next »

[Bree]

Hm... Mario Galaxy had some great animation bits, particularly for Mario himself. Super Smash Brothers Brawl had some nice squash and stretch going on with the characters (if you notice, the attacking limbs actually expand for a second). Team Fortress 2 has spectacular animation, as seen in their Meet the Team videos (all done in the game engine)- Valve excels at getting emotion out of their characters.

The one tricky bit with game animation isn't just the length, it's also the non-linearity. Film animation can look great because they don't have to worry about if a character decides to suddenly stop running, turns around and attacks whatever might be chasing him. Those are three different game animations (run right, run left, and attack), and they all have to be able to flow into one another as soon as the player presses the button. Prince of Persia is one of the few series that does this well, and even they still trip up occasionally.

[Problem Machine]

Yeah, I can respect that there are a lot of technical challenges, but it seems like most studios aren't even trying.

[Bree]

So, in the interest of fostering more animators, how's about we start a little weekly challenge? Anybody who wants to join in and can use a program like Pencil or Flash or whatever, and we'll have some comments and constructive feedback to help each other out. Sound good to you all?

[Harpo]

I'd be down for that.

[Jared C]

Oh, yeah, totally!  I'm animating a father's day card for when my dad gets home from work.

42 frames later, and I'm exhausted.  Should be done in time, though.

[Xion]

I did these really quick speed anims like yesterday. Or was it the day before? meh.


Not really traditional I know but thought they might be pertinent?
Didn't time myself but they were both < 1h.

[Bree]

I love both of 'em- so long as they're not wireframe models, they count. The first one could use an extra frame or two- the keyframes and posing is awesome, but the transition to that blur looks awkward.

[Bones]

Xion that second one. 

[Xion]

hot off the press:


Thanks Bones

Yeah I see what you mean, Theo. I was just going for speed of creation when I made those'n's, but maybe I'll go back and add couple buffer frames.

I probably won't though 'cause I'm lazy but thanks for the crit anyway

[Bree]

No problem, man- what are you using to make your animations, by the way?

[Xion]

GraphicsGale

if anyone knows of a photoshop-like program that can animate but isn't photoshop I'll totally...ascertain it for experimentation. Much as I love pixels I'd love to work with something smoother.

(Flash...doesn't fit me)

[Fable]

ToonBoom is probably the way to go, then. It has an interface similar to MAYA (nodes connecting to your animation determine the opacity, the brightness, etc) and you can layer animations in a 3D environment. I believe they have a trial version on their website.

[Greg Game Man]

ok.. xion is good..

Im an animator :D check my website for some magic.
Weeklys sounds like an idea, i want to animate a bit more now!

[Bree]

Dude, what happened to your website? I clicked the link, and I found this:

"
Hacked By Abu-Slman

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Attention

To all members of the site, please Visit later

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I hacked your website just for fun

I have not changed home page for your form

http://www.greg-anims.com/phpBB3/"

[Xion]

What a kind hacker.

[Problem Machine]

Oh man I wonder if I should get in on this...
Does anyone know of a good tutorial for getting started animating? This book is great for the theory, but I need something that covers the basics.

[Jared C]

I just got my report card back... It was such an improvement from the last, my dad pulled out "The Animators Survival Kit" from under his desk (which I had been asking for for months).  It's a great book so far... I'ma read the hell out of it.

[Xion]

Kobel, maybe you could just try making some simple flipbooks, walk cycles, and other such loops. I don't really know much in the way of book-learning, but it has definitely helped me beyond anything to observe life's motions and already established animated films with an analytical eye. And practice alot. You could start with like, the good ol' bouncing ball and move onward from there and stuff.

[Problem Machine]

Okay well flip books are cool (should I make them by cutting up printer paper or is there a better way?), but the main thing I'm concerned about is the process of getting a bunch of drawings lined up and in the same format and somehow converting that into an animation. What I mean by the basics is the stuff that has little to do with an animator's actual skill, but the mechanical shit they have to do to get the job of animating done.

[Bree]

You mean you need a program to animate? If you have a tablet, then I'd highly recommend Pencil. It's a free animation tool, very basic, but that makes it perfect for just getting started. The only catch is that you'll need to find a way to convert the files into GIFs (it does SWF, but GIFs are only available in the Mac version). There are a bunch of programs for that, though, so you're more or less in the clear.

If you're going to do it completely old-school style, I'd get tracer paper and some light pencils. This way you can put a bunch of sheets of top of each other, so that you can line up your frames properly. If you have a scanner, you can take the frames and convert them to a GIF (assuming you have a program for that).

Let's start our little challenge with something basic: the bouncing ball. A standard hallmark of animation education, the ball's an easy way of showing all the basic properties of western animation:

squash
stretch
anticipation
reaction

and so on. The challenge is to make the bouncing ball a looped animation, but you must put your own spin on it. Make your ball something unique, to show off your own personal style of draftsmanship. As mentioned earlier, the animation must loop, meaning that once it's started, the transition between the end of the clip and the beginning of the clip should be seamless. Would, say, a week be enough for you guys to come up with something?