[FLASH] How to animate this guy here ? :)

[breaky]

Hi there guys...

I haven't posted here for sooo long :) But I'm back now... :P

Anyway... I've made this character and I need to animate it. My idea is that the guy first should be with his head down... than bring it up, wave... a couple of facial expressions and that's it. Now I don't know how exactly to explain it but my problem is to actually make him pretty animatable. Now I started off with the waving hand... I copied his lower arm into another layer, rotated it and motion tweened it. Now the problem appears here:

http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/8198/cartoonyprexampleal3.jpg

You can see that his lower arm kinda falls out of the elbow.. and there are some smaller things to fix. How to break down the hand and draw it so it could be easily animated, rotated, moved and so on...
I can't even think what a pain in the ass his wrist, palm and fingers will be

I'm sorry if this thread is not for here BTW. It was the only suitable place I could think of...
And if there are some flash or any other kind of animators here I really hope they'd help me :)
Thanks ;)

[Bai Fan]

I am kinda wondering why you colored and shaded it before you stared animating. What do you want this for?

Are you going for south park Terrance and Phillip sort of animation? Also, what program are you using to "animate?"

[breaky]

When should I shade it? :)
I'm using flash 8(it's in the subject :)). I thought it was easy - make some layers, make some symbols and just go into it... but turned out to be harder than I thought :)

I'm not going exactly for some kind of south park version... a bit more realistic regarding the movements... not some floating heads and when they talk the whole bottom of the face is in the movement... :)

Anyways... please helppp. Any tips would be helpful I guess ;)

[Onir]

Hmm if you are planning on animating the character in a flatter, cut paper style (like south park as Bai Fan mentioned), then the easiest way to do that in flash is to move the anchor/registration point of each symbol to the area you'd like to pivot from (a joint for example) then just set keys and use tweens to fill in the movement. To do this just double click on the symbol in the library; it should open up another window with just that symbol (I haven't used flash 8 in a bit, but it should work). Tweens aren't really necessary I guess, but it can definitely help in cutting the work time.

Re-reading what you typed, motions like raising the head are going to primarily need you to draw the frames of the head in each spot. If you want to maintain a flatter look you could do multiple heads then swap them out depending on the section of the movement. There is also the traditional approach of just drawing the frames and inbetweening them by hand; either way just keep messing with it. As you start animating and get a feeling for what you're going for, you'll get more of an idea as to how you can achieve what you're looking to do. Hope I could help and best of luck!

[breaky]

@Bai Fan and @Onir, thank you both guys for the replies...

I don't really want to do something so frame by frame and awkward like south park style(although I love that cartoon). I'd like to do something smoother but since it's harder than I thought I don't even know if I could do it...

I tried to make the movement of the rising of the head using some symbols of the head and swapping them in each keyframe. But The result is not smooth at all(each keyframe had 5 frames after it and the frame rate is 30fps). Here are the heads:
http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/8175/headszj7.jpg

I'd love for you guys to give me some pointers and tips and everything... because I'm kinda shooting at random and just playing around with it without even knowing if I'm on the right path ;)

[Texahol]

your questions are kind of big vague ones, where you are asking for more of an animating in flash tutorial than actual advice...

It might be beneficial to learn basics of flash animation [and some general animation 'rules' ] from some free online tuts, or the tuts that came with the program...instead of looking for magic advice...

[breaky]

I looked through a lot of tuts before I even started doing this of course...

I've made something like a mock-up(if you can say that in animation).And I attached it here so you could see it. At least there is something to talk about now, I guess...

It looks awfully stiff and strange :rolleyes: I really didn't play that much with the timing. The head up motion is simply swapping every head position in every frame... The other motions are shape tweens.

[breaky]

Hi again....
Okay guys, I gave up on it.

Thank you all, anyway. ;)

[foolontheplanet]

I kind of know what you were going for. If you ever decide to work on it again, remember, the head will pivot from the neck, not the back of the head.

[unknown soul]

i don't get it. what is the problem?
don't give up. it's not hard.
first of all you need to have all the drawings and then just put a keyframe on the timeline. try flash cs4, it's esier to move body parts with the bone tool.

[sir Applejuicer]

dont give up man!! if you find flash hard to work in for this kind of animation try animestudio pro (moho they used to call it) or cellaction. Thes are programs specially designed to put a skeleton in a 2d character... I think the new after effects has it also, or you can download a plugin. There are more then one ways to get to were you want.

Also on the head animation. If you put in a decent anticipation.. you can get away with a lot less frames of head to draw. You'll have to make it slow down a little though.

I think its loooking so shaky because you're letting the frames of the head stand for to long. make more drawings and leave them for 2 frames max

[batcustard]

step one: animate.
step two: fail.
step three: rebuild.
step four: fail again
step five: get coffee
step six: fail more.
step seven: cry
step eight:sleep
step nine: breakfast.
step ten:rebuild again.
step eleven: cry more
step twelve: wonder why you chose to be an animator.
step thirteen: this is the part where you start asking for advice.
you must first complete steps one through twelve (well steps five and nine are optional.) before we can give you any sort of intelligent input.

Its like going up to a gymnast pointing at your legs and saying "so how do I make these do a backflip?"

step fourteen: fail
step fifteen:cry
step sixteen:get more input.

repeat fourteen through sixteen until it looks great or you give up.

[batcustard]

oh missed that post! haha, you already gave up. Its like we are the same person or something.

[booleanspline]

Hey part of the problem is you made a char with different symbols layers, shading and all that jazz. And now your like what now? Well this should have been your last step.

You did the inking and painting part first. The animation and movement comes first. Think about it in terms of how they worked in the 40's. They didnt draw just one picture of pinnochio then send it to the ink department and then have it painted. They animated the whole thing first and then sent all the drawings to the paint dept. at the same time.

Dont even worry about shading. Your getting caught up in the details. Think simple. One step at a time. Just animate the char rough. REAL rough doing the action you want him to do. Work out the timing and poses first.And most importantly..........


DONT GIVE UP!!!!! NO ONE EVER SUCCEEDED BY GIVING UP!!!!!

[yinteck]

Look like you are doing some puppet animation ...hope this help

Usually first (on stage) i create a full character and fully shade it. Then Lasso each part and convert to movie clip, so that in your library you have ur character parts that you are going to move or animate it without screwing up them ... Remember to make a folder under name character part or something like that. So whenever you change scene you just drag them back into the stage.

For the head part....you just saperate them like for an example - hair, face, eyes, nose mouth in different layer. Then convert them into movie clip. The same process as for thew body. Do the same for the angle that you plan to set you character into... Yup no easy way..

For the head turning part well I dont think that motion tweening will do for this. I think for that part you need to do it frame by frame. For an example - 30 fps per sec...you just put each head in every five frame ( if you want the head turn up in 1 sec ). If you want it to be smoother add in between.