making animations

[luk8]

Hello everyone.
I just got a question and am not quite sure that am posting it on right forum but here it goes. Am trying to make little game and i really enjoy to draw backgrounds and characters in 16 bit colors. Its really nice to see all characters and backgounds working together but unfortunatelly the high amount of detail for characters wont allow me to animate them (, well it allow me to animate them but it takes long time to finish and am a bit lazy with that technique ). Do you know some tutorials that i could search for on how to create good looking character and animate them without loosing quality of character.  (Am using adobe photoshop to create backgrounds and characters)
Thank you for your replyes

luk

[radiowaves]

Usually highly-detailed sprites are animated with simple baselines and detail is added later to avoid the messy work.

[CodeJunkie]

Hi luk,
I'm not exactly a great animator but I've picked up a few tips with walkcycles.  I find these bases quite useful for making walkcycles:

http://kafkaskoffee.com/tutorials/walkcycletut.shtml

They're not perfect but you can fix them up as you paint over them.  I find it easiest to draw one frame of the character with full details to get the look I like, then resize the walkcycle bases to match its proportions (don't worry if they look ugly).  Then I turn down the opacity of the bases so they're quite faint and with the reference lined up next to them I draw the outline of my character on a seperate layer, making sure to keep the character in the same proportions as the reference.  Then I repeat for each frame, block in the basic colours (ie 1 colour for skin, 1 for each piece of clothing, no shading) and ditch the layer with the bases.

Cut up all of your frames now and test them as an animation, keep tweaking until it looks right.  Using the reference work through each frame until it is complete, using the previous frame as a guide for shading.

[radiowaves]

Bases can be good for beginners, they can make good study sometimes but I wouldn't rely on them. You see, most such bases are quite stiff and lack any personality. I'd just say practice, watch other peoples animations frame by frame, study rips from games etc. After a while you get better and better, there isn't much more to it

[Oliwerko]

Actually, animation is really hard work and it takes long time (for me). But it is worth it. Everyone develops his own techniques, there is no ideal one. It takes many tries. In relation to detail, think ahead. Do not make your char overdetailed. And when animating, try to do it in steps, leaving the detailing as a last point. Nothing hurts more when you lose a 2-day work because of some "unnatural movement error".

Check some tuts in Tutorials Redux thread, you'll definitly find something useful.
Good luck 

[luk8]

thx guys for yours replyes much appreciated,
Oliwerko > where can i find this Tutorials Redux thread?

[Oliwerko]

Crit Lounge

[RetroJay]

I have been just making different layers and making them slightly transparent compared to the layer before.
This allows me to just see the frame before and drawing the next frame over it. I use 'Paintshop pro 9'
Is this how everyone else does it or should I be using an animation program?
If I should be using an animation package then where could I obtain one FREE from please.

[Nikolas]

Okie!

time to be the idiot here.

I was wondering how the animation shorts are being made? I mean, what programs Disney (for an extreme example), or Pixar, or anybody else (Igor maybe) uses to make a short film with animation.

Is it the obvious painful way: Draw every frame and put them in place? Are there other ways? Not interested in 3-d really, but a classic animation by... whoever, how one would go about doing it?

Cause I know that for a walkcircle you just draw 4-8-16-however many different frames and put them together (and yes, AGS can handle up to 24...). But when you have a flim, or a trailer, where there don't seem to be any loops?

Hope I make myself clear, and sorry for the idiocy, but since the thread is here, why not ask the experts, whoever they are...

[Babar]

Classic animation WAS done by the obvious, painful way. Yes, drawing every frame. Look closely at a few of the old cartoon shorts. Yes, they are loops.

Other than that, you could use flash, I suppose, or some vector/bones animation program.

[Oliwerko]

Only way I used was motion and shape tweens in flash. But only to a limited extent. If you want to animate something that is more difficult, there is probably only the painful way. Not an itiot-type question IMHO.

[MrColossal]

Disney drew everything one frame at a time and using a combination of in camera tricks they were able to make effects like opacity and glows and things.

Pixar uses Renderman: https://renderman.pixar.com/

They built that themselves from what I'm told.

For my short I used promotion, photoshop and flash. Others use 3dmax, maya, blender, and any of the other 3d staple programs along with traditional 2d or digital 2d art techniques.

It all depends on what you want!

[Igor]

Hey Nikolas,
there's lots of programs for tv 2d animation. From high-end USAnimation (i think it was now renamed to Toon Boom Opus) and Animo (both are studio oriented)... to more affordable programs like Bauhaus Mirage or Toon Boom.

However combination of Flash&Photoshop&AfterEffects is becoming more and more popular. Personaly, i like it best.

[Andail]

Lol, Eric, that was great. You have more of those?
'

[vict0r]

Yeah, Eric , that was excellent!

[radiowaves]

Moho is good for starters also, but I think you can't make superrealistic stuff with it.

[MrColossal]

Thanks! That is the only one I've made so far. I have a couple other ideas but I'm working on my AGS game now and don't want to side track!