Frame by Frame animation?

[synthsin75]

My goal right now is to follow some fundamentals I'm learning from "The Animator's Survival Kit". I know I can practice some of the basics in ASP but it's the little things that make the magic happen that I want to have access to doing in an animation program like articulate the swing of pant legs with all the folds and shadows, complex expressions and timing, I want to make good use of my Wacom Intuos Pro as I practice drawing key and inbetween drawings etc. Since I'm not in a studio with time constraints, I just want to have fun with this now while I can and I think it will benefit me in the long run since I'm new at this to do the basics from the start. Basically I want the option to have full control over what's drawn in the frames in a manual way when the time calls for it. I'm a big fan of the oldschool animation styles I grew up watching and that's the foundation I want to start from. ASP seems to skip some of those things simply by not having official fbf support out the box.

You can practice and utilize any animation principle in AS. Some, like FBF, may require you to be more creative with your chosen tool, but no tool can really limit a determined artist. And while you may feel that you have plenty of time to learn the basics, AS will save you tons of time once you start animating actual projects.

Depending on what you grew up watching, it may have been more "limited animation" (like Hanna-Barbera) than traditional frame-by-frame (like Disney). Aside from the time-saving strategies of the former, both rely on all the same principles, like anticipation, secondary motion, exaggeration, etc.

[JetT]

I strongly suggest trying something else if you're learning how to do FBF.

Recently they added FBF animation in Sketchbook Pro 7 which works really well, if you've ever used DigiCel Flipbook it's pretty much that. It's really inexpensive at $65 and makes a great companion if you're an ASP or Maya user. It's also a good painting and drawing tool, if you draw a lot of perspective and straight lines it has by far the best rulers I've seen, the preview cursor is a piece of genius.



Alternatively you can either use the DigiCel Flipbook PLE or the Toon Boom Animate PLE. As mentioned there is also Pencil and PAP. Don't be put off with using PLEs, what you get is the full product for an unlimited time, that means you can even save your project files, the only restriction is a watermark over the playback and not being able to carry over your PLE files to the paid version, good enough for learning animation fundamentals and the program itself.

[neeters_guy]

You can practice and utilize any animation principle in AS.

This a good point to make. It's useful to think of drawing and animation as separate disciplines. The principles can be applied regardless of the method of animation. They can be applied whether it's cut-out, limited, stop motion, puppetry, claymation, 3D, and, of course, fbf.

[Mistro]

-synthsin, I have no doubt I can practice the principles in ASP. The thing I really want to do in my short term goals is practice drawing freehand with onion skin and make manual frame by frame animations just to have some fun and sharpen my drawing skills. Not looking for any shortcuts. Just want to draw and watch my drawings come to life. For any other animation I see I will have fun with ASP.

-JetL, Thanks for your suggestions. I actually downloaded Pencil yesterday and I like the feel of drawing in it with my tablet. I also have ToonBoom PLE and plan to get the full version some day. The thing is I want something that I can use commercially or without limitations ultimately and do not want to get too used to using that software without having an alternative that I can use without watermarks. So Sketchbook Pro is looking really good right now and thanks for bringing that to my attention.

-neeters_guy, You have some good points. But like I wrote to synthsin, I want to practice a lot of freehand drawing as I animate. Right now I'm studying anatomy and figure drawing. The best way I will learn to get to the quality I'm aiming for is to practice through drawing those things out and testing with animation as I go along. Part of drawing is understanding a subject's form and weight which is very much relevant to believable animation. I guess it depends on what style of animation you're doing. What I'm playing with now take long to do and probably takes the most work in animation but it will be rewarding in the end for every other type you mentioned.

Is ASP friendly with footage made in other programs? Like if I made a shot in Pencil for example, can I bring the movie in a format into ASP to compose with something made locally? I'm thinking green screen methods with alpha channels.

[ErikAtMapache]

Hi.
I've been following your conversation, and just to chime in ('cause, why not), AS handles importing images pretty well. I did a quick six-frame animation in ArtRage by just treating each layer as a frame. I exported it and then imported it into AS. I created a switch layer with the frames and then set the frames on the timeline. A simple demo that took maybe 10 minutes.

-Erik

[synthsin75]

Like Erik's excellent example, you can to fbf in AS, although perhaps not a quickly as in programs dedicated to the purpose. Like him, I've also used things like Photoshop to do fbf brought into AS. AS can import most movie formats and image sequences. This works great for these sort of line test animations, but you may find that painting and shading every frame can become quite tedious, which is why some people like to use Pencil or PAP for rough fbf to use as a guide in AS, where you only paint your elements once.

Many of us consider this the best of both worlds.

[lwaxana]

Drawing on paper with a light box is my favorite option for frame by frame exercises. I usually have to scan the drawings in in order to see how the animation is turning out (which is a drawback), but I can really settle in and focus when I'm drawing on paper, whereas drawing on the tablet using ToonBoom makes me feel impatient and the results suffer (maybe also because I start feel like I should be inking instead of focusing on the forms and movement). Plus then you can load your rough pencil drawings straight into AS, or ink and color with photoshop or gimp and then export images to AS. I have tested ASP 10's improved drawing tools a little bit and they seem strong enough to ink and color right into AS. But you did say you are working in 9.5. doh!

[Danimal]

There's this example too:

http://lostmarble.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=26593

Definitely possible.

[Mistro]

There's this example too:

http://lostmarble.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=26593

Definitely possible.

That is an excellent example of what I'm aiming for! Though much more time is required, the result is so worth it.

[heyvern]

I created a simple layer script a long time ago to help with FBF in Anime Studio.
I am pretty sure it will work in v10. I just tested it. If you have trouble let me know I can upload a newer version.

http://hubumedia.com/anime-studio-servi ... yer-script

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One of the issues using individual images inside switch layers is file size and performance and also "file clutter". A ton of images and performance gets really bogged down. Also using switch layers makes it difficult to change the sequence later. Increasing the length (adding "frames") of the sequence or updating the images isn't a simple process.

My script is very simple and uses only 1 image layer. The embedded layer script reads the source path to that image and simply changes the image source of the image layer based on the number at the end of each file name of each image sequence contained in a folder.

This reduces overhead considerably. With only one image layer the file size remains very very small. You don't have to import new images if you change the sequence since the script will simply automatically read in new or changed images based on the file names numbering. Because there is only one image performance is really speedy even when you have hundreds or even thousands of images. Changing the layer's image source doesn't require as much application resources. The number of frames makes no difference... 10 or 1000 images has the exact same performance... try that with switch layers!

Another bonus is that the image sources for sequencing is based on the original placed image layer not the script. The layer script can be anywhere and it will always work. Simply place the first image in the sequence as your image layer, embed the script and it will cycle through the entire folder of images.

You can change the frame rate by opening the script in a text editor and changing the frame rate variable. Near the top of the script file is this line:

Code: Select all

frameRate = 1

Increasing that value changes how many frames each image will "hold" during playback or rendering.

Some drawbacks or limitations to the script:

Currently there is no way to "offset" or "delay" the start of the sequence play back. Also having to change the frame rate in the script file is not good either.

I could add in customization without too much effort if there is interest in it.
I could add a feature to include the frame rate and "delay" start values using the layer name.
Append the "variables" to the layer name to be used as frame rate and delay start values.
The image layer's name doesn't effect the script. The script uses the image "source" which isn't related to the name of the layer.

[EDIT]
You can change the start of the sequence by adding "blank" padding frames. When creating the sequence with another program or with Anime Studio, just add extra time before the sequence starts. Of course doing this with the script would be better.

[Furpuss]

I recently did some frame by frame animation as a test to see if it would work with AS. I think it did, but there are a few caveats.

First, it can only be used by working over hand-drawn animation, and that is a lot of work and you have to know how to animate. Basically, FBF replaces the traditional functions of clean-up, ink & paint and inbetweening, but not the animating itself. For some projects, this can be a huge benefit. But for small, low or no budget projects, FBF may not be suitable. You can still get pretty good results using bones.

But if you're determined to do FBF you will have to have to learn the fundamentals of animation first and that is a completely separate discipline from learning animation software. There are some very good books out there.

You can see my animation here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBpkp0nT2JI

Cheers,
Furpuss

[dkwroot]

Will DKWRoot scripts work in version 9.5 Pro and is fbf easily done in it? If not, the remainder of this post is how I feel right now....

I designed the script to work with v10 Pro, but I could look into removing some features from it to make it compatible with v9.5 Pro. I don't have 9.5 installed anymore, so someone would have to be my guinea pig while I test it.

I'll be your guinea pig It's not like I have much done with my copy yet anyway.

I updated my thread with a version of the tool for 9.5 and earlier. Follow the install instructions and give it a whirl.

[Mistro]

But if you're determined to do FBF you will have to have to learn the fundamentals of animation first and that is a completely separate discipline from learning animation software. There are some very good books out there.

Yeah, your right. As mentioned earlier, I bought the Animator's Survival Kit by Richard Williams. Excellent book. I also found out having knowledge of anatomy goes a long way too. Congrats on that animation! That's the example I praised in my last post. Great work.

-dkwroot, Thanks, I'll give it a try.

[braj]

I just bought Sketchbook Pro because of the new animation feature and perspective tools, I'm kind of kicking myself for buying Artrage 4 recently. Not that it was crazy expensive. I got Sketchbook Pro on the $2.99 a month plan since I'm poor. I'm stoked I can more easily do some FBF in ASP because of the DR Tools, but it isn't really the same as a proper drawing app. Now I just need to learn to draw better. That's the hard part.

[GCharb]

You can achieve the classical fbf animation with a mix of bones and control point (CP) animation!

Just do the best you can with bones, then start moving points around.

I reproduced 2 seconds of fbf animation from the Princess and the Frog with point animation only, here is the results...



It is also a tremendous exercise in learning animation principles!

EDIT : You can find the file here http://www.mediafire.com/download/mw042 ... nished.zip