http://www.youtube.com/AnimatedLane
When AS Pro came out, I was so involved in illustration projects that months went by before I ever used the upgrade. Here is the first pop out of the bucket with version 6. I've only had one issue on my OSX 4.11 Intel Mac. If an audio track is not turned on when I first start up a session, ASP immediately crashes when I turn the audio on later. This is regular. Otherwise it's been very stable, like an Adobe app.
ANYWAY. Go see the first installment of America's Pop Star Penalty Round, and leave lots of comments, make me a friend/contact on YouTube. Please mention that you're from this forum. In the vernacular of Eddy Haskell, "give me the business" (not a money thing, if you ever watched Leave it to Beaver).
America's Pop Star Penalty Round
Moderators: Víctor Paredes, Belgarath, slowtiger
Frame by Frame
It's a standard ASP bone rig. However, if you took a casual look at the timeline it might look frame by frame. In effect, ASP still provided considerable time savings with bones and point morphing.
My ideal is Ollie Johnston animating Tramp. My reality may reach Fog Horn Leg Horn. Still, I'm glad you liked it.
My ideal is Ollie Johnston animating Tramp. My reality may reach Fog Horn Leg Horn. Still, I'm glad you liked it.
-
Víctor Paredes
- Site Admin
- Posts: 5661
- Joined: Wed Jan 26, 2005 12:18 am
- Location: Barcelona/Chile
- Contact:
Key poses
I used switch layers a lot when I first started getting serious about ASP (then Moho). But, eventually I found that switch layers cannot be subtle enough without creating more switch layers (more work). So I just stick to fundamentals. If a shot has a lot of moving and turning, I first draw key poses that I import, making the pose visible at the correct frame in the action. I animate the bones to the key poses first. Then I go back and worry about the points having the correct shape.selgin wrote:It's really good. I love the turns and changes of position.
Can you explain a little how did you get that softs body turns?
I mean, did you use switch layers, several models with on/of visibility or it's all the magic of animate points?
I really want to know your approach.
I might have 3 different right arms [for example] in different layer orders that I match the previous layer's point up to. I then control layer visibility for which version of any body part should show at a specific time. This takes a few more seconds to make this kind of edit. However, I can always go back and make more changes. Animated layer reordering does not like any changes. I use animated reordering, but it has to be the very last thing.
I know this sounds very pedestrian and tedious, but I actually get quicker, better work by staying committed to simple techniques. I'm not technically gifted like Vern. I have to depend on just my eyes for animation. I save my intellect for ridiculous arguments about politics, global economics and lots of other crap I can't do ANYTHING about. Honestly, playing the key poses with the audio and spending time with those drawings at the beginning, I don't think anyone will argue, that's one of the most efficient and quality oriented things you can do.
I'm really glad about the positive remarks coming from forum members. My favorite part was the audio contribution for Ms. Mole. That track was very motivating to work with.
Please, please, please, grab those words in a iron sheet with fire!So I just stick to fundamentals. If a shot has a lot of moving and turning, I first draw key poses that I import, making the pose visible at the correct frame in the action. I animate the bones to the key poses first. Then I go back and worry about the points having the correct shape.
There are not more secrets! Draw key poses, import, fit poses with bones and fine tune poses and in-between with points...
Problem: draw good poses and place them in a good timing. <<< Here is where animation masters come in.
BTW, very beautiful animations
-G
-
Víctor Paredes
- Site Admin
- Posts: 5661
- Joined: Wed Jan 26, 2005 12:18 am
- Location: Barcelona/Chile
- Contact:
Thanks Jwlane, it was similar to the answer I guess 
I have a similar approach, but never have been suficiently brave to get that kind of complex different poses.
It's very inspiring, just like all you have published on youtube.
Sometime ago I decided to stop trying to create perfect rigs. The fancy part of animation is made by hand. I'm not against bones, I use them a lot for pretty complex rigs, they are great for the hard part, but the tiny magic details come from points.
I have a similar approach, but never have been suficiently brave to get that kind of complex different poses.
It's very inspiring, just like all you have published on youtube.
Sometime ago I decided to stop trying to create perfect rigs. The fancy part of animation is made by hand. I'm not against bones, I use them a lot for pretty complex rigs, they are great for the hard part, but the tiny magic details come from points.
Re: tiny details
That's so true. The great animators like Johnston and Thomas communicated a tremendous amount through a slight curve in a character's shape. This is why I gave up on trying to make the bones control everything. Parts like forearms can hugely benefit from little adjustments. I've enjoyed watching Balinese dancing and Tai Chi because someone good can slow down the body mechanics like a slow-motion camera.selgin wrote:. . .but the tiny magic details come from points.
TUTORIAL TUTORIAL TUTORIAL!....I just can't believe it is not butter...I mean, frame by frame. If you have time I'd love to see a tutorial on how you achieved such fluid movement and turns.
joelstoryboards.com - (WinXP SP3, ASP 6.1)
Butter
When I have a little more time, I'll make an illustration or two for how I'm working. But I swear, you'll say "That's it?". Like I posted above, my timelines have so many key frames that they look like frame by frame. I just don't have to set every point on every frame. That's where the good Anime Studio point morphing comes in.
I'd like to note here that the curve controls that Anime Studio uses work the same way that roto-splines in Adobe After Effects work. If you're tracking a matte in After Effects, roto-splines go a LOT faster than old methods using auto keying (we're talking non-blue screen here) and raster painting. This is why we have these splines instead of bezier handles.
Here's something that I use all the time. While I'm drawing splines, I take any group that I can see will be difficult to grab later, and I make point groups (tagging) that I can then easily select by menu. A lot of the time a slight rotation or scale of a point group is all that's needed. You see more keyframes in the timeline, but it took seconds. Leave them selected (after the bones have been animated) and quickly check the entire shot. Even if you have to move the group many times, it's a group, they're already selected, the bones won't throw them out of whack because that's done. Before you know it, you're done. If there's a trick, it's letting things like points look haywire until it's their turn to be worked on. If I bounce back and forth between points and bones, I'll do a lot of work at least twice, ick. Really, that's it.
Thank you for the interest. I appreciate it.
I'd like to note here that the curve controls that Anime Studio uses work the same way that roto-splines in Adobe After Effects work. If you're tracking a matte in After Effects, roto-splines go a LOT faster than old methods using auto keying (we're talking non-blue screen here) and raster painting. This is why we have these splines instead of bezier handles.
Here's something that I use all the time. While I'm drawing splines, I take any group that I can see will be difficult to grab later, and I make point groups (tagging) that I can then easily select by menu. A lot of the time a slight rotation or scale of a point group is all that's needed. You see more keyframes in the timeline, but it took seconds. Leave them selected (after the bones have been animated) and quickly check the entire shot. Even if you have to move the group many times, it's a group, they're already selected, the bones won't throw them out of whack because that's done. Before you know it, you're done. If there's a trick, it's letting things like points look haywire until it's their turn to be worked on. If I bounce back and forth between points and bones, I'll do a lot of work at least twice, ick. Really, that's it.
Thank you for the interest. I appreciate it.
-
DarthFurby
- Posts: 510
- Joined: Sat Jul 29, 2006 1:34 pm
- Location: New York City
- Contact:
Nice work! Has a classical animation feel to it. I thought the Bear scene was the best. Your drawing/illustration skills are really strong. Just out of curiosity, how long did it take to animate the bear? I'm assuming you used point motion alone, all manual. Maybe a bone or two. I think Greykid works that way too.
Bear Bones
It's nice to hear you enjoyed it. The bear character had a full skeleton. I used a LOT of bone scale. With points assigned to their respective bones, instead of just being in an influence zone, this works very well for foreshortening.
I made two heads for this particular setup, with the mouth pointing up and with it pointing down. This took care of certain jaw issues. Also, I've gotten to the point where I rarely make the foot bones children of a hip bone. Unless I really need it, I forgo shine bones and instead make a bone to hold the points around each knee together. A long time ago I saw some early users that had master parent bones outside the character's body. This is handy. I'm not using any scripts. It's just the normal parenting tool.
Primary animation for the bear was about 16 - 18 hours. Shadows and highlights in After Effects doubled that. Character setup in ASP was not quite a regular day. This does not include drawing backgrounds and the initial key poses. Key poses were pretty simple since the bear doesn't run around the set.
As my current schedule allows, I'm working on another character that will be a little different. The head and main body (with shadows) are bone controlled. There are wings on this creature that are point to point, and mostly frame by frame. This is still faster than drawing each frame. I've made bird wings with natural looking flapping feathers controlled by bones. this has a bit more drama. After about three years I've just now discovered more ways to use masking (call me swifty). The current production will hopefully eliminate a lot of time 'shading' the character in After Effects.
I made two heads for this particular setup, with the mouth pointing up and with it pointing down. This took care of certain jaw issues. Also, I've gotten to the point where I rarely make the foot bones children of a hip bone. Unless I really need it, I forgo shine bones and instead make a bone to hold the points around each knee together. A long time ago I saw some early users that had master parent bones outside the character's body. This is handy. I'm not using any scripts. It's just the normal parenting tool.
Primary animation for the bear was about 16 - 18 hours. Shadows and highlights in After Effects doubled that. Character setup in ASP was not quite a regular day. This does not include drawing backgrounds and the initial key poses. Key poses were pretty simple since the bear doesn't run around the set.
As my current schedule allows, I'm working on another character that will be a little different. The head and main body (with shadows) are bone controlled. There are wings on this creature that are point to point, and mostly frame by frame. This is still faster than drawing each frame. I've made bird wings with natural looking flapping feathers controlled by bones. this has a bit more drama. After about three years I've just now discovered more ways to use masking (call me swifty). The current production will hopefully eliminate a lot of time 'shading' the character in After Effects.
-
patricia3d
- Posts: 726
- Joined: Thu May 31, 2007 4:38 am
- Location: India
- Contact:
Mole Turn
So glad more people find this piece entertaining.
360 turns are easy to do two ways:
1. You can make switch layers that have all the necessary 'parts' facing other ways. Then, move the points very close to matching the same contours at the switch point.
2. Create all the body parts on separate layers. When something like an arm needs to be on the other side of a torso, re-order the layer to be behind it. Save this for doing last. Turn off color fills while working, so you can see everything before it's time to re-order layers. When things like eyes go behind the head (during the turn), turn off their visibility in the layers palette. You'll see this turn into a keyframe in the timeline. Or, you can simply drag elements out of frame. But, be careful. They will probably be linked to a bone that could move them back in unintentionally.
After playing with this for awhile, you may decide to use both methods at once; separate layers for body, arms and legs; switch layers for face parts and props - for example. Find a new combination as switch layers can also contain their own bones.
If you use bone scaling to fake depth, 3D space on Y axis (Blender swaps Y for Z, which is different than many other 3D apps, but works better with some real world camera control heads), then all you have to do is think about keeping the parts looking correct over the bones. Think of them as sprites, or continuously oriented image mapped polygons.
360 turns are easy to do two ways:
1. You can make switch layers that have all the necessary 'parts' facing other ways. Then, move the points very close to matching the same contours at the switch point.
2. Create all the body parts on separate layers. When something like an arm needs to be on the other side of a torso, re-order the layer to be behind it. Save this for doing last. Turn off color fills while working, so you can see everything before it's time to re-order layers. When things like eyes go behind the head (during the turn), turn off their visibility in the layers palette. You'll see this turn into a keyframe in the timeline. Or, you can simply drag elements out of frame. But, be careful. They will probably be linked to a bone that could move them back in unintentionally.
After playing with this for awhile, you may decide to use both methods at once; separate layers for body, arms and legs; switch layers for face parts and props - for example. Find a new combination as switch layers can also contain their own bones.
If you use bone scaling to fake depth, 3D space on Y axis (Blender swaps Y for Z, which is different than many other 3D apps, but works better with some real world camera control heads), then all you have to do is think about keeping the parts looking correct over the bones. Think of them as sprites, or continuously oriented image mapped polygons.