Moho Forum

Hi, I just got ASP5 and have successfully animated a sleeping dog lying on the floor breathing. How do I make a character enter the scene from right frame to mess with him (and then get messed back with)?

I started with a vector drawing and used translate points to stretch it so it would look comedic when his foot first sneaks stepping into the dog's scene, but then I ran in trouble when I tried to overlap this or replace it with my boned character (the guy who messes with the dog).

This is meant to look very cartoony and be kind of funny. Any help appreciated! PS, I am new to Anime Studio Pro! Hello to everybody!

Man...I could help you if i understodd your problem a little better. Maybe try using translate layer tool? That might work.

Please put a screenshot of your layer window to understand the problem and to help you. All the layers visible.
Regards
Genete

http://bp1.blogger.com/_iXtQHWsc7K0/Rj5 ... roblem.JPG[/img]

Here is what I eventually want it to look like

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQtJq-jS6IY

beautifuldaymonster wrote:http://bp1.blogger.com/_iXtQHWsc7K0/Rj5 ... roblem.JPG[/img]

The link is not correct. Anyway I have corrected and can see the screen shot:

If you play with a image layer you cannot integrate anything else with the dog more than above or under the dog itself. You have to split the dog into parts and put every part of the dog in different layers. Then the new character can interact with the dog. For sure the walking character must be in the same bone folder to have proper interaction.

Try this


http://bp1.blogger.com/_iXtQHWsc7K0/Rj5 ... roblem.JPG

Thank you Genete. I'll try it and see if it makes it easier. How do I do something like this, though? (enclosed link)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITqCHkjYBX8

The hand and arm come down into the square caption balloon without the rest of a body there. This happens at about 00:04. How can I make a man's leg enter from the right side of the screen then his entire body enters behind the leg, still attached to it? It's like his foot and leg come into the scene first without the body visible - the leg stretches in like rubber - then SNAP his body snaps into the scene and he sneaks over on tiptoe to the dog. For the life of me I can't figure out how to make this happen... maybe because I am Portuguese

We are sometimes a little slow about things

Have the man offscreen, and just move his leg bone into the frame. If you've rigged the character the usual way, his leg should stretch along with it. Then a few frames later, move the rest of his body into position and reset the leg bone back to its proper location.

Thank you!!!! I was thinking it might be really that simple! Thank you so much for clarifying. All of you are wonderful and I so appreciate your help! I have been wanting to animate clips that teach children their alphabets for so long and ASP5 is like a dream come true. This software is a godsend. Thank you for suggesting this - I will try it tonight, and if it's successful I will post my work here on the forum. I have you all to thank... a N00b launches off to sea doing her first animation work tonight!

Your question actually has two parts.

1. Animation technique

2. Software knowledge (Anime Studio)

The scene you describe and the animation you used for the example demonstrate some common animation techniques like "squash and stretch", "exaggeration" and "follow through".

You want to understand those concepts by studying some examples of their use very carefully.

The foot "stretching in" to the scene. The body snapping in after it, that description calls for the use of squash and stretch, exaggeration and follow through.

The other part of the question involves the interaction of elements that need to be on different layers. For example the arm in front of something with the body behind. This situation requires knowledge of layers and possibly masking in ASP. This is the software knowledge area that you need.

A solution proposed was to put the parts of one character on different layers. This would require one of two solutions. Put both characters layers in one bone layer and use bone offset to control them from that one bone layer.

Or use a bone layer for each part. Then you would need to switch layers to animate.

Or you could use all point animation. Separate layers for each character and body part and animate each by point motion only.

Without some additional general knowledge of these things it would be hard to give you step by step advice on how to achieve what you want.

You are asking a difficult question that really has no straight forward or easy answer.

I would recommend doing all the tutorials for Anime Studio. Having a grasp of the software will help when you try to figure out the best way for the characters to interact.

I have found from my own experience that knowledge of the software can often lead to answers for animation questions.

For instance, when I learned that bones can be SCALED... I thought of using this for squash and stretch. The foot stretching into the scene could have several bones possibly with scale constraints. Scaling the bones would make the foot stretch and then easily put back to its original position.

Or layer scaling could be used for the sudden "snap" in of the character. By scaling the layer quickly over a few frames this could effectively simulate the stretch and squash and follow through for that part of the scene.

If you are unfamiliar with the software techniques mentioned like, bones, layer scaling, masking, layering, etc you you can see how having some more general knowledge might make it easier for us to help you.

The question is a good one... but it does involve animation techniques that must be learned and mastered by practice. Doing a bouncing ball animation, or doing a simple walk cycle etc.

-vern