Moho Forum

I want to make a anime show, I am really really good at drawing it...... but on the computer i need help knowing how to make it with anime studio pro

Two steps:

1. Learn how to use Anime Studio.
2. Plan your project before you begin production.

That might sound obvious but these steps are essential if you don't know where to start.

The best way to learn is by doing. Go through the tutorials, read through the manual, watch the online videos, and experiment as you learn. For me, trying out features and playing with them often inspires concepts and scenes for my own productions.

Once you feel you can get around the program and have a fair understanding of what you can do with it, start planning your project.

A few days ago, somebody asked about how to do this. You can find my responses here: Storyboarding ASP

I think creating your own 'real world' production situations forces you to develop and learn techniques you can't learn from a tutorial videos. Start with something small and fairly simple. You'll learn a lot and it's less likely that you'll become overwhelmed and discouraged. Once you've accomplished your first project, you can think about how to apply what you've learned to your next project to make it bigger and better.

For example, when my wife and I created our first Anime Studio Pro short, Scareplane, we used it as our learning project. The two of use have been animating for many years before this project but we were both new to using ASP, and creating Scareplane got us up to speed quickly.

When learning Anime Studio, think about how you can use apply your style to the tools. When we did Scareplane, the idea was to reproduce the look of my comic strip using only tools in ASP. Because the designs of my comic strip was a known factor, it allowed us to concentrate on just learning the tools.

When we did our second project (our first commercial short using ASP,) we challenged ourselves by designing a very different look but we also built upon what we learned from Scareplane. At the same time, we made sure we didn't go too far to make it too difficult for us to complete. Since this time we had a client to please, sticking to known capabilities of was crucial.

Next time, we'll push ourselves even further--probably a much longer format with more FBF in it.

In short, start small and work your way up. The experience will be more fun and fulfilling that way.

Hope this helps.

G.

Just watched Scareplane... loved it!
That is all.

Thanks! Glad you liked it.

G.

Greenlaw wrote:Two steps:

1. Learn how to use Anime Studio.
2. Plan your project before you begin production.

That might sound obvious but these steps are essential if you don't know where to start.

The best way to learn is by doing. Go through the tutorials, read through the manual, watch the online videos, and experiment as you learn. For me, trying out features and playing with them often inspires concepts and scenes for my own productions.

Once you feel you can get around the program and have a fair understanding of what you can do with it, start planning your project.

A few days ago, somebody asked about how to do this. You can find my responses here: Storyboarding ASP

I think creating your own 'real world' production situations forces you to develop and learn techniques you can't learn from a tutorial videos. Start with something small and fairly simple. You'll learn a lot and it's less likely that you'll become overwhelmed and discouraged. Once you've accomplished your first project, you can think about how to apply what you've learned to your next project to make it bigger and better.

For example, when my wife and I created our first Anime Studio Pro short, Scareplane, we used it as our learning project. The two of use have been animating for many years before this project but we were both new to using ASP, and creating Scareplane got us up to speed quickly.

When learning Anime Studio, think about how you can use apply your style to the tools. When we did Scareplane, the idea was to reproduce the look of my comic strip using only tools in ASP. Because the designs of my comic strip was a known factor, it allowed us to concentrate on just learning the tools.

When we did our second project (our first commercial short using ASP,) we challenged ourselves by designing a very different look but we also built upon what we learned from Scareplane. At the same time, we made sure we didn't go too far to make it too difficult for us to complete. Since this time we had a client to please, sticking to known capabilities of was crucial.

Next time, we'll push ourselves even further--probably a much longer format with more FBF in it.

In short, start small and work your way up. The experience will be more fun and fulfilling that way.

Hope this helps.

G.

Hey man thanks for the tip! can you p.m me? I would like to ask you a personal thing

Oh, I don't know how I forgot to mention it but this forum is an amazing resource for help and information. If it wasn't for the technical advice and tips I get from the many talented and skilled forum members, I would have gotten frustrated and probably would have moved on to something else a long time ago. Learning ASP was a little overwhelming at first but thanks to this forum, I really enjoy using the program now.

So don't be afraid to ask questions here. Many of the forum users have used Anime Studio for a long time and they are happy to share their knowledge.

G.

P.S., I'll still PM you later today.

Greenlaw wrote:Oh, I don't know how I forgot to mention it but this forum is an amazing resource for help and information. If it wasn't for the technical advice and tips I get from the many talented and skilled forum members, I would have gotten frustrated and probably would have moved on to something else a long time ago. Learning ASP was a little overwhelming at first but thanks to this forum, I really enjoy using the program now.

So don't be afraid to ask questions here. Many of the forum users have used Anime Studio for a long time and they are happy to share their knowledge.

G.

P.S., I'll still PM you later today.

Sounds good thank you! So like you know the drawing style Anime? Do you think its hard to accomplish on this software ?

If you search YouTube, you might find examples of 'anime style' done with ASP. (Personally, I think saying 'anime style' covers very broad territory but I know what you mean.)

IMO, Anime Studio is adaptable to pretty much any style of art--it's really up to the designer to figure out how best to use the tools to achieve his goal. The important thing is to understand the program's strength and weaknesses and focus on the strengths.

Most anime, at least on TV, uses a lot of limited animation tricks and saves the complex FBF stuff for special moments--it's planned with a lot of thought to efficiency and getting the most bang for the buck. I think it would be good to keep this in mind when designing your characters and creating your storyboard.

Here's a tip: If I'm spending a long time doing something, I'm probably not doing it efficiently--that's when I step back and re-evaluate my approach. Give yourself time limits for a task but also give yourself time to experiment with various methods until you find one that works well for you and your project.

G.

Greenlaw wrote:If you search YouTube, you might find examples of 'anime style' done with ASP. (Personally, I think saying 'anime style' covers very broad territory but I know what you mean.)

IMO, Anime Studio is adaptable to pretty much any style of art--it's really up to the designer to figure out how best to use the tools to achieve his goal. The important thing is to understand the program's strength and weaknesses and focus on the strengths.

Most anime, at least on TV, uses a lot of limited animation tricks and saves the complex FBF stuff for special moments--it's planned with a lot of thought to efficiency and getting the most bang for the buck. I think it would be good to keep this in mind when designing your characters and creating your storyboard.

Here's a tip: If I'm spending a long time doing something, I'm probably not doing it efficiently--that's when I step back and re-evaluate my approach. Give yourself time limits constraints but also give yourself time to experiment with various methods until you find one that works well for you and your project.

G.

Damn you're helping me a lot, thanks for all the support ! Also, lets say I draw it on paper, what do I do to get it to the computer, do I take a pic with my cell phone ? lol

divinedakota wrote:Damn you're helping me a lot, thanks for all the support ! Also, lets say I draw it on paper, what do I do to get it to the computer, do I take a pic with my cell phone ? lol

The are cell phone scanner apps but the most efficient way would be to use a flatbed scanner.

For flat analog art, I think I would prefer to use a scanner but a digital camera will work in a pinch, and it can even be more convenient.

There's a video on the Smith Micro website where an artist talks about his workflow. Sorry, I don't remember which one but I think it was for a music video. Anyway, from what I recall, this artist did use an iPhone to quickly capture his drawings.

In our second project, I painted some of our characters using Procreate on and iPad, and then sent the file to my computer via dropbox. From there, the art was broken down to poseable segments in Photoshop layers, and then the PSD was brought into ASP for rigging and animation. (Anime Studio can import a multi-layered PSD and preserve the layers.) Working with an iPhone to capture analog art is more or less the same process--get the art into a bitmap form, send it to a paint program that supports layers and chop it up.

A few months ago, Victor Paredes posted a cool video that shows a similar process (using digital photographu to get character art into Anime Studio.) In this case, he photographed felted toys and chopped up these photos for rigging. The video is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxkqxLG3BKQ

Some shooting tips: Sometimes I have a need to photograph flat art because the artwork won't fit in my scanner. What I do is I place the art on the ground in the shade outdoors and photograph it overhead from a short step ladder--this makes sure the art is getting a nice even ambient light. I'll usually need to color correct it in Photoshop but that's easy. Alternatively, I'll place the art on the kitchen or living room floor--whichever room that has the best ambient light coming from the windows when I need to shoot. You want to avoid direct sunlight because it will likely blow out the photograph. Naturally, if you shoot RAW, it's less of an issue but you still want even lighting across the art. Most of time, I don't bother with RAW though, so long as I have a good range of colors to work with.

G.

Dalv wrote:

divinedakota wrote:Damn you're helping me a lot, thanks for all the support ! Also, lets say I draw it on paper, what do I do to get it to the computer, do I take a pic with my cell phone ? lol

The are cell phone scanner apps but the most efficient way would be to use a flatbed scanner.

Getting a cell phone one right now, but when I upload my anime character to the AS software, what would be the next step lol?

divinedakota wrote:

Dalv wrote:

divinedakota wrote:Damn you're helping me a lot, thanks for all the support ! Also, lets say I draw it on paper, what do I do to get it to the computer, do I take a pic with my cell phone ? lol

The are cell phone scanner apps but the most efficient way would be to use a flatbed scanner.

Getting a cell phone one right now, but when I upload my anime character to the AS software, what would be the next step lol?

It depends on the artwork but I typically trace over it with Anime Studio's vector tools or redraw it in Krita with raster based .PSD rigging in mind.

It depends on the artwork but I typically trace over it with Anime Studio's vector tools or redraw it in Krita with raster based .PSD rigging in mind.

Any tutorials on that? im super clueless , or do you have skype and you could show me maybe dude? would be really appreciated. skype: dakotawhyte

It's pretty easy. There are basically two way to do this.

1. You can import the art using [File > Import Tracing Image...]. This is exactly what it sounds like, it's just a reference image for tracing over and you can't accidentally render it. You can toggle this image on and off and remove or replace it any time.

2. My preferred way is to import the image to a bitmap layer, [File > Import Image...], and create a vector layer on top of the bitmap art to trace in. If you wish, you can set the layer preferences for the bottom art to be semi-transparent to make is easier to draw over. From the layer properties, you can even set this layer to not appear in a render just like Tracing Image. The advantage with this second method is that you can transform and re-position the reference image freely. And if you make the reference a switch layer, you can import sequential images to trace. (I usually bring my storyboard panels in this way to draw over.)

Either method works so choose the one your comfortable with.

Be sure to read the tutorials and manuals, and watch the videos. Most of the info you'll be looking for is there.

G.