Animation Noob

[Juggertha]

So, I'm thinking I want to get into animation a bit. I saw what Jesse did for a pummel entry, and liked it.

I was kind of hoping to do a sort of aimed comic - you know, where the character images slide/are resized across the screen and dialogue bubble pop up.


Anyone want to point me in the right direction for a starting point?

[khmer]

Yeah this stuff is being used to great effect lately with animatics for storyboarding for film. Though lately I've seen it used for BD style comics as well. One of my all time favorites has put it to some good use:

Blacksad -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qVc3...eature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Ctga...eature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSg-7EuWZ_A

I have some others that I'll dig up and post that more involved than that. It's an interesting process. I've done a bit of traditional animation from time to time - and these animatics are far less involved that is for sure. There are several different processes that can used to arrive at a final finished animatic. And then of course you can go to varying degrees of full animation as well.

There is really killer one in this tutorial vid (though I think the link I've posted is just a quicky intro):

Massive Black - El Coro - Cinematic Storyboarding
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXg2reSswpA

This guy is unreal... I think all comic book artists could learn a whole lot from watching this video. He's got some insanely good pointers in the thing. It's worth every penny... just brilliant. At any rate.. he's got a nice animatic in there of the storyboard you see him create. Everything he covers in that video applies directly to comics as well. It should be required viewing in art schools.

I'll post up a bit more info after I get some z-z-z-z-z-z-z

[cbikle]

Also, FWIW, you can do exactly the kind of animation you're trying to do with any version of Photoshop higher than 7 (7 and before used another Adobe program called Image Ready).

[khmer]

Yes and it's not half bad the Photoshop animation! Most people have Photoshop and it's an Adobe product so the learning curve at least in terms of menu layout and GUI etc. is easy to deal with. I use another software called Toon Boom Pro (or maybe it's studio) and it's a lot more involved and much more specialized towards traditional hand drawn animation.

Much of what's done on the animatics shown so far is could also pretty easily be achieved in something like the old Windows Movie Maker. In fact my first short film was shot on a point and shoot and cut down in WMM. It wasn't half bad for what it was. I've long since moved on to Final Cut Pro (and now that's gotten axed and become Final Cut X and it's a whole other can of worms)...

But anyhow Juggertha - there's a myriad of options to play with. No doubt you can knock out some killer stuff pretty easily.

[CrazyDiamond]

So, I'm thinking I want to get into animation a bit. I saw what Jesse did for a pummel entry, and liked it.

I was kind of hoping to do a sort of aimed comic - you know, where the character images slide/are resized across the screen and dialogue bubble pop up.


Anyone want to point me in the right direction for a starting point?

Dammit he did animation first. I was gonna do that for a Pummel Entry. Oh well.

I would suggest to use photoshop first as you would probably be most comfortable with it. But for what you're wanting to do it sounds flash would be most suitable.

[astrocity20]

As an aside, it's not a comic, but if you'd like to see a great example of a movie made with stills only I can't recommend La Jetee enough.

[Juggertha]

I guess what I'm looking for is similar to this motion comic, but with less effects. I basically want to animated multiple layers/images/pieces... plus add in fades, blurs, etc...

Photoshop, as far as I can figure it from looking at tutorials, simply animates basic GIFs, no?

[cbikle]

I guess what I'm looking for is similar to this motion comic, but with less effects. I basically want to animated multiple layers/images/pieces... plus add in fades, blurs, etc...

Photoshop, as far as I can figure it from looking at tutorials, simply animates basic GIFs, no?

Flash might be closer to what you're looking for then, although you can also use Photoshop as well, it just requires more work and getting creative with filters and blending modes.

[Juggertha]

Do you know if Flash is cool with importing PNG or such files? I mean, if I do up something in PS, and then import it as an image, can I drag it all around smoothly in Flash?

[cbikle]

Do you know if Flash is cool with importing PNG or such files? I mean, if I do up something in PS, and then import it as an image, can I drag it all around smoothly in Flash?

It's been awhile since I've used Flash, but I'm pretty sure you can; Flash has the same kind of auto-select tools that PS has.

Also, my version of Flash is pretty old and I can only imagine that newer versions are much more accommodating.