Welcome to Max’s Gorilla School of Animation
A small history of the concept.
I am a 3D animator who is frustrated by the time needed to be invested in CG projects. I became an animator to tell jokes and have fun, not wait for endless hours waiting for cloth simulations and global illumination settings. So while I was waiting for renders I decided to get back to basics. As result I designed this system around having access to plenty of technology but no traditional facilities like light boxes, peg bars and proper punched paper. I appreciate that not everyone has a computer let alone Photoshop or After Effects but I will endeavour to apply this to open source programs but as yet haven’t explored these avenues. Its on the list. This is just one module in the basics series. Please feed back either through the Bangblast forum or to me “max{at}maxcrow.co.uk” and tell what you think or if any area is unclear.
BASICS
PLANNING
Step 1
Get motivated this is the hardest stage. Every thing is easy after step 1
Step 2
Rough out the action.
Create little stick men drawings of how you want the action to play out.
Step 3
Compose action sequences
Example here is a jump. The picture on the left has a good composition start but a bad end as the character is almost off screen. The second has a good beginning and leaves enough space at the end. So ask your self “Where is my character going?” Use simple shapes and trajectory lines to get a feel for where hands, feet heads etc are going to be.
Step 4
Frames
Once you have decided on the in and outs of the motion, start to fill the in between movement. I do this with different coloured pencils. This blocks out the whole animation on one drawing but the different coloured lines help to distinguish which frame is which. Also add a small number to the pictures so you can keep track of which one is which. One last thing mark three “X’s” outside the action area, these will become registration points later on.
Step5
Line Work.
Take a piece of tracing paper and a black fibre tip pen and draw frame one. Make sure all the lines join up as later when you add color there might be some spill. Don’t forget to add the registration “X’s” and add the frame number. Move the paper to the left and with enough space draw frame two, again remember frame no. and registration marks. Continue until all the drawings have been traced.
PHOTOSHOP
Step 1
Scanning
Scan all the drawings and import into photoshop.
Step 2
Clean up
Go to edit> adjustments >brightness contrast. Make blacks as black and whites as white as possible. Experiment till happy.
Step 3
Creating layers
"Ctrl-A" will create a marquee around the whole page. Next, "Ctrl-C" to copy and "Ctrl-V" to paste this creates "Layer 1". The trick is to get all the layer No.s to equal the frame No.s. We do this by drawing a marquee around frame one. This creates a selection. Invert this selection, “shift+ctrl+I” . Cut “ctrl+X”, paste “ctrl+V”, and we get a new layer 2 ,
Now create a marquee around frame two, invert selection, cut and paste. Continue until you have all the frames cut into their own layers.
Step 4
Aligning your drawings
There are two ways to do this 1 by using blend modes for layers, go to "multiply". this makes all the light areas transparent and leaves the dark. So, arrange your drawings using this, don't forget to turn this to "normal" at the end.
The other way is to use the rulers which you align with refernce crosses. After you have aligned your drawings, made sure all the layer corespond with the frame no.s save you file as jumpanim.psd
Here is my file with all the layers set to multply. As you can see I'm absolutely rubbish at keeping to my registration lines. But that the beauty of this method, you can arrange the images how you want.
It's probably a good idea to crop your file to save on disk space.
AFTER EFFECTS
Step 1 open after effects
THIS IMPORTANT Step 2 Setting up duration
Go to Edit>preferences >import.
Set the import duration to 00:00:02. This sets the default import duration to two frames . This is because we generaly work in “TWOs” unlike Disney who work in “ONEs”
Step 3 Import
File>import (pick photoshop file) import as composition not footage
Step 4 Getting the footage onto the time line
double click on the comp.
This puts all the layers of the photoshop file onto the time line. Click Layer one and whilst holding down "Shift” go up to the top layer and click it. You should have all the layers selected. It is important that you pick the bottom layer first and the top last. Now go to animation>keyframe assistant> sequence layers. This now offsets all your frames.
Step 5 Playback
Now to preview your work. with the time line marker, move it to the begining of your animation and press "B" then move to the last frame but one and press "N". This has created a work area in which the ram player will loop. Finally, Press “0” on your key pad and it will put the frames into a RAM buffer and a second later play them back. Now admire your wonderful animation! (Don't forget to save your file)
The great thing is you aren't stuck your animation, you can easily create another with the same images.
Extended BASICS
Adding colour to you characters
There are many ways to do this, but this is the simplest and quickest method.
Open your line work file in photoshop. Create a new layer called palette. Pick a color are going to use. Draw a small marquee and fill it using the paint bucket. On the tool bar pick the marquee tool. Press in the middle of the square selection and move it down a bit. Go into the colour picker and choose your second colour. With the bucket tool drop the colour into the selection. Repeat these commands until you have all the characters colours represented in a square. Then turn off all layers except “palette” and layer 1. Make sure you then have layer 1 selected. Get the bucket tool, then press “Alt” this makes the paint bucket an eye drop tool. Select the first color from the squares, release the “Alt” key and click in the area where you want the colour. Do this for all the colors, picking and dropping the colours. Once you have finished layer 1 turn off the eye on the layer and turn on layer 2. Repeat this until all the frames have colour.
Now open up After effects again, and open you animation, WOW! Its all got colour, how cool is that?
I look forward to the next course where we go into more detail and learn to animate faces.