Help with 2D animation, please...

#41

oh, yes, I was impressed, that’s a very cool app (reminds me old good days of amiga!)
but, it’s still a powerfull lightbox, no feature for inking/painting & motion graphics (just like DPaint, for example)
a question: are all PAP versions the resulotion dependent?

#42

don’t honestly know about it, but I’m guessing that all the versions of PAP are currently bitmap based.

And yeah, did you try ProMoton?? I think it does inking etc…

It’s just that PAP is so, intuitaive and easy to use that even if it was just used to rough stuff out, it stands head and shoulders above any 2d software I’ve seen. (But again, that’s just me)

As for feedback on the current PAP: beta:

the only quibble I have so far is in the save animation screen, (ie file management bit), the lower text and buttons are off the screen, so not at all readable…

But everything else so far seems to work very well. And it’s a joy to be able to dabble at work during my lunchhours…

#43

This is an animation I did with Photoshop and JASC. At this point, it’d just be a buttload easier to use flash.

Far from perfect, but I still think it’s cool as hell. Feedback, anyone?

#44

Nice!

The one bit that bugs me slightly is that it’s not obvious that he’s flicked his head at the wall. It just seems to shoot off his hand - maybe have more of a follow-through from the arm so that you can see what pushed it…

#45

Thanks.

I tried to fix that, but it was either adding bad-looking hands, or just bending the arm in a way that just looked unnatural (heh… me complaining about making this look natural…). But, I’m satisfied, considering I did that on a Saturday morning before I showered while I had a cold. Oh yeah - 3 hours. So more time than effort went into it. But… whatever. :bounce:

#46

Hi everyone. My first time in this part of the forum. I tried PAP. Need some more time to investigate. But I was wondering if anyone heard or try Newtek’s Aura. They advertise it as a TVpaint solution. I discover this one as I am a Lightwave3d user (also the by the same company). It has photoshop like painting feature, and has a timeline. So you can draw and paint. It also has some compositing features too. The lastest v2.5b can play back with more controls and the lighttable has opacity adjustments. I like to own this one someday. I feel very comfortable with it.

Here’s a link to read up on if anyone interested.

http://www.newtek.com/products/videotoaster/profiles/TerrenceWalker/

#47

If you want to be an animator, learn to draw. Do life drawing, play with sculpey, draw story boards, and make animatics.

And if you’ve been doing all this, get a wacom, do some simple stuff in photoshop, and use ACDC to view it as a slide show.

Or you could forget all this and get US Animation, which is what Disney uses, but you’ll end up with nothing.

#48

you seem to be posting as if many of us aren’t animators:) And BTW are you refering to disney feature or individual disney setelite studios like disney australia. Because for feature they use CAPS, their own proprietary system. Each setelite studio uses whatever theypruchase so to say they use USanimation isn’t entirely true, some of themdo, disney france did not.

#49

Well for 2d I just draw them on paper, scan color in photoshop, add alpha channels on each frame and them import them to After Effects. I just add 3d elements on top of them or behind.

I’m about to take an animation class with David Chung, Peter Chung’s brother (Aeon Flux). I’m kinda intrigued how different their styles are.

cheers,

–Albert

#50

I’m about to take an animation class with David Chung, Peter Chung’s brother

you lucky! :slight_smile: … David came here a few months ago to Tehran’s Animation Festival & I missed meeting him. :frowning:

#51

“ToonBoom Studio” works perfect for me…and it’s free…it only adds a watermark in the bottom right hand of the movie…and it’s very easy to use…works entirely on vectors…but doesn’t feel like illustrator…try it out…

#52

www.toonboomstudio.com ?

#53

Originally posted by leif3d
“ToonBoom Studio” works perfect for me…and it’s free…it only adds a watermark in the bottom right hand of the movie…and it’s very easy to use…works entirely on vectors…but doesn’t feel like illustrator…try it out…

Uhm Free? its not free, there is a demo version which has a little water mark, but thats limited to 30 days.

#54

Well, Disney in Sydney uses USAnimation, CAPS, AVID and even a bit of combustion if I’m not too mistaken…I used to work there :slight_smile:

But my point was that you’re only going to learn animation while you’re actually doing it…and the easier the pipeline you’re using, the more you’ll do, and the more you’ll learn.

You can draw, scan, import and refine, but all that takes time. And using my little wacom, I can crank out a whole two minute animation of animatic quality in about a day…I leave all the other stuff until after I render out of Maya.

#55

This PAP thing seems quite neat. However, it seems like a person would need to be familiar with basic 2d classic animation concepts, which I’m not. For example, I don’t really understand what the red “layout” drawing mode is for. Does anyone here know of any good tutorials for PAP? Thanks

#56

Originally posted by Hookflash
This PAP thing seems quite neat. However, it seems like a person would need to be familiar with basic 2d classic animation concepts, which I’m not. For example, I don’t really understand what the red “layout” drawing mode is for. Does anyone here know of any good tutorials for PAP? Thanks

Hi Hookflash.

The red layout mode is for planning your animation. Draw key drawings in this single frame and turn it on while your drawing your actual animation. This way you are better able to control character volume and composition and so on. You can also import a background to your layout sheet, so you can make your character, say, lean against a tree. You see?

For more please visit the official PAP forum here:

www.plasticanimationpaper.dk/forum

I’m actually in the process of writing tutorials for PAP beginners and more experienced users. The first ones will concentrate on familiar animation exercises and how to do them in PAP. The goal is to have taken the user through all of PAPs functionality after reading all tutorials.

The first ones will be about 1) the drawing tools, 2) making the bouncing ball in a smart way, 3) a walk cycle and 4) using the walkcycle as a cutout for a bigger scene.

#57

NielsKM: Ah, that sounds great! PAP: Shareware will be an incredible resource for people (like myself) who are interested in classic animation. I can hardly wait for the tuts.:buttrock:

#58

Originally posted by toonshady
I was wondering if anyone heard or try Newtek’s Aura. They advertise it as a TVpaint solution. I discover this one as I am a Lightwave3d user (also the by the same company

I have Aura 2. It’s great, very reminiscent of Deluxepaint on the amiga.

Newtek doesn’t sell it anymore though, the original developers broke off to sell it on their own. It will soon be released by Bauhaus software under the name “Mirage”. The cool thing about mirage is that it adds lots of cool goodies like an integrated particle system and volumetric light effects. (that render MUCH faster than any 3d volumetrics.)

If you own a Newtek product, like Lightwave, Aura, or a Video Toaster, you can buy the prerelease version right now at the seriously reduced price of $300 (It’s around $900 once the 1.0 version comes out) and you get the 1.0 version after it comes out. after that there will be no upgrade price for Aura users. :frowning:
Anyway, I got the Pre release, It’s great, for compositing and 2d animation/effects or just plain old paint. (It really is like D-paint on steroids)

http://www.bauhaussoftware.com/

#59

The particle and volume stuff are just icing for animators. For those who really do animation, the workflow of the 2d animation program should allow animators to do just that really well. I am talking about sketching, frame management, onion skinning, inking and paint, perhaps sound intergration, design usability. Aura seems to do well or have the potential of getting there in all these areas. It’s the similar reason that if I am looking to do a digital painting, I would use something like Painter because of it’s reference to real world mediums.
But I am wondering, did Mirage implemented the turn table feature yet? You know, like rotating the canvas so that you can sketch base on the natural arc of your wrist motion and the position of your drawing arm.

#60

I don’t think so, at least not in the pre-release version. I could have missed something like that though cuz I’m mostly using it for compositing 3d not for drawing, and have only had it for a few days.