First Animation - Tips, help, ideas?

[Olof]

In short. I got a free three weeks assignement, in which I've picked animation. I have no experience in animation at all, so I'd like some tips and ideas. My goal is to have a couple of seconds long animation in which I'm telling a story. Like a comic strip, animated. So far I've come up with some planning:

Storyboarding, character design (orthos, expressions, movement), keyframes (whatever it's called, the most expressing frames), some soundsyncing (maybe small effects, timing with a short soundtrack), backgrounds/enviroments.

I have no traditional animation equipment, except for paper, pen/pencils, scanner and cameras (which I suppose is not enough). I do have a wacom and a number of programs that I can use (school has alot of them). So far I've only tried flash, but I'm very open to suggestions if there's a better program that can use 'onionskin'.

I'm thinking about documenting my work and posting it in a thread, but I'm not sure if there's anyone here that's experienced in animaton or similar that can help me. If this is posted in the wrong section I apologize, wasn't sure where to put i.

Thankful for all help I can get!

.peace

[HunterKiller_]

I'm by no means an experienced animator, but I have studied it for two years so far, and I'm familiar with all the basics.

I'll address the biggest problem first, and that is your lack of previous experience. Animation is just another medium of art, and like all other mediums, it takes some time to become familiar with it and to feel natural doing it.

This leads to the problem of timing. Timing is arguably the most important fundamental in animation, and it takes a damn good deal of practice and experimentation to be able to conceive and mold this idea in your head, and then plan it out on paper accordingly.

On to the technicalities. Since you've no traditional equipment, traditional animation is obviously out of the question - you'll need to get your hands on an animation desk and disk, at the very least.

Flash will do fine, as long as you're experienced with it, otherwise it will take a good week of your assignment time to learn it.

Please do keep us updated with your progress. I'll be glad to assist.
Good luck.

P.S. Get your hands on a copy of "The Animator's Survival Kit" by Richard Williams.

[Olof]

Heya HK

I don't really understand what you mean by timing, the amounts of frames suitable for the gesture or timing to say a soundtrack? If you care to explain I'd be grateful.

Problem with flash is that it's not free and I'm more or less forced to animate this on school computers. Our computer administrator suggested I should try blender, which hasn't worked out well at all. I can't seem to find any documentation that it supports 2d animation, much less onionskin or drawn. Since I have some 3d experience in the program I figure it'll take more than three weeks before I can manage to get a movie out of that program.

If you know any free programs, preferably with support for onionskin and some soundediting it would help alot.

.cheers

[•Lindsay•]

Flash has a free trial.

[tensai]

if i were you i take the problems you have and use them to your advantage. you have little time, no experience using animation software and no own computer. timing is a problem.

i would make a small animation flip book. draw your key frames, and see how much you need to draw in between by just flipping through your sketches. adjustable timing as people flip through it themselves (which is something people often like). no scanning, no perfection but good old lo-res boldness.

just an idea..

[Rabid]

I agree with Tensai, take it from my 4 year BFA degree in animation. What you are proposing is possible in a semester...not in 3 weeks. I'm sure you teacher is looking for something with a little less story behind it. If your up for a challenge have a character lift a very heavy object. It is very hard to sell this and I'm sure he or she will be impressed. I hope you have the book "The Animators Survival Kit".

As for software, their are several options Ive used Mirage, Monkey Jam, Flip Book, and Flash for starter years.

Do your orthos and maybe some expressions (this should be a day). Your background should just be a single drawing that if you are using flipbook or monkey jam you can make the background layer at 50% opacity.

Another excellent gig that I found...that our professor did. (One of my favorite assignments) was charades. You would take a random action from a hat and you would have to animate a simple human character doing it. Such as swinging a bat, or changing a car tire. If you want a challenge try getting the character to get across that he is baking a cake or making a sandwich. Those deal alot more with hand gestures and your class really might like to guess.

[Olof]

Flash has a free trial.
Not free to install on school computers, thanks anyhow.


Tensai and Rabid:

I'm fairly sure that my teachers is expecting something with a story and neat looking package. I for myself want to try something new, that I believe I might end up doing in college. My goal with the assignment isn't to present a fancy movie with a story, dialogue and such.
My goal is rather just try out animating.

After these three weeks I'm more expecting to be able to show character sketches, some orthos, attempts in animation (the usual, bouncing balls etc) and short gestures with my character. I'd feel really satisfied if I would come to some basic sound editing and maybe animate in layers (with backgrounds and such).


The recent update except for my work with character sketches, is that I've spoken to the computer administrator of our school. First he tried to get me to animate in Blender which he convinced me supported 2d animating with onionskin. After an hour of tutorial googling and browsing supportforums, together with the fact I've used Blender doing 3d, I realised there was none. Spoke to the administrator again, and now he tried to convince me to use GIMP with animation plugins and then use Blender again to edit some kind of movie.

Should I just ignore this and demand him to let me install Flash?
Should I just leave my plan to animate on the computer overall and go for traditional? Is there any idea to continue?

Working night tonight. I'll go hunting for the books in the archive thread and then sketch more on my character. Tomorrow is scanday and then I have to decide what program to use.

Also, should I post my craps here or should I post it in sketchbooks/c&c? Not sure about the section rules about personal projects.


.cheers

[HunterKiller_]

I don't really understand what you mean by timing, the amounts of frames suitable for the gesture or timing to say a soundtrack? If you care to explain I'd be grateful.

I'm speaking in terms of the gesture.
How your character moves, and his mannerisms and attitude depend on your timing.
Timing boiled down is essentially, how many frames a specific action takes, but of course, there's much more. Say the character is waving. Does he do it frantically? Gently? Staggeringly? These are all things you will have think about, experiment, and plan out carefully.

I'm going to give you a few excerpts on timing, from "The Illusion of Life" by Frank and Ollie.

"The number of drawings used in any move determines the amount of time that action will take on the screen ... the personalities that were developing were defined more by their movements and their appearance, and the varying speed of those movements determined whether the character lethargic, excited, nervous, relaxed. Neither acting nor attitude could be portrayed without paying very close attention to Timing."

"Just two drawings of a head, the first showing it leaning toward the right should and then second with it over on the left and its chin slightly raised, can be made to communicate a multitude of ideas, depending entirely on the Timing used. Each inbetween drawing added between these two "extremes" gives a new meaning to the action.

[examples of the impact on this action by differing the amounts of inbetweens.]

NO inbetweens: The character has been hit by a tremendous force. His head is nearly snapped off.

1 inbetween: has been hit by a brick, rolling pin, frying pan.

2 inbetweens: has a nervous tic, a muscle spasm, an uncontrollable twitch.

3 inbetweens: is dodging the brick, rolling pen, frying pan.

4 inbetweens: is giving a crip order, "Get going!" Move it!".

...

7 inbetweens: tries to get a better look at something.

...

10 inbetweens: stretches a sore muscle."

So there you can see just how much timing and affect even the most simplest of actions.

[Olof]

I think I understand, though I bet it still hit me like a train when I realise how hard it actually is. Can't wait to start experimenting with this :)

I decided to make a thread showing my progress (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?p=1609703). Feel free to comment there instead of here.

.peace

[Wollstonecraft]

Two great programs to use:
Painter
After Effects.
You could make a nice animation in either of these easily at school.

also, clay animation: set up a camera, hook it into computer, download a free program for filming one shot at a time to make an animation. very easy.

[Vhan Juju]

MorteM, this is going to sound wierd, but its proabley the number one sujestion that i have for animation.

Get a stopwatch, and start timeing yourself doing EVERYTHING!

-opening a door
-reaching for a door
-standing up in a chair
-walking X distance
-takeing out a cell phone

I took a 3d animaiton class for video and film last year, timeing ripped me apart.

Its a whole lot easyier to plan to animate something when you know just how long it takes you to walk across a room, pick up a phone and say hello.

[Olof]

Two great programs to use:
Painter
After Effects.
You could make a nice animation in either of these easily at school.

also, clay animation: set up a camera, hook it into computer, download a free program for filming one shot at a time to make an animation. very easy.Doing it strictly 2D. I want to draw this frame by frame. Even though stopmotion and clayanimation has been interesting I won't have time for both.
MorteM, this is going to sound wierd, but its proabley the number one sujestion that i have for animation.

Get a stopwatch, and start timeing yourself doing EVERYTHING!

-opening a door
-reaching for a door
-standing up in a chair
-walking X distance
-takeing out a cell phone

I took a 3d animaiton class for video and film last year, timeing ripped me apart.

Its a whole lot easyier to plan to animate something when you know just how long it takes you to walk across a room, pick up a phone and say hello.I don't see how that could be weird? I followed this up in another thread where I'm keeping a journal of the things I've done. Just follow the link in my sig and you'll see.

I don't think I'll need to use a stopwatch. I'm using Eadward Muybridge's human body in motion, in which he has done everything you described far better than I'd ever get the time to do, while using photography. I'm not alienated of using references. I have plans to use action sequences as references and draw my own character moving the same way they're doing in the movie. Haven't got that far yet though.


Thanks for the comments tho!

.peace

[Vhan Juju]

I don't see how that could be weird?

hehe, its not really, its just that you tend to get some wierd looks when you start saying things like "Did you see my ancles or knees bend first throug theese pants?" while holding a stopwatch and timeing yoruself doing it LOL!

[Olof]

hehe, its not really, its just that you tend to get some wierd looks when you start saying things like "Did you see my ancles or knees bend first throug theese pants?" while holding a stopwatch and timeing yoruself doing it LOL!
Hah. I think I'm used to weird looks already. I've been caught staring at shadows in inapropriate places, or watching my hand band in the mirror on buses. People tend to believe I'm insane ;)

.peace