Frame by frame attempt

[Joofville]

Apologies as this was not done in Anime Studio, although I do use Anime Studio. This is my first attempt at frame by frame animation.

[neeters_guy]

Great gag and it looks pro as usual. Did it take long to make this compared to using AS?

The timing on 2s makes it look more "cartoony." I wonder if the same effect can be had if you set the keys in AS on 2s?

[Joofville]

Great gag and it looks pro as usual. Did it take long to make this compared to using AS?

The timing on 2s makes it look more "cartoony." I wonder if the same effect can be had if you set the keys in AS on 2s?

Thanks man. Yeah it took a little longer but I suppose that also comes down to how well I know the software and the learning curve. I am however enjoying fbf more than creating rigs in AS. Never tried setting keys in AS on 2s.

[funksmaname]

looks great!! Clearly you have a great natural talent for the timing of drawings and consistent drawing skills.

I still think that a good compromise can be reached with AS - instead of wasting time trying to make universal rigs that can turn around etc you combine different view points by swapping out rigs when necessary - you could fbf much rougher timing and positional information and then use that to do point animation on top. I used this method when creating much of the video below. I'm not confident I could have made my drawings consistent enough to do the thing as fbf (and it may have looked more fbf-ish had I set the frames to 2s, though this was made in AS8 without smart bones, improved onion skinning, or interval control)
My original rough fbf animation was effectively just the key poses and all inbetweens were automatically created and tweaked in AS just by matching the key positions.

The 2nd scene with the guys pushing had bones but the 'dd' frame had no bones at all due to the complex (?) body rotations. The librarian had a few bones for very broad overall movement (head tilt, hair swing) but legs and face turns were all fbf since you can't do them with bones (not before smart bones at least)



here's a little clip of the original roughs (see how rough?!) with the AS animation beside it - i found not being restricted by a rig for planning really freed up the possibilities when coming up with the movements - and that's really the major advantage of fbf. The pace, and comparatively massive gap in required drawing skill level are the disadvantages (though clearly you don't have issues with that ) and using AS as the 2nd stage instead of the 1st gives the best of both worlds imho.



btw, you don't mention what software you did use... what was it?

[Joofville]

Wow funksmaname, that's actually pretty cool. I understand the concept you are using, it's a great way to work and I will definitely try it.

How I created the above animation was to first draw out some key poses in rough, maybe 4-5 rough drawings, then on a new layer draw more key poses in between, maybe 15 roughs in key poses, then similar to what you've done I spaced out the rough key frames for timing. I then drew the main key poses and when that was done added the in-betweens. In some places I wish I had added more in-betweens but it worked out alright. The reason I am enjoying fbf more is mainly because of the style I am trying to achieve. I want to bend and stretch my characters and over exaggerate their movements which I find hard to do in AS if you get what I mean.

Anyway I used Toon Boom Studio for the above animation.

Thanks for all the compliemnts.

[funksmaname]

Yup I get what you mean - but there's a LOT more drawing involved, and I still think if you only do the first stage of rough key poses, time them, and then use them as an under layer for your actual AS work on top you will still benefit from the freedom of sketching without limits, and I'd argue that pushing the vector points to match your initial plan is a faster way of getting thing - plus the inbetweens are automatically filled in and can just be adjusted. Under these conditions you need no rigging at all - just treat your vector drawing as a malleable puppet and move, rotate and reshape it as needed - then swap it, or parts of it, to others when you can't just reshape whats there. a hybrid approach.

Don't get me wrong - I'm all for the traditional way if you can draw consistently enough, but there's also the fact its extremely unforgiving - if you decide to swap out a key pose once you've already done 15 tweens either side, all that work goes to the bin, and it might encourage you NOT to make the right decision when editing...

If you had the time and inclination, it would be interesting if you could import your initial rough keys from a section of the animation into AS and try the workflow using the same planned keys - you can compare results, change the intervals in parts to see different effects - would be very interesting to compare the time spent vs end result vs flexibility (e.g. maybe this key could push the stretch even further? ooh look, the tweens have adjusted!)

[Joofville]

Yup I get what you mean - but there's a LOT more drawing involved, and I still think if you only do the first stage of rough key poses, time them, and then use them as an under layer for your actual AS work on top you will still benefit from the freedom of sketching without limits, and I'd argue that pushing the vector points to match your initial plan is a faster way of getting thing - plus the inbetweens are automatically filled in and can just be adjusted. Under these conditions you need no rigging at all - just treat your vector drawing as a malleable puppet and move, rotate and reshape it as needed - then swap it, or parts of it, to others when you can't just reshape whats there. a hybrid approach.

Don't get me wrong - I'm all for the traditional way if you can draw consistently enough, but there's also the fact its extremely unforgiving - if you decide to swap out a key pose once you've already done 15 tweens either side, all that work goes to the bin, and it might encourage you NOT to make the right decision when editing...

If you had the time and inclination, it would be interesting if you could import your initial rough keys from a section of the animation into AS and try the workflow using the same planned keys - you can compare results, change the intervals in parts to see different effects - would be very interesting to compare the time spent vs end result vs flexibility (e.g. maybe this key could push the stretch even further? ooh look, the tweens have adjusted!)

That's exactly what I am going to try next, using your idea. I'm still a huge fan of AS. Gonna pull key poses into AS and push points like I originally worked with AS.

[Joofville]

Oh and on another note, in FBF drawing consistently is a huge problem, I haven't mastered it but what I did was keep a copy of my original pose next to any additional poses I drew for comparison, this helped a bit.

[lwaxana]

Nice animation! And interesting discussion. I have the same interest in finding a work flow between frame by frame and point animation. My past attempts to draw keys and do inking and interpolation with AS have gotten really messy and confusing. In particular, I lost a lot of visibility trying to use bone animation and point animation on the same body part. And ended up with tons of duplicate rigs for all the switches. I imagine you have to be very organized to manage that kind of work flow in a larger project.

[Joofville]

I've been racking my brain about how to best explain how I am liking FBF animation more and more, be it in TBS or Flash. Although it is more time consuming and frustrating to get a grip on it, especially with being consistent with your drawings and trust me I am not consistent at all, I often copy and past lines and adjust them. Yes it's much harder to achieve the level of smoothness tweening gives you in AS. However the level of freedom you have from one frame to the next is unparalleled. Say I have one of my characters and I decide he instantly changes into a pineapple, I simply draw out a rough sketch on the next frame on a new layer. With AS, I'll have to open photoshop draw up my ideas, import the sketch into AS then start at frame 0, build the rig then show it at the correct frame. I guess it's just two very different sets of workflows. I'm not bashing Anime Studio at all, it's the best "cutout" animating software I've tried. TBS can also do cutout's but I haven't tried that yet. I guess it all comes down to the style you like and the style you want to achieve. I'll say one thing the learning curve for FBF animation is way way higher than the "cutout" type of Anime Studio.