Moho Animation Forum

I'm working on my first character in AS. Here some drawings I did on paper:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v310/ ... ure097.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v310/ ... ure098.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v310/ ... ure099.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v310/ ... ure100.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v310/ ... ure101.jpg

And here's the Ogre character turnaround:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3dNkfCi-tw

The video stretched the pic out....

I plan on tracing my drawings in AS and set up the character. I also want to animate his face. (eyes and mouth)
I will try to work on this on my free time, (busy with school and stuff)
Question: Do I need to draw the different views of the body, head,eyes and in mouth in the switch layers?

It seems that you are going to make your animation made of image layers. I think the best way is cut your images in pieces (head, bod, arms, legs...) and composite them in a bone layer (see tutorial 4.1). For movement on eyes, mouth ando so on it would be useful switch layers also (in AS see File -> Import -> Anime Characters -> Winsor)

Good drawings. You could draw them in AS and animation will be better even than with image layers.

Regards

Yeah, I'm going to retrace the drawing in AS so they can be vector. Thanks for the help.

I got the head the front view somewhat done here's a pic:


Ok how do you animate switch layers??

Here how I have it set up:

Group layer (front head)
Switch layer (L eye)
Sub switch layer (L eye1)
Sub switch layer (L eye2)
Switch layer (R eye)
Sub switch layer (R eye1)
Sub switch layer R eye2)
Head layer

.....uh do I make another switch layer for the side view of the head? Or put in it in the switch layers I already have? I'm so confused.....

Nice character, Draw_Girl!

As far as your questions go, in the "How do I do this" forum, go through the topics, there's a bunch of topics about rigging/setting up bones and switch layers. Personally, I've learned a lot by spending an afternoon/evening just reading topics and downloading sample files.

And play around with your file. Make copies of it and just experiment. Anime Studio is a deep program and the more you play around with it, the more "ah-hah" moments you'll have.

I guarentee it, and I don't even sell suits

Great front view. I like how this is turning out.

Thanks, CartoonM!ke and DarthFurby.
I did a little animation, just playing around in AS, having fun, and learning as I go. The animation not that great. :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLUC8Wfcdgc

Great samples you did for a newbie in Anime Studio. I really like it.

Now about those switch layers. There is a feature called interpolation, which means that, when you switch between layers, the points are moved from the positions in one layer to the positions in another layer when you switch. You can see each layer as an animation pose, and AS interpolates between those poses by moving the points from the points' positions in one pose to the next pose. The points move in straight lines, so for an arcing motion, you'll need to create several breakdowns (inbetweens) between the poses.

However there are three problems

1. all points in a pose or inbetween have to be on the same vector layer
2. the number of points in layers that you want to be interpolate has to be the same
3. the relative positions of the points' IDs have to be the same

The first two problems are probably clear to you. The third, with the ID of each point, is as follows. When you draw points in a layer they get a number according to the order you place them. So the first point gets ID 0 (zero), the second point 1, the third point 2, and so on. Now if you would draw in another vector layer with the same number of points, but those points placed in a different order, switch interpolation would interpolate by point ID, not by how the vector image looks.

The solution to this is to use copies of the same layer, and create breakdowns (inbetweens) between two layers that have a different point count and/or point configuration (points placed in the different order among layers).

Here's an example:

layer 1

layer 1 copy 1 (breakdown 1 to layer 2)

layer 1 copy 2 (breakdown 2 to layer 2)

layer 1 copy 2 (breakdown 2 to layer 2)

layer 2 copy 1 (breakdown 1 to layer 1)

layer 2

resulting animation

(source: swithinterpolation.moho.zip)

So, you put your vector layers in the switch layer, and switch at a certain frame (in the Timeline window click on the frame you want in the upper bar, or enter the frame number in the frame text field) by right-clicking on the switch layer in the Layers window and selecting the vector layer you want from the pop-up menu.

I hope this is clear.

Mind you, you don't have to use switch interpolation. You can also use bone animation. For some part of your animation, however, using switch layers may be the best solution, especially when a part of the body (or the whole body) changes perspective (basically, the part turns around an axis that is not perpendicular to the screen), and a previously hidden side comes in view. A head turn would be a perfect example, but mouth shapes as well (although those can be done with bones as well, if you set it up carefully).

You see, there are a lot of possibilities with this program and sometimes several possibilities can be used with the same overall effect. It then comes down to your personal preference.

I finally worked on the body and did this little animation, the file got messed up when I exported it as a swf file.. but here it is:

http://media.putfile.com/Orge2

I plan on redrawing and reanimating this character, I learned alot from my mistakes.

Also I played around with the timeline, I used ease in/out but I don't see any difference....

Draw_Girl wrote:I finally worked on the body and did this little animation, the file got messed up when I exported it as a swf file.. but here it is:

http://media.putfile.com/Orge2

I plan on redrawing and reanimating this character, I learned alot from my mistakes.

Also I played around with the timeline, I used ease in/out but I don't see any difference....

Nice work so far. We all learn more as we go. As we learn we either fix it or redo it. I also have a bone tutorial if you haven't already seen it.
http://www.lostmarble.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4942
Looks like you're getting the drawing part down, so keep up the good work.