Hello,
I just found this forum today, and after reading a few of the posts, this is definitely the place to be in.
I am currently in the process of making my first anime movie. This is very far fetched, even I think so, however, I'm going to try to make sure I don't flunk out half way. lol. Considering, I've already put so much effort (& money) into it.
Anyway, I am taking this project slowly because I really want the quality to be good.
At the moment, I'm in the screenplay stage; which means, the next major stage (after all the storyboard..etc) would be to do the doping sheet. However, before I do that, I need to decide on what animation medium to use... Since, depending on the software medium, the doping sheet may be more complex/simple to do...
Initially I considered the standard 'cel' animation. I'm not going to use actual commercially used cels because it'll be too expensive. Although if I do stick to cel animation style, I would be doing each drawing by hand separately and so on. Maybe layer certain drawings in Photoshop or something.
However, another consideration is to use Vector animation. E.g. Flash. Although in my test runs, I've found problems with converting *.SWF files into *.AVI (divX) which is what I need...
Anyway... I was wondering, if I may, for those of you who have had experiences in this field or know more about it, what is a good software medium to use for my cartoon?
Namely, should I use vectors or stick to the traditional cel animation?
If cel animation, what is a good program to use?
If vector, then I'll stick to flash. However, is there a program that converts SWF into AVI's? Or Mpegs without glitches?
your help would be greatly appreciated!
Thank you. :)
I'm breaking this down more for me than for you, because I'm trying to follow, but... Now that you have the words (screenplay), shouldn't someone -say- them before you would dope it? Isn't that the purpose, to diagram the soundtrack? Or was that the "etc" after storyboards...?
Hey there. Thank you for your reply...
I probably didn't make myself clear previously - sorry about that.
What I was trying to say is that I need to decide on a suitable animation medium. The reason is that the medium I choose will have a major influence on the amount of detail required for my dope sheet.
To my knowledge, these are the basic steps required in making a cel-animated movie:
1. Have the story & plan
2. Write the screenplay (where I am)
3. From the screenplay do a storyboard (I did this before I did the screenplay; although I'll probably do it again to order the scenes)
4. Do the dope sheet (what words cover how many frames depend on how many frames per second you are going to use...) So you have C---AAAA--T Iii-S H-EEE-R-EE.. vs frame 1,2,3,4..etc
5. Animation..etc complicated media intensive stuff.
I'm stuck at step 4.. Depending on what medium for animation I use, I could reduce the workload for myself in the dope sheet. What I want to avoid is to make a detailed dope sheet and realise I don't even need all of that. Likewise, if I did too little work on the dope sheet, I may hurt the project in the end if I use a medium that needs all of that detail.
Has anyone tried cartoons on Flash? Can you animate things, e.g. bending lines into different shapes other than scaling&rotating in flash? Or do I still have to stick to separate frames & inbetweens?
That's what I need to know.
hi kyuubi_hime !
you came at the right time , to the right place :) selecting a medium for animation is very relative , some like the feel of traditional . some like the vector output and yadayada . me love flash as a medium , though there are several ways to use it , there are several tricks to produce good quality, animation (which may not only for the web but also for broadcast!!)
if flash is going to be your medium of choice then you must visit this site called http://www.keyframer.com < very well made site , which gives you a very clear way to bend lines, animate and do lipsync , in a very professional pipeline process using flash . check out the totorials available on the right side :D
a million thanks to chris for throwing light on this !
issues about swf : you can convert swf files into avi files ,, though you will have to keep in mind that when you are making symbols , donot use " movie clips " by save the symbols as "graphics " that was the avi produced will play the way you see it inthe movie timeline . Simple !?! :D
all the best and A HAPPY NEW YEAR TO YOOOO ALL
www.devilsgarage.com
Ahh. Thanks very much for the link - much much appreciated! :)
Thanks also for the info about the movie/picture symbol thing - I didn't realise that. I might try that next time to see if it works.. If not, I'll have to try something else.
Flash is a very tempting medium for animation; however, as always, the converting it into the AVI thing is a major concern for me. lol.
I want it as AVI mainly so that people can download the resulting product from my website and view it as a movie (rather than relying on a web browser like Iexplorer for instance, which has a tendency to cause my flash work to be out of sync with the sounds).
Another thing I have to research on is whether if the resulting project could be compatible to cinematic release. We have this little studio/cinema complex near where I live, and they often allow new projects to be shown. I know I'm thinking really big and ahead, but it's good to plan these things so I am prepared for it. hehe.
Again thanks for that site, I'll check it out tomorrow (need to sleep now hehe).
And happy new years to you too!!! :)
I'm always using Flash To Video Encoder by Geovid. All functions that I need, good video quality & the opportunity to operate on Flash during the process of conversion.
http://www.geovid.com/Flash_To_Video_Encoder/
Okay, I have a few comments/suggestions for you.
First of all, if it's anime you're going for, then vector isn't really the way to go. Anime in and of itself is an economical form of limited animation as it is, but still shines from the superb draftsmanship (in most cases). If you're realyl ambitious enough to attempt a full animation on your own, I would suggest using a tool such as Flash or ToonBoom Studio.
Flash is pretty well established, there's a ton of information on how to use it, that will help you get out of sticky situations. There are also a ton of books and resources for training.
ToonBoon Studio seems to be a bit more animator oriented. Althouth I think it's drawing tools leave a lot to be desired, it's UI is setup more like a traditional animators Lighttable and X-sheet (dope sheet). The multi plane camera option is amazing and when you peg animation to be rendered it's a lot like the traditional animation cameras complete with field guides.
If you don't have a lot of education in animation, I would suggest Flash, but as an experienced animator I feel more comfortable with ToonBoom's tools.
Both of these software let you export to .swf and will import both .swf and .ai files, so you can do your artwork in Illustrator if you like, or you can work back and forth from both programs to take advantage of their strengths (what I do).
Unless you're a very skilled and prolific animator taking on a traditional medium animation by yourself is not going to go over so well for you. Flash at least gives you tools to make some of that burden easier.
On a side note, it doesn't matter if you're doing flash, traditional hand drawn, 3d or anime, if you have dialogue your X-sheet for the most part will be the same.
Flash and ToonBoom will export their projects to .mov files if you want. Those files can then be used in AFterEffects or other compositing programs to turn into .avi or .divx files. If I were you, I'd animate at a rate of 24 fps. With programs like AfterEffects you can easily convert that into 30fps without any problem. If you were to animate at 30 fps you'd be doing a lot more drawing and in the end if you try to convert it down to 24 fps later, you will most likely lose some key framing. As a rule of thumb, I always animate at 24 fps.
If you're going the hand drawn route, I suggest you use a photoshop/aftereffects approach since you won't really have a CAPs system available to you like some animation studios have. This is a program that allows you to ink and color individual exposers for your animation.
If you're just starting out, I wouldn't recommend taking on a whole project. Most people don't have the skill/patience/fortitude to follow through on a complete project like that. They will get frusterated, burned out and finally quit. I'd recommend starting off practicing 30-60 second animations. When you're comfortable with the production process of those, include dialogue. Once you feel you can do that, try 2 minute animations, then with dialoge etc...
Soon you'll be more comfortable and qualified to do a bigger project, and you'll realize where your shortcomings are and why most people don't do cartoons by themselves.
hope this helps, good luck, you're going to need it.
The medium to choose depends more on you than anything else.
It looks to me like you want to avoid Flash. Very well, avoid Flash.
Hand-drawn animation works, too. You don't need to use physical cels; you can just scan the line art and color them in a painting program (like Photoshop). That's my process; I then assemble the digital cels into shots in Adobe After Effects, then assemble the shots in Adobe Premier.
wow, poping up for no reason at all in the late
Well in my opinion (and experience)
Ive tried the anime style in flash and it doesnt work well, at all.
you can simplify some situations by using photoshop and flash coherently
this causes alot of jugling and time but it makes the animation process easyer and allows for good quality.
with the way flash renders bitmap type images you will have to prescale images befor you put them into flash so if you mess up you will have to resize and try it again. so that could be time consuming.
and for the final part. dont wory about saving it as an .swf export your videos as a .mov open them up in your favorite video editing program (like my favorite adobe premier pro) and then export them from there as divx :D
and everything works fine
Nice posts. Keep posting such needed information. Thank's!
192.168.o.1