Psychotime Tries to Animate Stuff...Badly

[Psychotime]

Yeah, I've waited long enough to make a thread of this.

For now, all I have is this.



http://psychotime.deviantart.com/art...Test-329233371

I don't know much about animating, but I like to think I'm getting better. It's less intimidating now when you don't over-think it too much. Just thumbnail it, do your keys, test it and fix any issues. Then do your breakdowns, then test it and fix any issues, then your inbetweens, then test it and fix any issues. Focus on the important stuff first, move onto details later.

On your first go get your shapes down, make sure it works, then focus on one detail at a time. Don't treat it any differently than drawing a single image: Putting in details before you know your most important masses are down is a recipe for disaster. Remember about secondary animation as well. Not every mass of the form is important enough to consider on the first go, but this depends on what you're trying to do.

Now don't ask me what's happening here. I just drew something and went with it. Maybe someone's pulling out a rug from under him or something, I don't know.

This is all on twos (sans the smear), because I'm lazy. Where are his ears? Again, lazy.

I'll have another one in a few weeks. I'm taking a character animation class taught by ex Disney animator John Webber, who started off as an inbetweener on Pocahantas, then moved up to lead animator for characters like Mushu and Lilo in their respective films. Cool guy.

[egerie]

Don't forget about your main center of mass arc either

[Star Eater]

Seems to a new breed of spammer that is trying really hard to blend in lately.
Just coming across as deranged though...anyway, carry on!

[Ccs]

Looks cool, though he's dropping rather quickly, looks like super mario doing the ground-pound. In reality (or cartoon reality or whatever) he'd probably fall slightly slower.

[Psychotime]

Timing and spacing are my number one problems.

I was watching some of Richard Williams' DVD, and I'm pretty much doing every newbie mistake in the book. At least in terms of a newbie who has some experience drawing, NOT the newbie inbetweener mistakes, goodness no! I'm bad, but not THAT bad.

[Psychotime]

Here goes another one.



http://psychotime.deviantart.com/art...Pass-333811346

Can't I use HTML on this forum anymore? I think I tried the first post, but no luck.

My timing's a bit better, I guess. There was supposed to be more to this (ignoring the character details, haha) but the main focus of the assignment was this part, and the other parts would have wasted time.

I'll be adding to this, but next assignment is the first dialogue test. Oh boy!

[Melete]

Hey! Some nice improvement over your last one. Next time, either number your frames or put it in some kind of a format one can download and look through. Makes it much easier to crit exercises like this.

-> You've got the right idea with the weight of the box, but I think you could stand some more observation time and gesture drawing in this area. In particular I don't believe he could lift his foot to take that first step. I would have used more frames to get his body and the box over the foot staying planted on the ground.



Tried to do a draw over keeping your idea/staging, but it's kinda clumsy. Made the drawing on the right to more illustrate my point. Pay attention to where the center of balance is in a drawing.

-> You've drawn a frame with the slipping foot smearing, the next frame has no smear, and the frame after that has another smear. It looks *okay* in motion to me, but I think it could be better if you had one or two consecutive frames of smears and then on-model drawings. Also you're drastically changing the style of the smear through this motion, from duplicates to "hairy mass". Unless it's supposed to look kinda crazy and erratic (the Genie from Aladdin sometimes mixes smear styles in a single move like this), it runs the risk of being distracting. I would include elements of one with the other if you're going to do this - both are duplicate smears, but one has a couple feet breaking up into streaks, etc.

-> Twinning. Break up your poses more, especially through time: Have one hand grab the box a frame or two earlier than the other, offset limbs when he crashes into the ground. Also his feet are perfectly mirrored in the final pose, they even arrive at the same bent-knee position on the same frame. Have one less bent, straight, or bent laying on the ground, something. Unless the symmetry is especially comedic or the character is motivated to do it, avoid twins. It's very rare that an absolute twin is the optimal acting choice.

-> All of your drawings with him lying on the ground need to be moved over screen-left a little bit. It looks like he slips, hangs in place, and then gets knocked back a couple feet.

Those are my big ones. Number your frames, draw more arcs, do some study and gesture drawing. Looking forward to your next piece.

[Psychotime]

Woah, whoever you are, you're automatically cool.

Do you know a good format that someone could just rip and critique that I can export these into? They're only swfs because I couldn't think of any other format that would work on DA, which is where I usually host stuff.

These things were initially mov files made in Flipbook, then converted into flvs (the format my professor requires when he does critique), which then get turned into swfs for uploading to DA.

[Melete]

I just got UnPlug for firefox, so I can view your swf in flash on my desktop. That takes care of future scrubbing needs. Just number your frames from now on, it's a good habit anyway in paper 2D! You never know when you're going to drop a stack of 500 drawings and need to put them back in order.

You can also upload to youtube, people can get a file format from there that quicktime can handle (and thus the frame number).

[Sprogis7]

instead of having him slip, try continuing the animation and have him throw it. Its a classic exercise and will help you improve your timing and sense of weight. Nice work, keep going. Have you tried the ball-and-tail exercise? Give an animal personality to a ball with a tail and practice your follow through and the s&c principle. Also the wave/boat/sack exercise will help with your sense of weight and animating water...google it if you have no idea what Im talking about.

[ontaotto]

Well, my opinion is that you are doing a great job, I am doing just like you my first steps into animation, in my case I think I will try much deeper into Flash animation, its easy to edit, its easy to copy-paste that saves you time, there are some features like motion key frames that makes that one arm can do a movement along the number of frames you wish, that also saves you a lot of time. However nothing beats in style to the original pencil drawn animation IMO, so keep the work.

Will post my work soon, including my sketchbook.

Cheers

Otto

[Psychotime]

Well, my opinion is that you are doing a great job, I am doing just like you my first steps into animation, in my case I think I will try much deeper into Flash animation, its easy to edit, its easy to copy-paste that saves you time.

Ohh, man, good timing!

http://psychotime.deviantart.com/#/d5jfyd6

To stop the file right click on it and turn off the loop. I know you wouldn't want to hear that on repeat.


Flash is great! It's so much easier than the traditional route! If I were to do this traditionally it would have taken me all day just to get something this loose. And with Flash I was able to knock this out in a few hours!

The reason for that is the ability to scrub quickly, test quickly, fix quickly! I shaves out so many hours from what I would have HAD to do if I chose to go traditional.

That line of dialogue is from "Cat's Don't Dance". This was Ashley Peldon voicing the villain Darla Dimple.

I wanted to try animating to a few seconds of dialogue using Patty, who's very fun to draw faces with. (I laugh out loud alot when I draw her.) And the FIRST thing to come to mind was this line, so I swiped it and goofed around in Flash.

I will try with someone else, but Patty's the only character I can imagine a voice for. But don't worry, I've got something to goof with.

Oh, this ISN'T for any class, I was just goofing around. Webber's assignments all have to be done the traditional route. Geez, my generation has it so EASY these days!

The dialogue assignment for him will be done this week.

Give an animal personality to a ball with a tail and practice your follow through and the s&c principle.

The what? What's S&C? I guess that's an alternate name for something?

I did the boat/wave and the flour sack over a year ago. Might not hurt to try them again. Never did the ball and tail. Never heard of it until now.

[Psychotime]

Did some fixes to the earlier version of that thing.

Webber told me that the head needs to drag as a secondary action for more impact from the other movements, and that the feet slide around, which kills alot. So I did a quick fix, and it's a good thing I listened.

Here's the earlier version (no sound, but whatever, I can actually post it on the forum this way).



Here's the fix.

[revelarts]

looking good man

[FightingSeraph]

These aren't bad for someone who is just starting and much better than my attempts at animating.

[HEAVEN98]

I'll just say a couple of things. There is no doubt animation is a tedious process and it's tempting to want to speed that process up, but I would advice against it. 1) As someone starting out in animation I don't think you should be using smears and multiples to convey motion in your animation. More often than not it's a crutch that animators use sparingly to meet deadlines or specific timing needs (when paired with audio or a strict x-sheet). It would be better to learn how to animate on a series of 1s and 2s and get the same effect, rather than using this work around. 2) Although Flash and tradigital is a god send for animation there is a tendency, again, to use this as a crutch since you can just draw and achieve timing through multiple trials and errors. This is fine as long as you're taking the time to learn from these mistakes. In my experience I learn a lot more when the stakes are higher. That is, I take more time and more effort to make sure my keys and BDs are as correctly timed as possible before putting them through a pencil test when I know the work of scanning them and testing them is a lot more arduous. That way, I have fewer trails and errors, and fewer things to internalize from each mistake.

Technique first, speed later.

Having said all of that, you're animations are looking pretty good. There's some timing and weight/body mechanic issues. For example, the man picking up the box: there's a lack of demonstrated weight to the box (the timing it good but his body doesn't sell the weight) in the beginning but at the end it's so heavy that it causes him to fall and even flattens him out a little, so your box has seemingly gotten HEAVIER after he picked it up.

[Psychotime]

Er, I'd like to point out that any time there's a smear, it's on a one. I'm not 100% sure what you may think I'm doing with them.

I only use smears to get from one extreme to another in the course of one frame.

I also find them fun, but I can understand what you might mean about them.

If it's possible, can you elaborate more about how I'm misusing them? And the alternative you'd take instead?

[HEAVEN98]

Oh I'm not saying you're misusing them. You're using them correctly, hell, you're using them successfully to give a graphic/cartoony look to you animation. I was just saying that if you're starting out it's more educational to position your keys, BDs, and inbetweens in such a way as to reduce or not use smears at all. I have nothing against them, they're used and useful, I just think sometimes their overused when they neednt be. Sorry I wasn't clear.

It's hard to explain since I have no frame count or way of pausing/slow playing your animations. But for instance: when your man is falling right now you have him lean back, two smear slips (from what I can tell), and then contact floor. Another way would be to have the weight of the box take his upper body further over, and take 1 smear frame to show the arc and 1 normal drawing to cushion into the extreme. Or even no smear frame and 3 well spaced frames to show the motion of the foot. You end up with the same movement you just rely more on anticipation and spacing/timing to get there (forcing you the delve deeper into these important concepts). Right now if you were to cover the bottom half of your animation the top half would give little indication that he should fall because his center of gravity isn't thrown so far off balance. So you're relying on the smear to sell it, when it could be sold another way.

In short, all I was arguing is that smears and multiples don't do nearly as much to teach animation as true-to-model drawings since they work around some very crucial principles of animation.

It's hard to indicate tone online, and I'm a pretty straightforward talker, but you have to believe me when I say I wasn't trying to be an ass. I really do like your stuff.

[Psychotime]

If you have Flash, you should be able to look at them frame by frame, because all of these files are actually swf files. The links are in the posts.

[Sprogis7]

Hey sorry I slacked in responding. Ball & Tail:

https://www.youtube.com/results?q=ba...-8&sa=N&tab=wy


S& C? youve never heard of that? Well its a huge part of animation, one of the top principles.

https://www.youtube.com/results?sear....1.WnnIFJEqPIA

[Psychotime]

One of the top principles? What's the principle called? Because I've never heard of S + C curves as any of the 12 principles of animation. At least the ones canonized by the Nine Old Men.

[Psychotime]

I haven't been doing much animating, lately, but I do have a storyboard animatic I gave a go. Better than nothing.

[FightingSeraph]

Not bad for an animatic, and if you need music and voice actors; I know quite a few.