Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Jumping
This started as a jumping exercise. My first step at animating the jumper came close- yet something was off. I checked my animation books to see what was wrong. The problem? I wasn't scrunching the character at the high point of the jump. I added the scrunch and the jumper was ready for action.
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12 comments:
Another great example. wow!! Also, your design sense seems super refined during this period of animation experiments. The colors and look of this one are just marvelous.
Thanks Sally.
Remember that if it weren't for you, none of these would have been created. I owe you big time. :)
Namowal, I'm learning so much from you. And I'm telling you, when your site comes up it is a delight to behold.
You don't owe me anything! It's such a treat to watch your insanely rapid progress.
Thanks, Linda and Sally. Your loyalty to this site and your encouragement mean a lot to me.
I'm still wondering though-- how are you getting the beautiful line? Are you drawing in Flash or Corel? I'm having line problems on my current project. If I draw it at 400% in Flash the line looks really nice but then I lose all sense of the shape. I've probably said this before.
Hi Sally,
I've drawn all of my recent shapes in flash. Here are the hacks that I've been using to clean up the lines. I use a combination of things.
1. I usually draw a crude practice layer in a light color to get a general idea of what I want. Then I can zoom in (on another layer) and "ink" in the details.
2. I use the brush tool for drawing, as it's pressure sensitive.
3. I select and smooth rough spots (Modify>Smooth). Optimizing also gets rid of extra points.
4. I use the white arrow tool to select and remove extra points.
5. I use the black arrow tool to nudge edges. This also helps restore details lost in optimizing.
6. Sometimes I "sculpt" shapes instead of drawing them. I'll start with some rectangles, then use the black arrow tool to bow or squish the edges to get the shape I want. To add the "ink" line, I'll copy the shape, darken it, modify>shape>expand fill (about 7 pixels, then paste the copied version on top. Then I'll nudge the boundaries with the black arrow tool so there's some variation in the inkline.
I hope this helps. Let me know if I'm not making sense.
Can I sign up for your workshop? I'll bring refreshments.
Ha ha! :)
Thanks Linda.
I am SO glad you posted that.
I used to use most of those when I was trying to get file size down for the internet, but have just forgotten about them, and they are all so useful. Amazing how much better a drawing can look if you push the line around a little.
I use the brush tool too. For awhile I tried to work with the pencil, but I wasn't happy with it. Another sketch in thing you can do is sketch in pencil in a lighter color, then ink with brush, select the erase lines only option and erase the drawing quickly. Of course putting it on another layer can do the same thing.
The only one I'd never heard of before was modify shape> expand fill, which is brilliant. Haven't tried that one yet though. I hate when you're using the white arrow tool and click to delete a tiny square and the whole drawing fills in black.
I learned the expand fill trick from a book called How to Cheat in Flash Animation, which has lots of tricks.
I like the idea of sketching on the same layer with the pencil for roughing in the picture. One less layer to make.
I know what you mean about that white arrow tool sometimes sabotaging things. Thank goodness for the undo command!
The expand fill trick has been incredibly useful, and even more so now that I have to compensate for small screen size.
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