Moho Forum

Look at his Virgin American safety video...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyygn8HF ... re=related


It looks very much like they are using images (pngs or whatever), but can I get this look using vector art and the sketchy look? Or... how can I get this look using vector art?

My problem with using hand drawn images is the 'cutting them out' process and scale, it's next to impossible to really cut along that outside edge of the line and keep it looking natural and not pixely or digital. And I know I could draw it directly in photoshop on a transparent layer to keep the edges integrity, but I can't capture/draw the same lines on the computer that I can by hand. Plus scale, what, I have to draw them super huge so I can use the face for a close up or scale em way down for a wide shot? Drawn at any scale I am still going to be limited. Not like I'll be able to get my hand drawn look with vectors, but I'll have more image control like squashing and stretching etc.. and most importantly scale.

When I try to use the sketchy style line it really just looks a little blurry and I find I have more luck using a brush and keeping the the line style on plain. But I can't seem to get the same results twice, sometimes it renders looking close to what I want, sometimes not. I have checked the minimize randomness button thing too to try and keep the line from 'vibrating'.

When I use the sketchy look, it gives me that popup window where I can change something between 1-8, but the outcome never looks any different. Please can someone explain this circle in the popup window, it doesn't seem to change any when I change the value(1-8), and it just looks like a circle, not particularly sketchy or anything. Also, I am trying to make my animation in HI-Def (1920x1080) Do you think that's too big for AS's sketchy look etc..? I mean, if the sketch look is 1-8 pixels.. 8 ain't much in a world of 1920... Is scaling the vectors up or down going to bone me on line quality cause i'm making the animation so big?

I haven't been able to find much on the sketchy look seaching around the forum, so I would really love any thoughts, advice, settings, image samples, links or whatever you guys have on this...
Thanks,
oliver

Hi,


This i managed to do using a brush (no 'effect')... I had to scale the lines manually on the bigger character to compensate

Kinda sketchy but not right...

...I dont think you truley CAN'T make a 'sketchy' look in vector as it not only relies on the line quality, but the randomness of transparency, thickness, and the inprecise nature of the drawing itself.

Having said that i see no reason why you couldn't get clean lines exported from photoshop... you would work on a transparent background, fill the shapes (roughly) on a sepreate layer, and export as PNG, you shouldnt get any strange edges on the lines...

you could even scan a hand drawing, make the white transparent, and fill as above - even more sketchy...

scaling is your biggest problem, your best bet would be to carefully plan your entire anymation and draw each scene at 100% of what you need it (if there is some scaling, obviously start at the biggest size)... looking at the example you posted, theres little or no scaling probably for this very reason. If you want to go this route planning is your best friend - you can't really just go straight ahead with what you believe to be a 'generic' single drawing unless you're happy it not looking perfect.

The sketchy effect works with the brushes. The only trick is that your line width should be at or below the sketchy setting to really notice it. Like sketchy of 8 and a line width of 6 or 7.

But I'm afraid there's no getting rid of the animated jitter.

You might try random line width settings on the freehand tool with a soft edge effect or something.

Just did a fast little test for a "sketchy" look: http://www.slowtiger.de/examples/penciltest.html (2 MB)

It was easy to just scribble something without a closed outline. If you choose "tampered ends" in the drawing options, every stroke will begin and end with zero line width. I defined a style first, with a brush (my own), and drew with "auto outline".

However, I can't get rid of the flickering of the brush.

Studying your example, I found several areas of possible problems. I assume that you meant the characters - right?

1. The characters were done with several strokes for one line. These are not only thick and small but also more or less opaque. While variable line thickness is easy in AS, it's not possible to have different opacity in one single stroke. I could use several styles with different stroke opacity, but that's not very intuitive to use.

2. The spot used a mixed-media approach, something between warped cutout and frame-by-frame drawing. The latter isn't easily reproduced in AS since the number of strokes will change from frame to frame. Switch layers woud help here.
Cutouts done with brushes will suffer from the flickering. I'd recommend use of images here.

There are some possible solutions. I once successfully used a texture as a mask on strokes. With a bit of adjustment you could get vector lines on "paper".

Think of a different tool. If I want to have a drawn look, I either use paper or TVPaint. The "cutting out" part is really easy. The scaling isn't a real problem since I don't plan to zoom in from an establishing shot to a face close-up. Three different sizes of characters should be enough.

Maybe you could show us some examples of your character and background design so we could be more specific in possible solutions.

Great samples guys, this was such an interesting challenge I thought I'd had a look at it myself,generally speaking slowtiger is dead right with the TV paint call.
Anyway here's an attempt using lines with an image texture applied in multiply layer mode.
It's a bit messy but I didn't want to spend too long on it.

...........................................

Wow, very nice results Chucky and Slowtiger.

Chucky, I'd love to see the details of those fills. Maybe just a file with a simple shape made in the same manor? Very convincing hand drawn look!

Here Synth, et al. I included the texture file.
You will notice to get the darkness I had to put a layer shading on the lines.
Otherwise there's strange fluctuations in the line darkness.

Download zip

nice one chucky
slows attempt looked nice too, shame about the wobbly lines, but the hand drawn look is deffinately there!

mine sucked... lol

Hey chucky, that's a really great style! Let's see a film with that ... and showcase AS with it!

ok. After not putting much effort in to this and seeing what other have done I thought i should try something else

This is a crude test... i created 3 hand sketched frames (in PS) of the 'bean' and cycled them in a switch layer (exported as PNG24)... i then added bones and played for a minute... i think this seems to work as a proof of concept and looks kinda 'trad' pencil test sketchy...

the main things i discovered is the effect is lost if your action is smoother than your flickering - i.e. if you flicker on 2s, the animation on 1's makes the picture move twice per flicker, which destroys the look... you have to flicker on 1s, and set the animation at 12 fps (otherwise flickering is too fast with 3 frames) - you could do 6 less erratic frames and animate on 1s maybe?

this could work for a character, if you did it for each cut out piece...

http://www.vimeo.com/2967320

Very interesting! Thanks for discussing this topic and for the examples.

Chucky: chapeau!
-G

I thought I would try out something with a natural sketch look too. Using brush effects for the lines does cause that animated flickering though.
The animation is too simple, looks like I'm just moving images. Trying to learn.
udd.
Here it is.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1ZP8IQB6Uc

Also can't see the paper texture on you tube.

nice one udd .

also, always nice to see a thread creator taking a keen interest in his thread

WTF Chuck!
That looks awesome!

*throws mac in the bin and goes outside to sulk*