calling animators for brain picking.

[Queen Firey-Bou]

Hello dear sweet neglected boarders, too long have i ignored you, but Lo!  i need advice and thus am back, dear sweetykins's,

I'm looking for volunteers to be brainpicked in the subject areas of animation etc.

I am making a 3 minute animation film, the deadline is the Inverness film festival 4th November. I have NO experience or equipment and the first meeting with the filmaker, funders , judges who selected the films etc waS yesterday. EEEEK !

ive done script, characters, a couple of anamatics, some layouts.

sooo this week i need to buy a PC ( staying within tight budget ),

choose & buy ( or find ) software from CELACTION, BAUHAUS/Mirage; TOONBOOM/Chromacolour, get trained to use it.

suss out storyboarding & do it,

start digging out music score & sounds & decide if i want any voice on it.

anyone point me to examples of storyboarding ? recommend software, volunteer to be harrassed for further info in general, gimmie their expert input ?

Thankyou.

[johnnystress]

whew- not a lot of time!

Id say the best advice is to not overstretch- keep it simple- simple shapes and storytelling

Try googling "storyboard gallery" and you'll find a lot of examples

One of the single best I've ever seen is on Dermot Powers site- the storyboard section > fear.com> subway

But this is very , very detailed-you dont need to go to this extreme

I used a program called 'softoons'

But this was a long time ago

Ade bamforth is the man to ask i reckon

Link: http://dermotpower.com/" target="_blank">subway

[Woolly]

Recommended software for storyboarding is anything that will draw an empty oblong box and print it out! 2 or so per piece of A4 should be fine, and leave a blank gap below each one so you can write in any notes or script or music ideas.

The storyboard is just a big comic where all the panels are the same size. Use them to work out framing, camera angles, where any edits will be, how the camera will move, etc. Just remember not to be too precious about them and use them more as guidelines for your shots.

Cannea help with any of the software you mentioned, but hopefully the above will help!

Good luck Bou!

[CraveNoir]

I assume the style will be quite simple, even so...

The best bit of advice I can think of is to never draw what can be moved, scaled or rotated.

As an example, imagine a character walking side-on, or towards the camera. If seen from the waist up all that needs to be animated are the arms swinging. Any bobbing up and down movement can be done easy in the software by bobbing its layer up and down over time.

Always have movement. Even if it's just the camera moving.

Do the most important and simplest stuff first. Any complicated stuff will be an uphill struggle if you're also learning the software. Leave what can be discarded until last as you may not have time to do it.

Use layers as much as possible to keep drawing time down. An obvious and crude example is a talking head where only the mouth moves.

If a character is talking, don't worry about phonemes! Fussing over specific mouth shapes for syllables produces stilted movement. All that matters (aside from the character's mood) is mouth width and height, and hitting the FV and MBP shapes where necessary. The up/down of jaw movement may be important depending on the style of character. Just watch or film yourself saying the line as it will be in the film and see how your mouth slides between wide and narrow, open and closed.

Everything you'll ever need to know about animation can be found in Richard Williams' book The Animator's Survival Kit.


Useful links:

http://www.cartoonbrew.com

http://www.animationnation.com

http://www.awn.com

[Adrian Bamforth]

For a good storyboard to look at why not read  2000AD evey week? Storyboards are almost exactly the same.

The simple principles of animation are this:

The slower you want something to move, the smaller the changes you should make from frame to frame, i.e. small gaps between objects as the move. The faster you want things, the bigger the changes.

Anticipation: Things that move fast tend to start slow and speed up. When things come to a stop then tend to slow down first(unless they're hitting something fast). This is especially applicable with human movement. If you anticipate fast movement by starting slow (i.e. make smaller changes at first) the viewer isn't as taken by surprise by the movement and you can be go ahead and be dramatic (i.e. make bigger changes to depict speed and force).

Squash and stretch: Another good way of making objects and physics seem real is to make things squash when hitting the ground and stretch when projecting forward or being pulled. Take a bouncing ball: When hitting the ground it should go flat, when flying upward it should stretch in the directing it's flying.

ADE

[Buddy]

Are you doing stop motion or cel animation??

[OldOne]

Hi Bou

Some great tips on the basics of good animation technique can be found at the site of Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston, who were two of the pioneering Disney animators. Link below

Also, be sure to check out a book called The Animator's Survival Kit by Richard Williams- it's a beauty!

Link: http://www.frankanollie.com/AnimationTips.html" target="_blank">http://www.frankanollie.com/AnimationTips.html

[ThryllSeekyr]

I only just installed a copy of the ToonBoon Studio V3.0 demo from compouter magazine CD a few days back.

Once I got the tutorial started I was was dissappointed to find that it was only just a short video showing you the very basics.

The lady ( narrating.) Draws a ball moving down at a 45 degree angle and squashing itself and then boucing back up towards the top. Then She went through some cmaera mvement rotating cmara around the ball and then bzooming out while it's bouncing. Sh then coloured it.

I was hoping for in game step by step tutorial, as thats way to much information for me to remember all at once.

I procceded with doing the ball thing and haven't got back to it since then. It's only a fifteen day trial though.

I think the full verison of this software is  a couple of hundred dollars, though you may find a cheaper version. I didn't think it was really advanced. Not like Weta Digital. ( You know Lord of the Rings.)

I think it's all up to you drawing/sketching paitning ability and patience.

[ThryllSeekyr]

BY the way, I'm not a animater, but I would be interested in trying.

There's also a bit of 'StoryBoarding' software that can be purchased also. I'm not sure of the advantages of this program though.

[johnnystress]

as wooly says up there a bit, you dont need software for story boarding . Just draw a rectangle with some space below it(for notes/instructions) and copy it- one rectangle for each frame

[johnnystress]

heres a list of software programs, 2D and 3D, some free some just demos

might be something of use

Link: http://animation.about.com/od/referencematerials/a/freesoftware.htm" target="_blank">Animation software

[Queen Firey-Bou]

Thanks guys , theres some great stuff & links coming in. busy busy ! talk about pressure, still its one way to get around to things.

I'm working with a filmmaker mentor who's done all sorts including post production on when the wind blows & farthing wood etc. i think she selected the choice of software on criteria of cost, simplicity to pick up & versitility, in the longer run theres stuff like animation-pro etc.

umpty, its gonna be 2d drawn digitally, so not every frame, like old cell stylee, cos the computer will do certain movements etc, problem being i can't even draw on computers... but hey.

heres a scene thing, is that what you call an anamatic ?

yeah thanks guys.http://www.balnacra.com/art/wolfgal.jpg">

[ThryllSeekyr]

Johhny Stress,

 That what I figured, unless the storyboards program has more bells and whistles to offer, however inconceiable it may be.

Queen Fiery-Bou

Looks good, you may wanna check out the competion thread for some neat art.

[Steve Green]

Hi,

An animatic is just a storyboard cut to the timing of the actual piece. It may also contain basic camera moves and animation (really basic, like 2 frames)

Sometimes it might go through a couple of stages, from the drawn version of the storyboard, to rough animations done in your animation package.

I worked on Monkey Dust for the BBC, doing 3D backgrounds. But the principle's the same.

My mate who was doing the 2D, used Premiere for cutting the animatic, but you could use any editing package really. There is a dedicated storyboard programme coming out which makes this kind of thing easier, but I can't remember what it was called.

Cheers,

Steve

[johnnystress]

looks really nice bou!

i THINK THE LIMITED ANIMATION STYLE OF THE SHOWS THE bbc USED TO SHOW WOULD REALLY SUIT THIS

(aargh caps lock)
I cant think of a specific example- fairy tales from around the world, jackanory type stuff maybe

I dont think youd need to fully animate it but have nice transitions between these types of drawings-and panning/zooming camera trickery, could be very effective