I would like to offer these different hand positions in AS format, but my question is how would you like to see them set up?
Maybe put them in a switch layer? But having 50 different hands in one switch layer might be too much. Perhaps if I group them into a few different switch layers like: Front view, side view, back view, 3/4 view etc. That way when you need a side view hand you can choose from that group and find it quicker than searching through all 50?
It would definitely be easier to work with if you use nested switches as myles suggested. Anything that helps you have full control over your character speeds up your work. You want to spend your time animating, not looking for layers.
Hm, does that mean that everything is not just vectorized, but built from scratch in AS, completely rigged with bones for each finger? If not - how would one be able to interpolate between poses?
Nested switch layers...great idea! I'll set them up that way for sure!
Slowtiger, the hands will not have bones in them at all. The hands are designed for people who may struggle drawing hands or who already have a character that they would like more hand positions for. As for interpolating between hand poses, there are a lot of different things you can do. You can find another hand pose that resembles an in between hand pose and use that. Generally hand movements can be quick and you don't always clearly see the in between pose, unless you are animating a hand moving very slow and changing poses at the same time, then you'll need to create some specific in between poses.
I guess I should use "styles" in AS to assign the color of the hands as well so that when someone is using them they can quickly change the color of all the hands to match their character's skin color.
Well, as long as you state this in your advertising ... So your hands would be what I get if I just vectorize some hand drawings without further adjustment in AS.
I personally think that redoing the entire character with bones takes full benefit of the tools within AS. Just offering vectorized "screenshots" is so Flash-like. I have nothing against Flash (it's good at what it does), but animation-wise, AS is far superior. It would be a pity not to take advantage of this superiority.
Not related with main topic but I think it is interesting, I have a question:
Can nested switch layers be interpolated between verctor layers of non same switch layer level? (hehe muddle up am I... )
I mean:
If you have this (SW=switch layer):
and change between position 3 ans position 6, will AS make it interpolating or simply change it in a step mode? (Position 1, 2... 10 have same points but in different positions)
I ask this because if you have some bone layers behind a switch layer, vector layers inside bone layers are not interpolated although they have the same points.
(I have no acces to Moho/AS now to check it)
Bye
Rasheed:
It depends on what you want to do with the hands. I remember back in '95 I tried to set up a hand in Animo - and failed miserably. It just took too much time, in the end the whole thing was animated traditionally on paper and "inked" with a big felt tip marker. Smooth movements, full 3D appearance, and no rigging.
If one really needs a fully rigged hand, he has to do it in 3D (and render it in cartoon style). Drawing some hand poses (vectorized or plain bitmap) and switch between them is good enough for several animation styles, especially that certain "limited animation" "nearly cutout" "flash cartoon" look.
Rigging up hands in AS takes time (and experience) and still will not give you a full 3D movement. The decision upon which way to go could be like this: first choose your style of animation. Then see how often you will need a certain hand movement. Then judge your drawing abilities against your rigging abilities, especially with regard to the amount of time you'll need in each ... and then choose wisely.
OK guys, I need help with this. I can't figure out a way to assign a 'style' to the fill color for the hands. I assume it is possible to assign one style to all of the skin color for all of the hands so that people can change the color once and it will apply to all 50 hands.
I'm wondering if the problem is that the fill color was already created in another program and there fore it is harder to assign a 'style'?
This is all assuming that your artwork is in AS vectors...
Go to Anime Studio help, check out section 2.7 (Drawing|Styles) for the offical word on styles.
What I do is to create the style beforehand. Part of getting my ducks in a row, so to speak.
To apply a style, the shape has to be created (if it hasn't been already), use the shape creation tool (shortcut "U"), when you get the checkerboard pattern, hit the space bar key and then choose the shape selection tool (to the right of the create shape tool). Now in the styles palette, just above the color swatches there's a section called "applied styles" -- in the top one click the "<none>" button and select the style you want to apply. Now the applied style will take effect and you can adjust the specific properties of the shape by adjusting the Fill and Outline (Stroke) settings at the top of the Palette, under "DEFAULTS." This can be handy (no pun intended) to just make the shape have no outline or a thicker one.
I look at the top portion of the styles palette (where you adjust the fill color and stroke width and color, etc...) as where you select the "default" fill and stroke for newly created things. It took me a while to get my head around it, hope my explanations helped.
One more thing, if you get a boatload of defined styles, make sure that you make the styles palette as tall as your list (I make it as tall as my main monitor), because AS will do some funky columns that make the first column unselectable. Could be a bug or limitation of the programming language that AS is written in.
bluehickey wrote:I assume it is possible to assign one style to all of the skin color for all of the hands so that people can change the color once and it will apply to all 50 hands.
Yes.
bluehickey wrote:I'm wondering if the problem is that the fill color was already created in another program and there fore it is harder to assign a 'style'?
No (well, I don't think so).
As CartoonM!ke says, styles only apply to vector fills, so as long as you are not using bitmap/raster images you are fine to go.
There's a little visual walk-through of styles here - basically some of what CartoonM!ke said with screeshots.
The bit you want is how the shirt, with an existing fill, is re-coloured using a style - about 2/3 (two thirds) of the way through.
Regards, Myles.
"Quote me as saying I was mis-quoted."
-- Groucho Marx
Thanks for the help guys! Cartoon M!ke, your explanation helped me figure it all out. I'm importing the hands and assigning the style to not only the skin color, but also the black out line. That way if people don't want a black line, but would prefer a colored line, they can change that easily too!
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