Man, these are great. I loved some of the other stuff on your channel, I sensed some of the animations were also animated in After effects, or is that just for post and finishing? I thought I was looking at Duik type IK on the dancing dude, or was that also Anime Studio? Anyway, I'll be watching.

[hundleyjared]

Man, these are great. I loved some of the other stuff on your channel, I sensed some of the animations were also animated in After effects, or is that just for post and finishing? I thought I was looking at Duik type IK on the dancing dude, or was that also Anime Studio? Anyway, I'll be watching.

You are right on the money, I work in AS for character animation and always composite in AE. I've tried Duik once but was not impressed. It sure has it's benefits of being in AE however. The dancing guy (Dance Master Flash) on my Youtube page is Anime Studio for character animation. The other stuff like the speaker loops, textures, color background, etc.... are all After Effects.

I did some snooping on your blog and it looks like you have a similar workflow?

[neeters_guy]

Very well done and informative tutorials. I particularly like episode 3 with the step-by-step description of blocking, key poses, in-betweens, switches, and cycles. This is a common workflow in 3D animation and it’s refreshing to hear it applied to Anime Studio.

To expand on character animation techniques, you could follow this up with a discussion of polishing (something Keith Lango talks about to remedy the sameness of pose-to-pose animation), including offset, overlap, arcs, etc.

Thanks for making these!

[ulrik]

Great tutorials Jared, I just found them and will enjoy watching them later, well done!