In animation, how do they...

[FlameDragon]

With the hand drawn portion of animation, what method do they use to draw a motion fluidly if the subject is very detailed? Like if it is a big bird with tons of feathers flapping it's wings. Or, how many of you watch X-Men? In the cartoon how there was the Phalanx, whose design is incredible detailed. Drawing motion of complex characters seems hard, especially with keeping everything lined up perfectly and the anatomy right for each frame.

[Elwell]

Skill.

[kev ferrara]

Effort.

[Ilaekae]

Lots of very strong coffee.

[Jabo]

Viagra for their Ulna and Radius.

[FlameDragon]

Maybe this wasn't the best topic to make...

[Seedling]

There is a reason most cel animation is simplified down to a stylized abstraction - it's tedious, time-consuming work. There aren't any shortcuts for details, I'm afraid.

It's a good question, however, even if the answers are short.

[Shadowwing]

Don't they use computers to simplify things?

[Elwell]

Yes, but it's only relatively recently that 3-d apps have been used for 2-d effects.

[FlipMcgee]

Maybe this wasn't the best topic to make...

:}

Don't have time to explain thoroughly so I'll just give you leads: rotoscoping and this link: http://www.tallgrassradio.com/toonboom/2007/04/jumping-into-animation-part-1.html

Just like drawing character or creature concept art you can start with basic shapes and forms. In other words, get your rough motion blocked in first. Then work on the structure and finer details. Research/gather references as needed. Look for Glean Keane's line tests to see how rough they look. Like this one here: http://www.1on1animation.com/fagan.swf

Besides hand animating everything you can use a scripting language like the one for Flash to animate particle fx.

[Hyskoa]

Sweatshops.

[Art_Addict]

Rotoscoping was "used" only to a very small extent. When you talk about Disney animation it basically does come down to incredible skill and dedication.
Rotoscoping produces odly enough very un-alive scenes and movements. I notice so many people nowadays thinking of animation as "moving" things, characters etc... While animating implies making something look alive ! Very big difference. Exageration of movement, weight, flow, action, acceleration and slowing down and many , many more...are all key to producing believable animation.

[Omega Iceman]

Yea the main thing in animation is to use animation principles, such as squash and stretch, anticipation and so on, but these only work best by drawing frame-by-frame IMO. Using those correctly would be a much better animation than having lots of detail instead. But as for the actual question, the first few short answers were correct. In traditional frame-by-frame animation it is just simply drawing everything over and over and you need to be dedicated, but as I said it's all about using the techniques, and some animators get away with using less frames by using good animation. I much prefer this style to all the 3D and flash animation you see these days...

[FlameDragon]

Oh ok. Because I mean that they must be really good artists to draw another character in the exact proportions and style as the original and as the other in-betweeners.

[BANNED_For_POOPY_PANTS]

FlameDragon,

I STRONGLY suggest picking up Frank Thomas & Ollie Johnston's "The Illusion of Life". It's by far the best book I've ever read on the subject of traditional animation, the Disney workflow, animation principles, and all the numbers and statistics you could ever hope for. It's one of those big coffee table books, full of incredible pictures, sketches, doodles, caricatures, cels, productions stills and more.

Best,
JonathanS

[Shpow.Iain]

Skill, team effort, MAAAANNY layers and professional programs help (say...toonboom)

[lumar]

i know that in big cartoons such as the simpsons, the main cells are drawn at home base and then the 'filler' animation that takes a lot of time drawing boring frames (eg between moving from one pose to another) is outsourced to korea or something

[Rabid]

korean anima-slave factories

[Lohan]

Doesn't Futurama use 3D? It looks like the spaceships and some props when they are doing a rotating camera scene are 3D. Anybody know if this is the case?

[Zilant]

Oh heck yes.
And more often than you think, too.

They use Maya and Poweranimator last I checked.

[Art_Addict]

Oh ok. Because I mean that they must be really good artists to draw another character in the exact proportions and style as the original and as the other in-betweeners.

Pffff... You probably mean well... I guess but....

Take the idea out of your head that that's the difficult part ! !
Drawing the exact same character is the easy part !!!!!

Deforming it constantly and still making it look believable is a little bit harder..
If you really want to know pick-up " The Illusion of life " like Jonathans suggested.

oh and why not try it yourself! Try animating the most basic thing every animator starts out with.
A bouncing ball. Just draw a circle but make it feel like a basketball..
then do another and make it look like a ping-pong ball or a heavy ball, or a rubber ball, a pool table ball,
a ball filled with water etc......
Maybe then you'll get a slight idea....