JibJab Style Animations

[ACER]

How do you make them?

[rylleman]

You animate them.

Use bitmap images which you've separated in proper parts in some image editing software (photoshop), import into Moho (AS), then rig them and animate.

[LittleFenris]

How do you make them?

You search this forum and maybe even follow along with the tutorials for AS to learn how to use the program. There are plenty of examples of JibJab style stuff floating around here.

Simply put RTFM.

[myles]

Hello Acer,

To expand on rylleman's concise reply:

Firstly, read this article by Ibis Fernandez on preparing 2D models for animating in Flash.

To get a similar effect in Anime Studio, you have to do the same things with your photographs, cutting them into pieces in an external program (Photoshop, PhotoPlus, Photopaint, PhotoImpact, Artweaver, or whatever you would normally use).

(Use the clone/stamp tool and other tools to replace missing parts of shapes and limbs - probably ask the forum for your particular photo manipulation tool if you need help with this part.)

Make sure each piece has a transparent background (usually this shows as a light gray checkerboard background in most image manipulation programs), not just the white background which some eraser tools create.

Save/export each piece from your photo manipulation program as PNG format, either 32-bit or 24-bit+alpha (possible also known as truecolour+transparency).

Then in Anime Studio you need to create a skeleton and import each piece and assign it to a bone. See Tutorial 4.1 for a simple example. You may also need to do the first 3 sets of tutorials to understand some of the concepts in Tutorial 4.1 (such as creating a skeleton and getting the bone hierarchy correct).

Anime Studio only takes a single pre-prepared soundtrack - you'll have to do that in another program, or composite your AS shots and sound in a video editor.

Regards, Myles.