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NEW 2D ANIMATION TECHNIQUE. Must see to believe!

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NEW 2D ANIMATION TECHNIQUE. Must see to believe!

I always like the look of 2d animation but never like to draw every single frames to get the movement. "Flash" type animation had a good base, less drawings but never was able to get the stiffness out of it. 3D animation had it right, no drawings, mesh, mophing targets, bones.... It's perfect...to perfect nobody can drawn that way.

So I decide to take the best out of all 3 techniques and combined them all in one. Basically I cam up with the ideas to use 1 single drawings to create almost any action you can ever imagine.

Check it out. :D

Tell me what you think!

Yeah, and perhaps you like to share how without drawing keyframes or tweens how you pulled this off.

Pat Hacker, Visit Scooter's World.

Yeah, and perhaps you like to share how without drawing keyframes or tweens how you pulled this off.

You need to make keyframes the same way you keyframe 3d animation, after all it's animation not "motion capture". The technique is using the same ideas behide 3d animation, first you model a character, then you animated. Of course building a character can take some time , just like in 3d. But the better you build it more flexibility you get and easier and faster it will be to animate. The down side off it , you still need to be a good draftman and animator. A good pose can never be done by a computer it's all up do the animator to make it look appealing.

If I think I'm following the idea correctly...what kind of things are you aiming to build into that one starting drawing to allow it to work well in this situation?

Well you will need to build all your basic angles that you think you ever going to use starting from that one drawing.

I've been getting a primative version of something like that in Adobe AE. If we're guessing, that would be mine. Nice work, though-- whatever the program.

Question

Hello,
About how long does it take to build a character such as the young boy at the front end of your video clip?
Tom

Hello,
About how long does it take to build a character such as the young boy at the front end of your video clip?
Tom

Well the little kid was the first test I ever did, wans't so bad about 5 hours to build then 5 hours to animated. But a more complex characters like the bears that was done for a full production was more tricky. I had 5 guys woorking on 8 characters builds for a week. Then they all moved on to animated the scenes. We had 2 weeks to make a 6 min demo.

I've been getting a primative version of something like that in Adobe AE. If we're guessing, that would be mine. Nice work, though-- whatever the program.

Actuly I know adobe AE very well love that programe. I do all my final compositing in it. But i actuly use Harmony by toonbom. Sadly the programe is very limited and I have a very hard time working with the pupettes.

Well you will need to build all your basic angles that you think you ever going to use starting from that one drawing.

So is it one character design and multiple builds? in which case this isn't a new technique. It's what animators have done for years. Certainly 3d perspective comes into it, but it always has in animation.

Pat Hacker, Visit Scooter's World.

So is it one character design and multiple builds? in which case this isn't a new technique. It's what animators have done for years. Certainly 3d perspective comes into it, but it always has in animation.

Well... "one character design and multiple builds" is what I learned in Flash class...

Follow @chaostoon on Twitter!

Well I am just wondering about his one picture claim? He claims to be selling a new technique.

Pat Hacker, Visit Scooter's World.

Well... "one character design and multiple builds" is what I learned in Flash class...

The way flash animation is done is that you created a base characters, then you "cell swap pieces" Exemple: if you want the body to bend you draw his body bending or if you want the characters mouth moving you need to draw different mouths piece.... so by the end you got one build and hundrens of pieces to work with. This is how we do it on shows like 6 Teens, Gerald mc boing boing and Grossology... It's a great way to work IF you get all the parts you need to animated. But on a shows like 6teen we where stuck drawing all missing parts over and over taking us for ever. We do have artist with pc tablets to drawn them for us but you need to wait a day or two before getting it so we ended up you doing most of them are self. This is Nelvana way and this is how they work it. Very frustrating!!

The way flash animation is done is that you created a base characters, then you "cell swap pieces" Exemple: if you want the body to bend you draw his body bending or if you want the characters mouth moving you need to draw different mouths piece.... so by the end you got one build and hundrens of pieces to work with. This is how we do it on shows like 6 Teens, Gerald mc boing boing and Grossology... It's a great way to work IF you get all the parts you need to animated. But on a shows like 6teen we where stuck drawing all missing parts over and over taking us for ever. We do have artist with pc tablets to drawn them for us but you need to wait a day or two before getting it so we ended up you doing most of them are self. This is Nelvana way and this is how they work it. Very frustrating!!

So how is this different from other previous animation techinques?

Pat Hacker, Visit Scooter's World.

So how is this different from other previous animation techinques?

You don't swap drawings.

You don't swap drawings.

Maybe you would like to explain your use of "drawings"?

Pat Hacker, Visit Scooter's World.

Christian, the work you showed looks very good, and obviously people here are interested in how you achieved it (including me). But it seems like you're playing it very coy as far as describing how it's actually done, except for very general phrases like "You don't swap drawings."

If you don't want to give away your secrets, that's cool - they are yours, after all. If you're planning on merchandising this concept, more power to you. And if you'd rather not go into detail about exactly how this process works, then please just say so.

I don't think there are any real secrets, perhaps he thinks he's come up with something new, but I think it's only something everyone else has been doing for quite a while.

If you are serious in merchandising it you better be clear that it hasn't been done before.

Pat Hacker, Visit Scooter's World.

Hi Christian and welcome to the AWN Forums.

The examples look really nice Christian, but I'm alittle confused about the whole "one drawing" thing you mentioned. It looks impossible to do only one drawing of a character and have them move like how you have shown. If you are up for sharing your techniques, I'd be very interested in learning them.

Mahalo,
the Ape

...we must all face a choice, between what is right... and what is easy."

I thought the limitations were pretty apparent. I think the details would have to be combed through pretty well, and I think you'd have to plan the shit out of it beforehand, but those shots on the described system seem just within the range of doability.

Hi Christian and welcome to the AWN Forums.

The examples look really nice Christian, but I'm alittle confused about the whole "one drawing" thing you mentioned. It looks impossible to do only one drawing of a character and have them move like how you have shown. If you are up for sharing your techniques, I'd be very interested in learning them.

Mahalo,
the Ape

Hi Mahalo,

I just looked at your demo reel... VERY NICE good timing! love it! To bad you are in California I would had love to get you on my animation crew over here in Ottawa.

good job!

Christian

Ok that one interested me a bit more. Not for innovation but for the intuitiveness of the system. You're saying you take the starting head position, and push a rotation slider and it automatically replaces the profile kinda head with the angle one?

What are the odds that you might be able to show a piece of the behind the scenes of just a simple one use of one tool of the system, to give a practical idea of how the process flows...

Hi Mahalo,

I just looked at your demo reel... VERY NICE good timing! love it! To bad you are in California I would had love to get you on my animation crew over here in Ottawa.

good job!

Christian

Thanks Christian,

Yeah, I don't plan on moving to Ottawa. Maybe if you guys were in Vancover...

So up till now, it's just been used for tests and not on any shows that have aired. Is that right? This is a pretty cool looking process you've come up with and I really look forward to seeing more of it in the future.

Aloha,
the Ape

...we must all face a choice, between what is right... and what is easy."

Christian, the work you showed looks very good, and obviously people here are interested in how you achieved it (including me). But it seems like you're playing it very coy as far as describing how it's actually done, except for very general phrases like "You don't swap drawings."

If you don't want to give away your secrets, that's cool - they are yours, after all. If you're planning on merchandising this concept, more power to you. And if you'd rather not go into detail about exactly how this process works, then please just say so.

Well your right I don't want to tell all the secrets, but what I can say is this, imagine animating in 2d but with 3d tools. You know how you got sliders in 3d to animated facial expressions or muscle movements. Imagine now having these tools for a 2d characters. You could move and rotate a head or a harm in perpective with a slider.

This save alot of time in posing and in animation. Don't have to move parts around like in flash anymore, you use the slider and it does it for you. If you wish to have a 360 head turn no problem. It would takes more time at first to built but once it's in the computer your good for the entire show. The result is that you get a REAL hand drawn look (after all it's your drawing) but you animated it as fast and flexible as a 3d scene.

I think you guys what to see a more exemples on how it works. I think this is a good exemple. The animator never move the features by hand (like you do in flash) he use the slider to get the angle the expression that he wanted. This way I was sure that the bear would always stay on-model in any angle that he chose.

Well your right I don't want to tell all the secrets, but what I can say is this, imagine animating in 2d but with 3d tools. You know how you got sliders in 3d to animated facial expressions or muscle movements. Imagine now having these tools for a 2d characters. You could move and rotate a head or a harm in perpective with a slider.

This save alot of time in posing and in animation. Don't have to move parts around like in flash anymore, you use the slider and it does it for you. If you wish to have a 360 head turn no problem. It would takes more time at first to built but once it's in the computer your good for the entire show. The result is that you get a REAL hand drawn look (after all it's your drawing) but you animated it as fast and flexible as a 3d scene.

Yes, but how is this done with just one picture?

It would takes more time at first to built but once it's in the computer your good for the entire show.

We all realize this, and it's always been the case. It's nothing new.

Pat Hacker, Visit Scooter's World.

My guess would be Toonboom harmony and a lot of careful planning when drawing the pose and cutting it up into pieces (lots of pieces).

For those who don't know what harmony is:
http://www.toonboom.com/products/harmony/
click take the tour and look at the glue and morph features.

I haven't tried harmony yet but I'm sure a good, creative flash director can do amazing things with those features. And lots of layers.

They probably have their flaws just like any form of automatic inbetweening, but yeah, I do believe it's possible to acheive this with one single pose.

The technique isn't that mysterious but it's still brilliant work.

Patrick

Well your right I don't want to tell all the secrets, but what I can say is this, imagine animating in 2d but with 3d tools. You know how you got sliders in 3d to animated facial expressions or muscle movements. Imagine now having these tools for a 2d characters. You could move and rotate a head or a harm in perpective with a slider.

So it's vector-based, and you're essentially shape-tweening but controlling it with a slider? I'm still trying to fit this into the "one drawing" picture.

Anyone else see a resemblance between your character and Hogarth in Iron Giant. Maybe that's not a big deal for most, but if your new technique is so hot why not come up with a character of your own?

Pat Hacker, Visit Scooter's World.

I don't see much in common, save the color of the hair and the way the ears shoot back off the skull. Feature by feature there's a significant deviation, and it all adds up. Certainly if someone pitched it to me I would say it's far away enough to be safe...definitely safe.

That was the only still I could find from the film on the internet in a short period, but if my memory serves me accurately their character is too close to pass copyright scrutiny.

Pat Hacker, Visit Scooter's World.

I don't mean to sound flippant, so I apologize if it comes off that way...I'll just say it and then I can go back and fix it later. But, the ears are a different size, they've got a different haircut, the eyes are a different shape, the iris/pupil is a different size, the eyebrows have a different thickness and definition, their noses are different sizes and even turned different ways...I'm at a loss...his character looks like it has more in common with my avatar lol

If that's going to piss anyone off then the Sam & Max / Trix hybrid in the other thread is in real trouble.

I agree. It's a different character in a similar style - you get that all the time, Disney having significantly influenced Western animation styles. (Brad Bird-style in this case but you know what I mean.)

This save alot of time in posing and in animation. Don't have to move parts around like in flash anymore, you use the slider and it does it for you. If you wish to have a 360 head turn no problem. It would takes more time at first to built but once it's in the computer your good for the entire show. The result is that you get a REAL hand drawn look (after all it's your drawing) but you animated it as fast and flexible as a 3d scene.

Hello,

So why not just do it in 3d? Seems to me all the tools your looking for already exist albeit in a different dimension. A toon shader can be used to achieve any result required aesthetically. If its a case for creating a piece of software for the traditional 2d'ers reluctant to take up the 3d helm thats perhaps a different story, but the tool base for animating a 2d character as you describe already exists - its just the output is from a 3d source.

G.

Sorry Phacker, I don't see the resemblance either. :(
I did think at first, "hey that reminds me of Hogarth...", when I first watched the clip, but to be fair, the character really is prety different. He's got the same bottom lip, kinda the same size eyes, but all the other shapes are different. :( Most notably the cranium - that makes the biggest difference.

I wouldn't worry so much about it if I were you? :) It's just a little demo anyway. :)

Actually, Toonboom did a demo for me not long ago, showing me Harmony and what it could do for an upcoming project I am directing. I was amazed, to say the least. Much of the work they showed me as an example of final results that can be achieved was from Mercury Filmworks.

However, the talent pool of people who know how to use this software is limited, and getting a result such as this will be very tough given the limited resources available.

Not to discount what you have achieved here at all... It is great work; even better than the great stuff I had seen in the demo. You should be careful though, posting the work like that on the internet for all to see. Did you not sign a confidentiality agreement at Mercury?

Cheers

Wade

"Don't want to end up a cartoon in a cartoon graveyard" - Paul Simon

Actually, Toonboom did a demo for me not long ago, showing me Harmony and what it could do for an upcoming project I am directing. I was amazed, to say the least. Much of the work they showed me as an example of final results that can be achieved was from Mercury Filmworks.

However, the talent pool of people who know how to use this software is limited, and getting a result such as this will be very tough given the limited resources available.

Not to discount what you have achieved here at all... It is great work; even better than the great stuff I had seen in the demo. You should be careful though, posting the work like that on the internet for all to see. Did you not sign a confidentiality agreement at Mercury?

Cheers

Wade

The way flash animation is done is that you created a base characters, then you "cell swap pieces" Exemple: if you want the body to bend you draw his body bending or if you want the characters mouth moving you need to draw different mouths piece.... so by the end you got one build and hundrens of pieces to work with. This is how we do it on shows like 6 Teens, Gerald mc boing boing and Grossology... It's a great way to work IF you get all the parts you need to animated. But on a shows like 6teen we where stuck drawing all missing parts over and over taking us for ever. We do have artist with pc tablets to drawn them for us but you need to wait a day or two before getting it so we ended up you doing most of them are self. This is Nelvana way and this is how they work it. Very frustrating!!

You don't swap drawings.

Well your right I don't want to tell all the secrets, but what I can say is this, imagine animating in 2d but with 3d tools. You know how you got sliders in 3d to animated facial expressions or muscle movements. Imagine now having these tools for a 2d characters. You could move and rotate a head or a harm in perpective with a slider.

This save alot of time in posing and in animation. Don't have to move parts around like in flash anymore, you use the slider and it does it for you. If you wish to have a 360 head turn no problem. It would takes more time at first to built but once it's in the computer your good for the entire show. The result is that you get a REAL hand drawn look (after all it's your drawing) but you animated it as fast and flexible as a 3d scene.

The way flash animation is done is that you created a base characters, then you "cell swap pieces" Exemple: if you want the body to bend you draw his body bending or if you want the characters mouth moving you need to draw different mouths piece.... so by the end you got one build and hundrens of pieces to work with. This is how we do it on shows like 6 Teens, Gerald mc boing boing and Grossology... It's a great way to work IF you get all the parts you need to animated. But on a shows like 6teen we where stuck drawing all missing parts over and over taking us for ever. We do have artist with pc tablets to drawn them for us but you need to wait a day or two before getting it so we ended up you doing most of them are self. This is Nelvana way and this is how they work it. Very frustrating!!

You don't swap drawings.

Well your right I don't want to tell all the secrets, but what I can say is this, imagine animating in 2d but with 3d tools. You know how you got sliders in 3d to animated facial expressions or muscle movements. Imagine now having these tools for a 2d characters. You could move and rotate a head or a harm in perpective with a slider.

This save alot of time in posing and in animation. Don't have to move parts around like in flash anymore, you use the slider and it does it for you. If you wish to have a 360 head turn no problem. It would takes more time at first to built but once it's in the computer your good for the entire show. The result is that you get a REAL hand drawn look (after all it's your drawing) but you animated it as fast and flexible as a 3d scene.

My guess would be Toonboom harmony and a lot of careful planning when drawing the pose and cutting it up into pieces (lots of pieces).

For those who don't know what harmony is:
http://www.toonboom.com/products/harmony/
click take the tour and look at the glue and morph features.

I haven't tried harmony yet but I'm sure a good, creative flash director can do amazing things with those features. And lots of layers.

They probably have their flaws just like any form of automatic inbetweening, but yeah, I do believe it's possible to acheive this with one single pose.

The technique isn't that mysterious but it's still brilliant work.

Aaah... Harmony. Okay.

Okay, first of all, "swapping symbols" is only one of the techniques I learned in Flash class.... it wasn't the only one.

I'm actually more of a student of ToonBoom. Now that everyone brings it up, I've read up about Harmony in Animation Magazine and from the ToonBoom website, and I've seen what Harmony can do.

I think its more the technique of using Harmony's new features to bring limited animation closer to the fluidity of hand drawn 2D, guys, and if christianlarocque was part of developing this technique, that makes more sense to me. I can even see the "one drawing" thing now.

All you had to say was Harmony. And the "secret technique" is out, its just not known by very many.

Follow @chaostoon on Twitter!

So why not just do it in 3d? Seems to me all the tools your looking for already exist albeit in a different dimension. A toon shader can be used to achieve any result required aesthetically.

I gotta disagree. Toon-shaded 3D always looks like toon-shaded 3D. I have yet to see any that looks like traditional 2D.

If this technique is as advertised, it's a great step forward in producing good looking full animation, apparently inexpensively. It would mean a great deal to independant filmmakers with limited budgets. I'd just like some more specific info on how it works, such as an answer to my last question:

"So it's vector-based, and you're essentially shape-tweening but controlling it with a slider?"

I gotta disagree. Toon-shaded 3D always looks like toon-shaded 3D. I have yet to see any that looks like traditional 2D.

If this technique is as advertised, it's a great step forward in producing good looking full animation, apparently inexpensively. It would mean a great deal to independant filmmakers with limited budgets. I'd just like some more specific info on how it works, such as an answer to my last question:

"So it's vector-based, and you're essentially shape-tweening but controlling it with a slider?"

Bingo you got it! It's not shape-tweening but something like that. Shape tweening is very hard and frustrating to work with. We use it allot on 6Teen and spend most of are days tweaking it.

I would love to get a software specially build for this technique, Harmony sort of does it, but it was never intended to take such a heavy built. It's like building a computer out of a old scraps part. It works but could be so much better and faster.

I showed a test to Toonboom not long ago they where amazed that this even work on there program, (at the time I was using Concerto, a old version of Harmony that never made it to the market). The build was 1000 times more complexes then want they originally intended for. They told me to try this on Harmony and see want I could come up with. I quickly find out that Harmony is built on old tech software, meaning very slow and not taking full advantage of the video card, and didn’t have the control I wanted neither. So I had to make them up, cheating them. I tryed it also in 3dmax but came to a halt pretty fast. I was almost able to make it work like i wanted but was missing a step that 3dmax would't do.

My goal for this new software would be as is,

First you draw you characters on paper or on a PC tablet. Then you import it into the programs and the computer will guide you steps by steps to complete the built. This could take a few hours or even a few days depending on the complexity and level of animation you want to get. A full 360 face rotation in all direction could probably take 4 hours. Once all the steps completed your good to go and can start animating. The animation tools and technique will be a combination of Flash and 3D tools.

The best thing about this software is that it is similar to Flash in approach, but the tools resemble 3D tools. Flash was never meant to be an animation tool (to the extent that it is being used now), and so it is limited in many regards. Harmony is made for the purpose of animating, and the tools are streamlined as such.

The cost to start up with this software is heavy though. Licenses are not cheap, and being that noone knows how to use it yet (or few people, anyways), a studio would have to pay for training from Toonboom. There is the cost of the training itself (paid to people from Toonboom), but in addition, studios would have to pay the trainees their salaries to learn the software for two weeks (not producing actual work). It is pricey, but if studios are willing to make the investment, it could be a GREAT tool in order to produce great quality 2D animation cheaply. I am certainly looking forward to using it.

Cheers

"Don't want to end up a cartoon in a cartoon graveyard" - Paul Simon

lovely stuff however arrived at.
Increidble.....

Ah...so it's linearly drawn..vectors...in a 3d program?

nice

Hi Christian, I remember seeing your web site a long time ago. Thought your work was great as is this.

So is this technique something you're willing to share? would you be posting a small tutorial at all or is this going to be your secret. I think I understand the concept and I thought there were even programs that attempted it. I can't imagine they are as fluid as your samples though. It would be interesting to hear more about your process.

anyway, nice work

A little while ago, the program Tweenmaker was discussed here. It generated inbetweens based on keys with vectorised lineart. The results looked very machine-assisted, though and all keys still had to be drawn individually. What exactly do you do, use a single frame model and move the joints around following pre-plotted arcs? I mean, that's pretty much what Flash does, only your results do look tons better ...

Oh, if you make a post like this, with a video clip like that, and don't write up some kind of guide or tutorial on how we can do it too... ;)

It certainly looks a lot better than all the other Flash animation I've seen, though with a close examination one can notice the same underlying principles (the shapes of the heads, for example, stay the same, but the features upon them move in order to create the illusion of slight changes in overall angle, etc.)

But I am interested in some more precise figures regarding the length of time it took you to animate these scenes - and how much longer you think it might've taken you to draw them out traditionally?

Thanks. :)

Oh, if you make a post like this, with a video clip like that, and don't write up some kind of guide or tutorial on how we can do it too... ;)

It certainly looks a lot better than all the other Flash animation I've seen, though with a close examination one can notice the same underlying principles (the shapes of the heads, for example, stay the same, but the features upon them move in order to create the illusion of slight changes in overall angle, etc.)

But I am interested in some more precise figures regarding the length of time it took you to animate these scenes - and how much longer you think it might've taken you to draw them out traditionally?

Thanks. :)

I work at Mercury Filmworks in Ottawa as a Director. I was put in charge to direct a 6 minutes shorts for the Kratts brothers using (flash) type of animation. If you ever worked on a flash show you know that it's very limited in camera angles and acting. But in this case the Kratts wanted me to make a very action pack board meaning bears fighting characters jumping over the camera, very realistic animal movements...pretty much everything that it's not flash friendly. When I showed the complete board to the animators they all laugh at me told me, Let's just send it to Korea it will get done in a couple of month and anyway they all think it was impossible to make 3/4 of the shoots in this board.

We only had 3 weeks to animate this thing. Hand drawn animation would have taken us about 4 weeks to animated 2 weeks to clean up 1 week to color and 1 week to composite. So we where talking about 8 weeks total, I only had 3 weeks to get it out.

This is when I decided to try out this technique. We use Harmony as a base, it's not so much the software but the way you look at the animation. At first it was tricky for the animator. I find out that good draftsman and animators loved it but weaker animator had a very hard time and didn’t like to have so much control.

So that said the test was successful, we deliver the show in time. And the more skeptic animator was amaze by the result. This test open us a new window on how to make "flash/vector cartoons". Shows that we thought was never possible to do, looked more accessible.

What I would really like to do, Is to get a major company to create a software based on this ideas. Harmony is great but we where fighting all the way to get the result we wanted.

What amazes me is the lack of rotations and stuff.....you never see anyone turning or anything but there really isn't a conscious though of "Hey, something hasn't -turned- in a while"...you more just appreciate the fluidity. I guess if it's credible, like the acting doesn't require the movements, and those movements can't be addressed anyway, it stays under the radar.

What amazes me is the lack of rotations and stuff.....you never see anyone turning or anything but there really isn't a conscious though of "Hey, something hasn't -turned- in a while"...you more just appreciate the fluidity. I guess if it's credible, like the acting doesn't require the movements, and those movements can't be addressed anyway, it stays under the radar.

check out the bear swimging... we go from 3/4 front to a 3/4 back....

Might be my computer's playback, but it looks like a Flip Horizontal. While in the imaginary world of the cartoon the idea is that his orientation has changed, that's poppy and a cheap non-rotation because we never see it. I'd almost rather see him swim upside down to get to that position rather than apparate.

I think it's really cool!, but at the same time, yeah, I'd have to say that with the big bear, it didn't look quite as lively as it could've - maybe that part could've been animated traditionally, or maybe you could've used another "body pose"-shape to show him flipping or rolling or whatever? But I think your method worked pretty well with the baby bear, and then even better than that with the little boy at the start, and the man jumping at the very end. Seems like a potential big time-saver for certain scenes/actions!

I still don't really "get" what seperates it from standard Flash animation though? (other than that you're doing it in a way that looks tons better) It seems like it's still "pieces" and you're still just moving one big piece, and all the little pieces that are part of it along with it?

I'm dumb like that. :~)

I still don't really "get" what seperates it from standard Flash animation though? (other than that you're doing it in a way that looks tons better) It seems like it's still "pieces" and you're still just moving one big piece, and all the little pieces that are part of it along with it?

I'm dumb like that. :~)

I am actually thinking the same thing. This isn't a new technique to Flash many of us use the same techniques. My stuff doesn't always show it because I try to keep most of my pieces under 300k. But most flash animators create characters and props, the complexity depends on the action required.

Perhaps you'd like to elaborate on the one single drawing per character, thing? Especially since you said this about the bears:

I had 5 guys woorking on 8 characters builds for a week.

I think before you start selling your new technique you better check out:

http://www.brackenwood.net/
http://www.goober.nu/

These guys have been doing the same thing for a few years now. For excellent use of camera angles go to goober.nu and view nim's story, it pretty well deals with camera angles. These guys have been dealing with Flash's shortcomings for a long time, and they've never said they came up with a new technique. They based their work in Flash on standard animation techniques and made some good flicks.

It's only lately that newbies have gotten into this lame "frame by frame" talk, most computer animators have always reused symbols. And I think most traditional animators also reuse drawings. And if you are timing your action, some actions take one frame some more than that.

Pat Hacker, Visit Scooter's World.

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