tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37551598841319496282024-03-13T05:23:32.612-07:00TOONBOOM-BASTIC!Lili and Eddie of Fwak! Animation share their stuff using ToonBoom's ANIMATE and STORYBOARD PRO.Lilihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03035680412064952328noreply@blogger.comBlogger36125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3755159884131949628.post-51637269153517268892011-07-31T11:30:00.000-07:002011-07-31T11:41:21.568-07:00ANIMATE as a compositing program!It didn't take long for Animate to become my animation program of choice. But recently I had the need to work in Flash once again due to the character reference I was provided being in .eps format. The problem with Flash for me is that (a) there is no camera, so the pans and camera moves can be jerky, (b) the effects don't export reliably and (c) exporting as a high quality Quicktime is Eddiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06960897109031675636noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3755159884131949628.post-20403845212646411732011-06-13T13:06:00.000-07:002011-06-13T13:14:57.106-07:00Importing swfs From Flash Into AnimateWhile it is great that Animate can import and work with swfs created in Flash, I've noticed that it is sometimes hit or miss; sometimes they import - sometimes they don't. I've just discovered a fix for this if you are using a version of Flash post-Flash 5 (I am using Flash 8). When you export a swf, in the export pop up box go to VERSION and set to either Flash 4 or Flash 5. That will do it!Eddiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06960897109031675636noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3755159884131949628.post-53530753456095165272010-07-18T11:05:00.000-07:002010-07-18T11:08:28.239-07:00Another effect in AnimateVery simple - just changed the BRIGHTNESS and CONTRAST valus over the timelineEddiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06960897109031675636noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3755159884131949628.post-68120026814236586622010-04-23T14:58:00.001-07:002010-04-23T15:25:03.937-07:00Invert Matte Step by StepIn response to Alex and Dee, here's the breakdown on how to apply the invert matte in the Glow FX to add an 'explosive' effect. Apply the following to your already existing scene set-upStep 1. Create a new drawing layer ABOVE everything you want to affect and draw something. Anything - a brush stroke outside the camera view area will work. Add a GLOW effect to this new layer.Step 2. Click on the Eddiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06960897109031675636noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3755159884131949628.post-90093265342463187622010-04-16T14:57:00.000-07:002010-04-16T15:45:37.804-07:00The Invert Matte: My New Best Friend!One great feature the Glow and Shadow effects in Animate possess, is the INVERT MATTE option. I've been using it in a couple of different ways...Frame with regular Glow effectThe same frame below, with a new Glow effect layer and Invert Matte ticked. It's great for explosions!Below - and again with the color values changed The effect can also be used to blend a character with it's background Eddiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06960897109031675636noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3755159884131949628.post-3669214754708228982009-09-15T10:33:00.000-07:002009-09-15T10:36:29.936-07:00More MultiplaneFinally getting the blur/pull focus effects happening in the timelineBostie Boys - Scene 3 from Eddie Mort on Vimeo.Eddiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06960897109031675636noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3755159884131949628.post-48332168125482247312009-09-07T00:00:00.000-07:002009-09-07T00:09:32.308-07:00More Bostie Boys AnimationBostie Boys - scene 29A from Eddie Mort on Vimeo.Everything here was done in Animate, and is a good example how the blur filters and camera can really lift a scene. The mast and rope in the foreground give a sense of depth courtesy of the multiplane camera; just a slight truck in really helps. The bathtub animation is a re-use from a previous post; I created a template of the animation in a Eddiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06960897109031675636noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3755159884131949628.post-35188309507313614982009-07-23T01:27:00.000-07:002009-07-23T01:44:07.187-07:00Another advantage of having Drawing & Camera views side by sideThis is a sketch I'm doing just for fun. (The girls from UFO!) It's not finished... I took a screengrab.As you can see, I can zoom in and out in the Drawing View to do my details or to paint, and at the same time - the Camera View stays the same such that I can always refer to the "bigger picture" while I draw. I can also alter my Camera View (hand tool, or zoom tool) without affecting my DrawingLilihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03035680412064952328noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3755159884131949628.post-43819384244024811322009-07-22T02:00:00.000-07:002009-07-22T11:47:26.128-07:00Reorganizing my Workspace for Character DesignANIMATE comes with a few default workspace layouts but when I am designing or drawing a character using imported bitmaps or jpegs, the imported images only show up in Camera View, not the Drawing View.Yes, it is possible to vectorize images into Symbols, then expand the Symbols to make them visible in the Drawing View (this is if you want to trace your scanned artwork) but if I only wish to use Lilihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03035680412064952328noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3755159884131949628.post-59009454993539599972009-07-10T12:41:00.000-07:002009-07-10T13:59:07.480-07:00Camera set-up & Motion Keyframes: What the manual doesn't tell you.A little something we learned yesterday after one frustrating hour of trying to create a multiplane camera effect with this "Bostie Boys" scene.Bostie Boys scene (ToonBoom Animate) on Vimeo.As you can see, there are 'motion tweens' happening with the waves, the clouds, characters' ears flappin' etc.The idea was to add a camera with multiplane set-up by putting BG layers in different z-axis Lilihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03035680412064952328noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3755159884131949628.post-46705948711511956912009-06-30T23:34:00.000-07:002009-06-30T23:48:32.956-07:00Animate and TextWhile I really enjoy creating backgrounds in Animate, one inconvenience is the absence of text. For the background below I had to actually create the text in Flash and then import into Animate as a .swf[click on pic to see it bigger]One drawback was that the text needed to be broken apart in Flash so it would import properly (un-broken text sometimes wouldn't import at all, and on other occasionsEddiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06960897109031675636noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3755159884131949628.post-77233001781274760352009-05-18T17:39:00.000-07:002009-05-19T00:01:16.026-07:00More on Animate BackgroundsHere's a screengrab of my BG in the CAMERA VIEW before rendering; pretty crappy looking huh? Yep, no Annie awards for me... Here is the same BG in RENDER view, where you can see the actual effects on the various layersEddiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06960897109031675636noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3755159884131949628.post-630043029744280822009-05-14T13:12:00.000-07:002009-05-14T13:16:07.341-07:00Animate BackgroundsI am really liking the effects filters in Animate. Here are a couple of simple backgrounds drawn in animate that utilize the BLUR and GLOW effectsEddiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06960897109031675636noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3755159884131949628.post-89047304975202751312009-04-13T19:29:00.000-07:002009-04-13T19:31:13.619-07:00Trouble With Vista (by Eddie)As anyone visiting this blog knows, I'm pretty much using Animate exclusively now - both for animation and design - and things have been going pretty good. However, having just bought a new laptop I've realized what a lot of others - including Lili - have known for a while now; Animate and Vista do not work well together. The main problem is painting. No matter how small a fill area is, the Eddiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06960897109031675636noreply@blogger.com21tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3755159884131949628.post-22724597191250606692009-03-29T20:05:00.000-07:002009-03-29T20:13:18.350-07:00See you in Mexico, Argentina and BrazilDetails as posted here.We will be back in L.A. on April 8th to continue sharing our stuff on this blog!Lilihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03035680412064952328noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3755159884131949628.post-50318374611386343462009-03-24T23:03:00.001-07:002009-03-24T23:03:40.465-07:00Multiplane BG set up This is a BG from our ROCQUITA pilot. Here Eddie demonstrates using the Top View to place different BG elements at varying the distances from the Camera. Sorry, this video cuts off before we could finish because I ran out of memory on the camera SD card! But I think you get the idea... :)Lilihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03035680412064952328noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3755159884131949628.post-82344000147797940832009-03-23T14:38:00.000-07:002009-03-23T14:39:17.447-07:00Auto Lip Sync featureI prefer to animate lip sync the "manual" way; I always scrub frame by frame and assign mouths this way. But having said this, ANIMATE's Auto Lip Sync feature is still pretty cool and can help save time or if you want to have basic lip sync without detailed attention to consonant sounds etc. Here is a video demo with Indigo's head: As you can see (and not hear), ANIMATE picks the mouth Lilihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03035680412064952328noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3755159884131949628.post-58617574377048932592009-03-23T01:07:00.001-07:002009-03-23T10:26:32.260-07:00ANIMATE LaunchThis is where we will be:MEXICO CITY Tuesday, March 31, 2009 6 pm - 9 pm Museo Mexicano del Diseño (MUMEDI) Francisco I. Madero 74, Colonia Centro Historico Mexico D.F. BUENOS AIRES Friday, April 3, 2009 4 pm - 6 pm Paseo La Plaza Sala Julio Cortazar B Av. Corrientes 1660 Ciudad de Buenos Aires 6320-5392 SAO PAULO Monday, April 6, 2009 6 pm - 9 pm Paseo Lilihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03035680412064952328noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3755159884131949628.post-91309667655703943042009-03-22T23:53:00.001-07:002009-03-22T23:53:42.730-07:00Flash vs Animate: PIVOTSPivots in ANIMATE are a little more complicated than they are in FLASH. In Flash, when you edit a Symbol pivot in order to reset a rotation/scale point, you enter the Symbol, select the pivot and drag it into place, and that's pretty much all there is to it. It took a lot of trial and error (and I had to re-do a lot of messed up animation) for me to realize that there are "Pivot settings" in Lilihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03035680412064952328noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3755159884131949628.post-48216000985783974012009-03-19T19:23:00.001-07:002009-03-19T19:23:40.956-07:00A quick look at Inverse Kinematics (I.K.)This is a demo of what I.K. looks like in ANIMATE using one of our "Karaokean" characters. This mode of animation is useful for arms and legs or where joints play a big part in movement. It is almost as if your 2D character were a 3D-puppet. Intro to Inverse Kinematics On Vimeo, Justin of CartoonSmart.com has posted some very detailed video tutorials on using a combination of "Inverse Lilihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03035680412064952328noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3755159884131949628.post-58091436115159298472009-03-19T00:32:00.001-07:002009-03-19T09:20:18.678-07:00ROCQUITA: work in progress, notes on Layer organizationSharing a capture of the ANIMATE workspace as I animate the characters in this scene.CLICK HERE TO SEE THIS BIGGERNotice that each character has their own single Master PEG layer on the main timeline. It took me a while to get my head around what Peg layers are and do because this feature is unique to ToonBoom and doesn't exist in Flash. In Flash, we tend to organize body parts in symbols within Lilihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03035680412064952328noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3755159884131949628.post-30695532244739744052009-03-18T23:29:00.001-07:002009-03-18T23:29:37.713-07:00Keyboard shortcuts and Sticky KeysSticky Keys! This is a cool timesaver tip that I learned from Eric K. Thanks, Eric!Some common ANIMATE Drawing Tool shortcuts:Brush - Alt + BContour Editor - Alt + ASelect - Alt + VCutter - Alt + TLine - Alt + NPaint - Alt + KPencil - Alt + YZoom - Alt + ZTransform (Animation) - Alt + QWhen you press down a key, the tool temporarily changes to whichever tool you want represented by that key. WhenLilihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03035680412064952328noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3755159884131949628.post-54090005289284694012009-03-11T18:02:00.001-07:002009-03-11T22:50:48.394-07:00Assigning drawings to different layers, Drawing SubstitutionHere is a short video showing a work in progress (also a learning process). I have just exported a scene from our STORYBOARD PRO animatic into ANIMATE. The sound track has been imported too, and the animatic drawing is in its own layer in bitmap format. Assigning drawings to separate layersAt this stage I have (roughly) animated the camera move and roughed out a layout drawing over the Lilihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03035680412064952328noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3755159884131949628.post-55137510676579035022009-03-06T20:07:00.001-08:002009-03-06T20:15:29.433-08:00Painting with Texture, Drawing with Invisible strokesBefore vector animation hit the scene, back in the "traditional animation" days we created character color palettes in Animo (remember Animo?) We LOVE that there are character color palettes in ToonBoom ANIMATE! A screengrab below shows that you can name the swatches and if you edit one color, then all drawings of that item painted with that color will change accordingly. There is also no Lilihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03035680412064952328noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3755159884131949628.post-1230112497601648942009-03-04T12:09:00.000-08:002009-03-04T12:10:49.201-08:00Mac or PC?We don't really care about the "which OS is better" debate. Our question is specific to Toonboom animators.To Toonboomers who have worked on both MACs and PCs: Have you found any differences in performance? Does Toonboom perform better in one OS over the other? Or is there no difference?To PC-users with Windows Vista 64-bit (Toonboom isn't fully compliant with 64-bit) - have you noticed any Lilihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03035680412064952328noreply@blogger.com10