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general animation process

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general animation process

ok, i'm a total animation newbie. i know basic stuff, but not much. can anyone go through the general process? maybe any important things to know. how would i take my drawings, and film them?

thanks for humoring my ignorance.

Spoooze! You forgot books on animation.

Oh ya, I forgot, here's some good ones:

Illusion of Life

The Animators Survival Kit

Preston Blair's Cartoon Animation

Those are probably best.

Spoooze!

Hey PickleWeed

Hello. i think you might be new to animation. what type of animation do you liek and Do you Draw? if you do what is your work and what do you want to do in the future?

i love both 2d abd 3d animation. i like anime's body and clothing designs, but most of the faces are blah. cowboy bebop was good, evangelion, sailor moon (yeah i know) were too.... disney films are great. any pixar film, nightmare before christmas, simpsons, 80's cartoons, looney tunes, wallace and gromit....

i do draw, but it tends to be in a more realistic comic book-ish style.
i'd love to create an animated film based off a comic book i'm doing, but i have to start from the bottom floor ya know.

i saw someone's animation of a girl sitting in the trees, and wind blowing the branches (whover that was, great work on the re-do) and i got inspired. i would like to create simple things like that to get my feet wet. but aside from just drawing, i'm not sure where to go.

i seperate background, and foreground elements, right? and in an animation program, they would have layers correct? do you just use a light table, or maybe tracing paper to line up backgrounds? actual cels, and how much are they? how would you take the physical pages and get them onto film (scanning the in 1 by 1?)

what exactly is a pencil test? should i do rough sketches in nonphoto blue, and then go over in regular pencil? should i ink?

i've got so many questions. thanks in advance for any answers.

i seperate background, and foreground elements, right? and in an animation program, they would have layers correct? do you just use a light table, or maybe tracing paper to line up backgrounds? actual cels, and how much are they? how would you take the physical pages and get them onto film (scanning the in 1 by 1?)

what exactly is a pencil test? should i do rough sketches in nonphoto blue, and then go over in regular pencil? should i ink?

i've got so many questions. thanks in advance for any answers.

Yes, seperated background and foreground and yes in an animation program it would put those layers together for you.

You would have to buy of make an animation desk and disc plus animation hole punched paper (Google it) they aren't real expensive either.

As for cells unless you really want to use them and hand paint/ink them you can just paint your drawings in the computer. You'd need a scanner to get them in the computer but you can just buy those at your local office store. You'd paint the drawings in a program like Flipbook or something like that.

Spoooze!

Layers

Well, I am working with layers in Painter 7. I was trying to produce the animation this way, but found it was not possable. So I have to use the built in animation feature. Is there a way to handle layers, so I can get the action the way I wont it, then movie it over to be animated. In the help file there is something about numbered files, but there is no way to batch load files into the software.

Isn't Flipbook just a simple program for printing out actual flipbooks? Is it any kind of real software for producing animation?

flip book is real animation software, and has nothing to do with making "flipbooks". It's actually mainly pencil test software, pretty sure its not able to do any color or clean up work (as far as I know). It has a nice x-sheet type interface and allows you to add sound tracks, it's what we primarily use at SCAD.

www.MattOrnstein.com
Character Animator - Lucas Arts

Life drawing books are also a very good source to use towards animation.

If you are too lazy to DIY for your disc and you are looking for a great place to get supplies, I highly recommend:

www.lightfootltd.com
www.cartoonsupplies.com

Guess what?... I've got a fever... and the only prescription... is more cowbell.

Here's how I do my stuff, I'm NOT an expert animator but I know the general process:

1. Draw the storyboards

2. Record the voices

3. Make your background then either hand or digitally color them

4. Animate all scenes 12-24 frames per second and shoot the line tests to make sure your animation works (shoot line test with video camera)

5. Once the line tests are how you want them scan the drawings into your computer (if you haven't already) and color them

6. Edit all the shots together and you have a movie!

Things you'll need (You can Google these):

Animation paper and animation board with peg bar

Video camera

Movie editing program

Animation programs for coloring the drawings and shooting line tests (Flipbook is probably best)

Hope this helps!

Spoooze!

Hello

Hey PickleWeed

Hello. i think you might be new to animation. what type of animation do you liek and Do you Draw? if you do what is your work and what do you want to do in the future?

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Spoooze! You forgot books on animation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animation

Note that, with digital, you don't need to record voices beforehand. In my latest project (just completed), the voice actor recorded to the animation, then the animators adjusted the lip flaps accordingly.

About layers: typically, the background is a completely separate file from the file containing the characters. That separation might make it easier on your animation program.

Working In Layers

How do you make sure that all the layers do not become missed alined. I am talking about software, I am using Painter. On paper I put a little mark in the corner, but the alinement is not perfect.