tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37551598841319496282011-11-27T15:30:32.819-08:00Lili and Eddie of Fwak! Animation share their stuff using ToonBoom's ANIMATE and STORYBOARD PRO.Lilinoreply@blogger.comBlogger361100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3755159884131949628.post-51637269153517268892011-07-31T11:30:00.000-07:002011-07-31T11:41:21.568-07:00

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-20403845212646411732011-06-13T13:06:00.000-07:002011-06-13T13:14:57.106-07:00

While 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-53530753456095165272010-07-18T11:05:00.000-07:002010-07-18T11:08:28.239-07:00

Very simple - just changed the BRIGHTNESS and CONTRAST valus over the timeline

Eddiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06960897109031675636noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3755159884131949628.post-68120026814236586622010-04-23T14:58:00.001-07:002010-04-23T15:25:03.937-07:00

In 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.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3755159884131949628.post-90093265342463187622010-04-16T14:57:00.000-07:002010-04-16T15:45:37.804-07:00

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-3669214754708228982009-09-15T10:33:00.000-07:002009-09-15T10:36:29.936-07:00

Finally 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.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3755159884131949628.post-48332168125482247312009-09-07T00:00:00.000-07:002009-09-07T00:09:32.308-07:00

Bostie 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-35188309507313614982009-07-23T01:27:00.000-07:002009-07-23T01:44:07.187-07:00

This 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 Drawing

Lilinoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3755159884131949628.post-43819384244024811322009-07-22T02:00:00.000-07:002009-07-22T11:47:26.128-07:00

ANIMATE 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

Lilinoreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3755159884131949628.post-59009454993539599972009-07-10T12:41:00.000-07:002009-07-10T13:59:07.480-07:00

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

Lilinoreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3755159884131949628.post-46705948711511956912009-06-30T23:34:00.000-07:002009-06-30T23:48:32.956-07:00

While 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 occasions

Eddiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06960897109031675636noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3755159884131949628.post-77233001781274760352009-05-18T17:39:00.000-07:002009-05-19T00:01:16.026-07:00

Here'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 layers

Eddiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06960897109031675636noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3755159884131949628.post-630043029744280822009-05-14T13:12:00.000-07:002009-05-14T13:16:07.341-07:00

I am really liking the effects filters in Animate. Here are a couple of simple backgrounds drawn in animate that utilize the BLUR and GLOW effects

Eddiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06960897109031675636noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3755159884131949628.post-89047304975202751312009-04-13T19:29:00.000-07:002009-04-13T19:31:13.619-07:00

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-22724597191250606692009-03-29T20:05:00.000-07:002009-03-29T20:13:18.350-07:00

Details as posted here.We will be back in L.A. on April 8th to continue sharing our stuff on this blog!

Lilinoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3755159884131949628.post-50318374611386343462009-03-24T23:03:00.001-07:002009-03-24T23:03:40.465-07:00

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... :)

Lilinoreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3755159884131949628.post-82344000147797940832009-03-23T14:38:00.000-07:002009-03-23T14:39:17.447-07:00

I 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

Lilinoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3755159884131949628.post-58617574377048932592009-03-23T01:07:00.001-07:002009-03-23T10:26:32.260-07:00

This 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

Lilinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3755159884131949628.post-91309667655703943042009-03-22T23:53:00.001-07:002009-03-22T23:53:42.730-07:00

Pivots 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

Lilinoreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3755159884131949628.post-48216000985783974012009-03-19T19:23:00.001-07:002009-03-19T19:23:40.956-07:00

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

Lilinoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3755159884131949628.post-58091436115159298472009-03-19T00:32:00.001-07:002009-03-19T09:20:18.678-07:00

Sharing 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

Lilinoreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3755159884131949628.post-30695532244739744052009-03-18T23:29:00.001-07:002009-03-18T23:29:37.713-07:00

Sticky 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. When

Lilinoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3755159884131949628.post-54090005289284694012009-03-11T18:02:00.001-07:002009-03-11T22:50:48.394-07:00

Here 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

Lilinoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3755159884131949628.post-55137510676579035022009-03-06T20:07:00.001-08:002009-03-06T20:15:29.433-08:00

Before 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

Lilinoreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3755159884131949628.post-1230112497601648942009-03-04T12:09:00.000-08:002009-03-04T12:10:49.201-08:00

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

Lilinoreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3755159884131949628.post-43282254139200061322009-03-03T23:51:00.000-08:002009-03-04T00:29:50.422-08:00

In ANIMATE, Symbols do pretty much the same thing as what they do in Flash, but there are some differences.Here are the similarities:In both FLASH and ANIMATE, Symbols are like containers that live in the Library and can be dragged out and reused. They have their own internal timelines and nested layers. You can have Symbols within Symbols. Symbols are important if you intend to use motion

Lilinoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3755159884131949628.post-69588465349836621092009-03-03T12:23:00.000-08:002009-03-03T12:24:14.251-08:00

We have been invited by ToonBoom to demonstrate ANIMATE in Mexico, Argentina and Brazil! More details later on these ToonBoom ANIMATE Events, but so far, here are the cities and dates:MEXICO CITY - March 31BUENOS AIRES- April 3SAO PAOLO - April 6If there is anything specific that you would like to see demonstrated, please feel free to leave a comment below! :)

Lilinoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3755159884131949628.post-67185721313879018352009-03-02T23:35:00.001-08:002009-03-02T23:35:52.430-08:00

I have so far, created a 5 point turnaround for our Joe 101 character (will add more poses later). All the body parts are Symbols - indicated by the blue-colored film-strip-style frames. Here is a short video of the turn: Simple turnaround/Character rigging in ToonBoom Animate And then, a simple walk: Joe 101:  3/4 WALK

Lilinoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3755159884131949628.post-59838962265625133872009-02-28T10:19:00.000-08:002009-03-04T00:22:09.804-08:00

Rocquita Animatic - Scene 14 from Eddie Mort on Vimeo. UPDATE: After tests on the animatic on different computers at Toonboom and here, the conclusion was reached that the problem lay with my computer, and not Storyboard Pro. Oops. Lili was able to export the 100+ scenes with sound in a matter of minutes. -EddieI published this Quicktime to test Storyboard Pro's 'Export Movie' capabilities.

Eddiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06960897109031675636noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3755159884131949628.post-53575616401720130652009-02-27T13:14:00.000-08:002009-02-28T13:00:19.080-08:00

Adding Sound to Animatic As demonstrated by Eddie in Storyboard Prostoryboard pro, animatic, sound

Lilinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3755159884131949628.post-25410415326358881012009-02-26T20:36:00.000-08:002009-02-26T20:39:58.777-08:00

Here I am rigging JOE 101 (Character from ROCQUITA).... trying out a different procedure here from the previous character.I created the linework in Flash and imported the SWFs into Animate. I had "grouped" the body parts in Flash and what's cool is that they remain grouped when imported into Animate. Which makes it easier to assign them to separate layers. (Less painstaking than "cutting out"

Lilinoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3755159884131949628.post-76383445318789481222009-02-26T15:22:00.001-08:002009-02-26T15:48:55.534-08:00

Rigging ROCQUITAI am following the exact steps in the ToonBoom Kickstart Tutorials (downloaded from the website), which are basically as follows:Draw character turnarounds, 1 pose per frame in the timeline. In this case, 4 poses.Paint character - create a paletteCut out parts of the character and assign to separate layers, doing this one pose at a time. *interestingly, in Flash we usually

Lilinoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3755159884131949628.post-66816108873148656432009-02-26T14:44:00.000-08:002009-02-26T15:14:21.526-08:00

The first thing you notice about drawing in ANIMATE (compared to Flash) is the much improved line quality and accuracy!  CLICK HERE to see enlarged pic. These are screengrabs of the brush strokes created in Flash and TB Animate. FLASH Unfortunately, what you get on screen is not true to what you draw... Flash tweaks your original linework and as you can see - those looped lines are really messed

Lilinoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3755159884131949628.post-7555275825052734632009-02-26T14:31:00.000-08:002009-02-26T14:42:31.041-08:00

Toonboom Storyboard Pro - Creating ROCQUITA Animatic Eddie had already created the storyboard for our ROCQUITA pilot in STORYBOARD PRO. Some panels were drawn directly in SB PRO; others were drawn in Flash and imported as swfs. In this video, he is importing dialog tracks into SB PRO and timing out each scene. Sidenote: Storyboard Pro exports to Quicktime, SWF or Image Sequence.We could also

Lilinoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3755159884131949628.post-78576444358336121822009-02-26T14:26:00.000-08:002009-02-27T13:17:10.775-08:00

Animation clip: THE BOSTIE BOYS (by Eddie)Testing Multiplane Camera in Toonboom Animate Also for BOSTIE BOYS.Multiplane Camera - City This is the rendered video.

Lilinoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3755159884131949628.post-24897515732223685182009-02-26T13:48:00.000-08:002009-02-27T14:20:15.399-08:00

Welcome! A new blog to document our experiences learning and using Toonboom's new ANIMATE animation software. We were first introduced to Toonboom's products back in June 2006, and attended a training session organized by Joel Kuwahara of Film Roman. It was a two-week part-time course and we touched lightly upon every feature of Toonboom SOLO (which then became DIGITAL PRO).We were impressed with

Lilinoreply@blogger.com2