The Animation Mega Thread: wait, so the drawings move?

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > Creative Convention > The Animation Mega Thread: wait, so the drawings move?

«‹›4 »

neonnoodle: Mar 20, 2008; by exmarx

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLONpSrLiYk

# ¿ Jan 26, 2013 22:38

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 13, 2024 05:53

neonnoodle: Mar 20, 2008; by exmarx

Chernabog posted:

Get The Animator's Survival Kit. It is the best resource on walks/runs and animation in general.

I'm not trying to be a contrarian but I think this book is really bad for beginners. I tried working from it when I was first starting out and I couldn't make any sense of it, and I have seen the same thing happen to a lot of other beginning animators.
I think everyone needs to own it and use it eventually, but it has a lot of less-constructive qualities:
- it's dogmatic
- it's confusing, particularly when the drawings are all piled up on top of each other
- it meanders around Williams' personal history, making it hard to find specific things.

I think the Preston Blair book is a better place to start.

There is also a ton of material to download at animationmeat.com

# ¿ Mar 18, 2013 18:53

neonnoodle: Mar 20, 2008; by exmarx

Timing and spacing are pretty much THE challenge of animation. It's like, all there is. It's the only thing.
I suspect you're working straight ahead right now (drawing one frame at a time, in a forward-progressing manner). It also looks like you're working "on ones," that is, you've got your framerate set to 24fps and you're just wading right in.

Have you tried starting out on twos, setting the fps to 12 (on twos) and doing a first pass, and then bumping it up to 24 to put in more drawings and decide which ones should be exposed on twos and which drawings should be exposed for ones?

It's looking really good so far, but it's still a little fast - it probably means you just need to add some more drawings to slow down some parts of the cycle.

Faster = fewer drawings
Slower = more drawings

# ¿ Mar 19, 2013 12:51

neonnoodle: Mar 20, 2008; by exmarx

I have a super-dumb question: is there some mode of CG/3D animation which allows you to be somewhat spontaneous? I really like working straight ahead in 2D because of the organic quality of the motion and the ability to go by feel. It seems like 3D is strictly pose-to-pose, but I'm increasingly dissatisfied with the results of that approach even in big-budget features. The system which I hear they use these days in CG is:

1. Plan your scene with thumbnail sketches
2. Block in stepped mode with your keys and breakdowns
3. Move to spline, fix anything which seems hugely wrong
4. Polish

Is there some way to like, do motion capture with a sock puppet instead? Because I can make more believable emotional performance in ten seconds with a puppet I ever could hold in my hands than I can in a hundred hours of clicking the little rig handles one at a time.

# ¿ Apr 2, 2013 01:54

neonnoodle: Mar 20, 2008; by exmarx

whoops, quote is not edit.

# ¿ Apr 2, 2013 01:54

neonnoodle: Mar 20, 2008; by exmarx

Short answer: No.

Long answer: There are like 10 different versions of Toon Boom now, all of which are different prices and have different feature sets and limitations. It's really confusing, and Toon Boom also has a ton of web sites floating around with their own press releases disguised as "reviews."

The highest-tier versions of Toon Boom have decent-ish natural media textures for drawing, but if getting a Disney-ish pencil and painterly look is important to you, nothing compares to TVPaint. Also, Toon Boom uses OpenGL/GPU stuff to display the vectors of the drawings, so if you sketch with lots of little scratchy lines it slows down badly. The lower-tier versions of Toon Boom look like Flash, so harsh vectory lines. There are some Personal Learning Editions you can try to see if you like the features and interface.

If you're on Windows, you can use Plastic Animation Paper to do your actual animation, and then do cleanup/color in Photoshop, and compositing in AE or what have you. You could also do this in an old version of Flash, which you can find used.

If you're on a Mac, it's either Toon Boom or TVPaint, or else you are basically screwed unless you just want to use an old version of Flash for rough animation and do cleanup and everything else in Photoshop/AE.

EDIT: Oh yeah I forgot there is also Digicel Flipbook which is both Windows and Mac, but it's very very buggy, not great for coloring, and maxes out at 800x600 resolution ( :psyduck:

) unless you get the $700 Pro HD version, in which case just get TVPaint.

neonnoodle fucked around with this message at 01:04 on Apr 3, 2013

# ¿ Apr 3, 2013 00:58

neonnoodle: Mar 20, 2008; by exmarx

redjenova posted:

Agh, I was going to ask basically this question. Thought this would be a godsend I'm getting a bug with this that, checking their forums, is consistent with Mountain Lion Mac users and hasn't really been addressed for months. Back to the drawing board I guess.

I've been trying to use Photoshop but it's just such a pain, I don't have nearly the control I would like. Flash's interface is also really unintuitive for me. If anyone's got any tips or tutorials for using Flash (or Photoshop I suppose!) for rough animation hit me up. This is kind of disappointing

Yeah I specifically did not mention Pencil precisely because it is essentially incomplete abandonware at this point. It's really sad and supposedly there's a fork now but it's just not reliable.

For Flash rough animation, I recommend looking at Nick Cross' old tutorials--though he uses Toon Boom now.
http://www.nickcrossanimation.com/2010/03/animation-process-with-video.html

# ¿ Apr 8, 2013 04:05

neonnoodle: Mar 20, 2008; by exmarx

On the one hand, they were originally created to help coordinate animation among multiple people, including the cameraman. Nowadays if you're working completely by yourself and doing things digitally, they're not strictly necessary.

They're still useful for breaking down dialogue shots, and they give you a good idea if you're trying to cram way too much movement into too little time. They are difficult to work with as a beginner because you might not have the intuitive sense of how many frames things take yet. Traditional animators still use them, I know Eric Goldberg talks about using them still.

# ¿ Apr 14, 2013 19:47

neonnoodle: Mar 20, 2008; by exmarx

Megaspel posted:

I'm trying to get out of Flash animation because it is terrible and Adobe is terrible and I hate it it is bad.

What are the benefits and weaknesses between ToonBoom Harmony and TV Paint?

Toon Boom (whether Harmony or the Animate software) is more similar to Flash than TVP is. TB is designed with Flash users in mind, so a lot of the keyboard shortcuts are the same, the look of the timeline is similar, and the software is vector based. There is also support for symbol-like swapping and drawing reuse in Toon Boom, although there is not as deep a symbol hierarchy as you have in Flash. Flash animation at this point has kind of become its own medium with its own quirks and best practices. Toon Boom builds on the traditions which started in Flash, and improves upon them, but it's still a flavor of the same basic system as Flash. If you first learned animation by learning Flash animation, then Toon Boom is probably for you. Also, if you're a 3D native and you understand node-based compositing, there's some of that stuff in TB also.

TVP is a whole nother animal. It is based on the workflow of traditional hand-drawn animation, so if you learned how to animate on paper, TVP makes a lot of sense. It's a mind-bogglingly powerful piece of software with a ton of features and a steep learning curve. The manual is dense and occasionally confusing because the developers are French and their English isn't perfect. The drawing tools are extremely versatile and customizable. There is a scripting language and a system for making your own toolbars and custom plugins, and a pretty active user base. With TVP you pretty much have a complete animation studio in a box, from storyboard, to animatic, to rough animation, to cleanup, to color and FX.

In either TB or TVP you will probably still have to use some kind of third-party compositing software for certain FX or camera moves, or for complex soundtracks.

For professional development, I believe Flash and TB are industry-standard in the US. A few studios use TVP (Disney, for instance), but TVP is far more common in Europe, particularly in France.

# ¿ Jun 8, 2013 22:41

neonnoodle: Mar 20, 2008; by exmarx

Mister Beeg posted:

I should probably read all 22 pages of this thread to be sure, but is there anyone here who does traditional animation? I mean, actually draw on paper and stuff?

Yes.

# ¿ Jun 23, 2013 23:42

neonnoodle: Mar 20, 2008; by exmarx

DiHK posted:

Could I get some feedback on this playblast before I give it a final pass? This is intended to go on an animation reel.

https://vimeo.com/69034043

I'm sorry to be harsh, but this is very weak animation. There is a lot of "indicating" -- things which people don't do, and which a good actor would absolutely never do. For example, the double-finger-pointing accent on "you lose" followed by the arms folding, the finger pointing of the other guy. STOP FINGER POINTING. Nobody does that.

The poses are just not strong enough and should have been pushed more during blocking. This is one of the reasons that a lot of 3D animators thumbnail using pen and paper -- it's just too difficult otherwise to ensure that your pose will have a strong line of action and encapsulate all the emotional energy you want to bring to the performance.

# ¿ Jun 25, 2013 15:59

neonnoodle: Mar 20, 2008; by exmarx

I liked that second one so much I made an avatar-sized version:

# ¿ Jun 27, 2013 16:48

neonnoodle: Mar 20, 2008; by exmarx

Mister Beeg posted:

To anyone who animates with pencil, what do you use for animation paper? Personally, I just use normal copy paper (8.5 x 11) with a three-hole punch. I bought round pegbars from Lightfoot, Ltd. and use it on that.

I wanna try animating for something that's suitable for the 16:9 aspect ratio, though. Animator Milt Gray told me that he uses 11 x 17 paper for that, so I'm gonna try that next time, once my new animation lightbox arrives.

Oh Jesus. You will have a BITCH of a time rolling 11x17 or any paper larger than 12 field.
I use 12 field Ingram Bond, which is so fantastic that I do a lot of everyday drawing on it. It's very smooth and strong, and has fantastic translucency. I also use round pegbars so I bought a few reams online pre-round-punched.

12 field paper is about 10.5 x 12 inches, and depending on how detailed you work, it can be OK for wide aspect ratio. I also have a scanner with a large enough bed and document feeder to accept it, which is another thing you should consider first. Using a downshooter is OK for pencil testing, but you're probably going to have to scan your drawings eventually to do color/compositing.

# ¿ Jul 3, 2013 04:02

neonnoodle: Mar 20, 2008; by exmarx

Banque posted:

It's great that you're animating on paper, I've been seeing a few posts on here lately about it so I just wanted to share my opinion as a working animator.

If you're animating on paper for aesthetic purposes the paper you use should be appropriate for the aesthetic you're intending to communicate. If the aesthetic is pencil and paper, you're not going to improve on it by purchasing expensive animation bond which is a scam and unnecessary for anyone but a Disney animator.

If you're animating on paper to teach yourself how to animate: awesome. This is exactly what you should be doing because it is a surefire way to really understand the process, it is also completely impractical for the modern world of animation. You are essentially doubling your work overhead (punching, shooting, scanning) for roughs. Learning with a ratio guide is great too, but easy to mess up.

If you're animating on paper because of some traditionalist crap you gotta stop. As much as every animator loves paper it really is a relic of a bygone era now, it is not practical for modern workflows/budgets/productions and the infrastructure for producing traditional animation with paper and cels no longer exists. You'll impress a lot more people if you make a simple but complete animation on handmade or interesting paper than if you animate Goofy Smokes a Joint on animation bond.

That being said, use regular printer paper and a 3 hole pegbar if you want to animate on paper. It will keep your costs down and look fine vs something 4x the price labelled "animation."

Agreeing with much of this, except to say that the advantage of nice paper is that it stays way more translucent on a lightbox even with a stack like 10 sheets tall. It's also 100% cotton rag and won't turn into a wrinkled mess if you erase it and roll it repeatedly. I tried animating on regular copy paper for years and had a ton of trouble rolling the drawings and seeing through them, which was what prompted me to try the bond paper.

But yeah, I hardly ever do more than short silly things on paper these days, it's too unmanageable to deal with a zillion pieces of paper.

# ¿ Jul 3, 2013 04:12

neonnoodle: Mar 20, 2008; by exmarx

Retro Ghost posted:

Also wondering if there are any good digital programs like flash but without the lovely lines they make you have?? I love flash but I always wish the program had different brush strokes.

The answer to this is Toon Boom.

As for critique, I think it looks fine, but it's a little too fast to appreciate the viscosity of the movement. It happens really quick, like it's water. I think it should be slower and goopier.

# ¿ Sep 26, 2013 14:19

neonnoodle: Mar 20, 2008; by exmarx

Lieutenant Dan posted:

Would this be the place to ask for critiques of character designs? If not, I'll see you guys in a few weeks once I'm 100% done with the animation.

Feel free to post here, but there is also an official critiques thread.

# ¿ Dec 15, 2013 15:30

neonnoodle: Mar 20, 2008; by exmarx

Senior Scarybagels posted:

I am starting out self-teaching myself animation and here is my first attempt, a simple eye animation:

I'm not trying to be a jerk, but to me this isn't really recognizable as an eye blinking. Right now you have a perfectly even transition -- the eyelid moves exactly the same amount of distance in each frame, making a transition that has a completely uniform rate of speed. It's also really slow. If you want to learn how to animate, it would be a good idea to start with a bouncing ball exercise, to understand how spacing the drawings from each other creates the illusion of changes in momentum.

It took me about 8 years of loving around before I actually sat down and DID the bouncing ball exercise, instead of just looking at the picture in a book and thinking, "Oh, I get that, I don't need to do that, it's so simple!"

DO IT DO IT DO IT!

# ¿ Jan 3, 2014 16:09

neonnoodle: Mar 20, 2008; by exmarx

scarycave posted:

Seals love balls.

The ball exercise is probably your best bet for getting the squash and stretch polished up.
Don't know if you were going for a realistic blink or not, but people tend to blink rather abruptly - a blink never usually lasts more than a second or so. Maybe somewhere around there.

Bouncing ball is good for squash and stretch if you put that into it, but that's not really what it's for. It's for communicating the basic concept of acceleration through the spacing of drawings. You can do it with a totally rigid ball and still get the illusion of weight, speed, etc. In fact, I'd recommend that the first time you do the exercise, don't do any squash and stretch whatsoever:

# ¿ Jan 4, 2014 17:40

neonnoodle: Mar 20, 2008; by exmarx

Yeah I agree with you, just bad choice of words on my part. I think I meant the "illusion" of gravity/weight, which obviously don't exist in images. But yes, definitely the momentum part is real!

# ¿ Jan 4, 2014 22:11

neonnoodle: Mar 20, 2008; by exmarx

Ccs posted:

Blocked in animation for a weight lift. Any suggestions on poses and timing would be appreciating, since I might transition this to CG.

As both animator and oly lifter I have suggestions! Warning: some of these suggestions will be more :spergin:

than others.
Did you use much video reference for this piece? If not, please do. When performing the snatch, particularly with the humongous weight you have implied there, the lifter stays in the ready position (with hands on the bar, knees bent) usually for a number of seconds. That extra anticipation will help sell the hugeness of the weight. Also, the rise up to finished position from the full overhead squat is usually pretty slow, even for (in fact, especially for) the pro lifters.

With that amount of weight, there will be some wobbling of the bar.

I agree with scarycave's point about the lifter trying to compensate/adjust under the weight as it goes forward.

# ¿ Feb 3, 2014 15:43

neonnoodle: Mar 20, 2008; by exmarx

OK, please bear with me on this because it's kind of sketchy:

(The ending is simplified obviously.)

This pose is the one I was talking about earlier --

This is a really important pose to hold on because the taut-straight arms show the resistance of the weight. People lifting heavy will sometimes shake in this position, and don't rise up from here without a bit of delay.

Then there is this part, which I have here one pose at a time so you can see it:

In the top of the "catch" part of the snatch, the lifter's chest comes way out, his/her head goes backwards, and the inertia of the weight carries the heels off the ground so that the lifter is now in a tiptoe position. The spacing between these drawings is close, because there's a bit of "hang time" before the abrupt last pose, the bottom catch/squat.

# ¿ Feb 4, 2014 01:03

neonnoodle: Mar 20, 2008; by exmarx

TVPAINT
TVPAINT
TVPAINT
TVPAINT

# ¿ Feb 9, 2014 21:47

neonnoodle: Mar 20, 2008; by exmarx

~~It is possible to animate in Photoshop, although it's practically impossible to do much more than a short clip.~~ If you're on Windows, go get Plastic Animation Paper, which is now freeware. On a Mac, I believe there's now a desktop version of Animation Desk, which seems OK despite being obnoxiously skeuomorphic.

*EDIT: OK you know what? Actually animating in PS CS6 is completely do-able. I'm going to make a tutorial for it I think.

neonnoodle fucked around with this message at 16:23 on Feb 10, 2014

# ¿ Feb 10, 2014 15:41

neonnoodle: Mar 20, 2008; by exmarx

Dr Solway Garr posted:

It means you won't be able to immediately preview your animation as you draw, but that's not necessarily a terrible thing, especially if you're looking to improve you animation skills.

That is a terrible thing

# ¿ Feb 10, 2014 20:41

neonnoodle: Mar 20, 2008; by exmarx

Dr Solway Garr posted:

If you've ever seen somebody over the age of 40 or so animating, they are goddamn wizards.
Everybody had to animate that way for a good 90 years before computers really got much use, and it meant actually thinking about and planning your drawings in a way that doesn't really happen when you're using flash or TvPaint.

Of course in production you use whatever you can to get the work done as efficiently as possible, but if you're learning, then I think the super quick playback in modern software actually encourages animation by trial and error rather than thought.

In the olden days they could roll the paper to see the drawings in motion.

# ¿ Feb 10, 2014 22:10

neonnoodle: Mar 20, 2008; by exmarx

redcheval posted:

I got linked this one today, it's really excellent. A little confusing if you're new to PS or new to the idea/video layers in general but it's going pretty well for me!

Yeah, that's a good tutorial. The only thing I'd do differently is do cleanup and color by turning each rough drawing into a smart object. Then you can have an intact layer structure for each drawing, which to me is more organized. All phases of the final frame (rough, cleanup, color, effects) are within that package, so the linework can't get separated from the color, etc. by the video layers getting rearranged.

# ¿ Feb 12, 2014 15:46

neonnoodle: Mar 20, 2008; by exmarx

# ¿ Feb 25, 2014 22:39

neonnoodle: Mar 20, 2008; by exmarx

nikochansan posted:

I guess I can post this here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WETXIPtwDXQ
It isn't really animation yet, though, just poses

These poses are great! Can't wait to see more.

# ¿ Feb 27, 2014 15:41

neonnoodle: Mar 20, 2008; by exmarx

Ruff stuff from this afternoon

# ¿ Feb 28, 2014 23:30

neonnoodle: Mar 20, 2008; by exmarx

Smolt, yeah those do look like they're running pretty fast. But otherwise are you getting the purpose of them and how the spacing of the drawings works?

I only ask because I struggled through that book for literally a decade before I actually got the point of what it all meant. I wish and hope others don't have such a slow go of it, and after finally FINALLY getting his process I want to help other people get to it faster.

# ¿ Mar 8, 2014 03:51

neonnoodle: Mar 20, 2008; by exmarx

bitmap posted:

you know, I thought about it and I don't want to come in here saying what's good and what's not. You should just use whatever works for you. I recommend something with smooth, accessible playback. TvPaint isn't perfect but it's the best option for me in a woefully under-catered to software market. If photoshop added a better timeline and an onionskinning feature which didn't involve me manually setting the opacity of individual layers and groups, every single animator I know would throw their money at the adobe store so quick that the bank would freeze the account for suspicious activity.

The newest versions of PS finally have a slightly better frame management interface on the timeline, but yeah, playback just isn't there.

You know, TVP is expensive and all, but you own that goddamn license and the software development team will actually listen to you personally, teach you how to use it, fix bugs and add features based on user requests. I'm much much happier giving them my money. Everything Adobe does is increasingly bloatware, and the new CC rent-seeking bullshit is kind of the last straw.

I DON'T WANT TO HAVE FOUR TRAY PROGRAMS RUNNING JUST TO EDIT A GIF NO I DO NOT WANT TO UPDATE THE UPDATER AAAAAA :supaburn:

As for Flash�there was a time long ago when having a sub-1MB SWF could make or break your ability to show your animation on the web. It's now 2014 and I can stream a full-length movie in 4K. Disk storage is effectively free. To me, the advantages of working in a vector-based program are diminishing compared to the potential offered by the full range of lush artistic richness you get in a raster program. Flash is miserable. I respect the people who learned on that program and make it do amazing things, but I hope Flash's days are really coming to an end soon...

# ¿ Mar 10, 2014 14:13

neonnoodle: Mar 20, 2008; by exmarx

That is tight. I like the dotted line effect. Is that just a fixed-width pen you used and mixed it up as you cleaned up?

# ¿ Mar 11, 2014 14:50

neonnoodle: Mar 20, 2008; by exmarx

Are you on Mac or Windows (or Linux)?

For Mac there's Animation Desk, which I've never used but people seem to like. For Windows, use Plastic Animation Paper. Speaking of which --

Good news, everyone, the PAP team is making a new version, OSX native. Watch that site for updates.

# ¿ Mar 15, 2014 14:48

neonnoodle: Mar 20, 2008; by exmarx

scarycave posted:

So, here's this crow:

So far, I'm pretty okay with the wings and body shape (save for some clean up, and a need to make a new wing shape for when the crow has landed) but the legs. I absolutely hate the legs. I'm probably going to redraw them but I wouldn't mind if someone could give me something of an explanation why they are so terrible.

As far as I'm concerned, CC is a great place to post works in progress, so don't feel bad at all.

For one thing, you have the legs on backwards. Bird legs are weird. Their knees are up inside the body, so what you see is the shin and foot, i.e., the ankle.

# ¿ Mar 19, 2014 14:54

neonnoodle: Mar 20, 2008; by exmarx

bitmap posted:

Speaking of going the right way about learning how to animate...scarycave, you're really making a lot of stuff, and I know you're just "going for it" like the advice you gave a few posts down(AND I ADMIRE YOUR SCRAPPY SPIRIT) but it's probably time to pick up the animators survival kit and learn those core principles. This is a helpful thing to say and not a jerky thing.

# ¿ Mar 19, 2014 23:28

neonnoodle: Mar 20, 2008; by exmarx

All I ever do now in this thread is tell people to get TVPaint in every post.

# ¿ Mar 20, 2014 01:24

neonnoodle: Mar 20, 2008; by exmarx

Koramei posted:

Bitmap have you ever considered streaming/ recording your process in TVPaint so I can just copy you rather than having to learn on my own

I'm gonna do this on YouTube, fwiw.

# ¿ Mar 22, 2014 15:36

neonnoodle: Mar 20, 2008; by exmarx

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G43wDXdPVaQ

Inbetweened for an hour. Yesterday I made a long video about some TVP interface stuff, but it was kind of all over the place, so I'm going to revise it a bit and post it later.

neonnoodle fucked around with this message at 14:05 on Mar 24, 2014

# ¿ Mar 23, 2014 18:50

neonnoodle: Mar 20, 2008; by exmarx

I'm interested even though you didn't ask me. :blush:

You can e-mail me at sa.neonnoodle@gmail.com if you want.

# ¿ Mar 27, 2014 20:23

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 13, 2024 05:53

neonnoodle: Mar 20, 2008; by exmarx

Just curious, is this on 2's? Because 40-50 seconds of rough animation per month is pretty intense.

# ¿ Mar 27, 2014 21:30

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > Creative Convention > The Animation Mega Thread: wait, so the drawings move?

«‹›4 »