1. Ah Fai was a chief animator for McDull’s animated features. He’s super cool. Ultimate senpai.
2. Previous post on breakdowns right here
Some thoughts on acceleration and force
I presented this in the order of how I slowly understood the trick of delivering force - first an abstract concept of impact taught by Ah Fai, then a more complicated discovery on the acceleration pattern, last back to a more abstract concept of breakdowns.
Like I’ve previously stressed, 2D animation is everything but one single approach. There’s no one rule that rules them all, but interchangeable ideas with math, or physics, or music, etc. There’s no “perfect” animation either, but what is perceived as organic and dynamic. E.g., using the Fibonacci numbers to animate didn’t bring me a perfect animation! On the other hand, a tiny change in the pattern could already make the feeling of force so much more powerful.
Not so much of a tutorial than a personal experience. I hope you find this interesting hahaha
This is one of those anime how to draw books, so it may not be the most accurate. It might help some people though.
(Source: honest-character-review)
How do I Animate? What are Video Layers? How does this Work?
Figured I’d do this sooner or later.
Okay, this is a step by step tutorial of the tool I use to animate.
You will need:
1. Photoshop CS4 or later (It needs to be EXTENDED version. Go to Window > Animation/Timeline in your version and if you see this button in the bottom right hand corner of the panel, you’re in luck.)
(I use Photoshop CS5 Extended,btw. That would be most accurate to what I’m about to teach you.)
2. Hopefully a tablet. Not required, but it’ll help with the tools I’ll be providing.
3. A good idea of how Photoshop works. This isn’t advanced per-say, but it does require you to know your way around Photoshop and how to change certain hot-keys/ use actions etc. I’ll guide you through and explain, anyways.
4. Patience and of course, Curiosity. What I’m telling you is the tip of the Iceberg, I’m finding more efficient methods to animate in PS to this day with this goddamn tool. Explore and Experimentation is the key to learning everything this tool will provide.
——————————————–
Ok, now that we’re ready, lets get set up.
- Firstly, you want to open up your Animation/Timeline Panel (not (Frames), that’s a terrible method of animating briskly)
This is the mode we’ll be animating. As shown, if you add certain layers, you can change their starting and ending visibility with the bars. Basically telling what layer when to start showing and when to stop showing. (there’s ways around this, but that’s for another tutorial.)
- Before starting, you want to open your Timeline’s drop-down menu and go to Document settings. Here, you’re able to set the length of your animation (or enter a number for how many frames you want)
-Ideally, you would want 10 or 12 frames-per-second, This should give you a gentle running speed.
[WARNING] This is a non issue if you don’t do this, but DO NOT alter the frames per second AFTER animating, the consequences will be disastrous!
Now that you have your Timeline set up and you frame-rate and frame-count ready, we can begin using Video Layers.
“Video Layers?”, “Video Layers”, “No, really, Video Layers, What are those?”
Ok, think of them like Layers that are Empty video files. They have a blank canvas for each frame over the course of the Timeline. We’ll be creating animation frames inside of them. This is a far more efficient method than the old ’Animation[Frames]’ Method which requires you to fiddle with Layers on every frame, making it a hassle to animate anything.
So where do you find these magical Video Layers?
Layer > Video Layers > New Blank Video Layer
[As you can see, I’ve also Binded hot-keys to the options for quick access when animating. You can do your own by going to Edit > Keyboard Shortcuts]
And you have now created a Video Layer. A Layer than has a blank canvas for each frame in the timeline.
-Animating? That’s as simple as drawing into a normal Layer. Just select your frame and animate away.
You can use the Time controls to go forward and backward with frames with ease!
-Now, how do you add in blank frames? How do you duplicate and remove frames?
Go to Layer> Video Layers > Insert/Duplicate/Delete Frame.
Congratulations! You’ve successfully created a Video Layer and animated inside of it!
———————————————-
Now, Ready for Extra Tools?
*Timeline Shortcuts - This will allow you to use arrow keys to seek through your timeline. Go into the Timeline Drop-down Menu and Select Enable Timeline Shortcut Keys.
Left and Right will take you to the last frame and next frame, Space will Play the animation. It’s handy if you just want to get a faster feeling of animating.
*Onion Skin - This tool gives you the ability to see the previous and next frames as if it were tracing paper. To activate it, click the onion skinning button on the bottom of the timeline.
How do you change the visibility and scope of your Onion Skin layers? Simply open the Timeline drop-down menu and Onion Skin Settings has everything there.
———————————————
More Tools
[ File : Animation.atn ] < click to download Actions
Here are some Actions I created that I use now and then.
To load them, Open the Window > Actions Panel, Click the Actions Dropdown Menu and Load the file.
This will give you a few Animation-themed Actions.
The first one, Make New Animation, is bind to the F2 Key. Meaning by pressing F2, it’ll automatically set up your Document Settings and create a blank video layer for you. [oooh, nifty!]
To use an action, click on it, and press the play button.
Automatic Actions! Handy and at the push of a button! [F2]
—————————————————
“I don’t like drawing with the tools in photoshop”
They take some time getting used to, if you want, I’ll give you my tools.
Open Window > Tool Preset and load up my tool presets file from the Tool Presets Drop-Down Menu.
I generally like using [Brush] Lineart Brush for my lines, but feel free to play around with whats there.
—————————————————–
Finally, I know a lot of you don’t like using Photoshop as a means to clean up in, and that’s perfectly understandable, So I’ll tell you how to export for other Programs.
1. Once your animation is complete and running how you want it to, In the Timeline Drop-down Menu, Click Flatten Frames to Layers, This will turn all of your frames into Program-friendly Layers for export.
2. Save your file as a PSD and open it in your preferred art program of choice.
3. Do your cleaning up, colouring, etc.
4. If it’s all perfect and each final frame is on it’s own layer, Reopen the PSD in Photoshop and in the Timeline Drop-Down Menu, Click Make Frames from Layers. This will arrange your layers in order from bottom to top, into start to end of the animation.
And last of all, to export your animation, Go to FILE > SAVE FOR WEB AND DEVICES.
(and remember to set your looping to Forever, haha)
————————————————–
Like I said, this is only the tip of the IceBerg, Experiment and get the most out of this!
I want to thank Sprite37 for showing me Video Layers, shit changed my life, man~
This video also helps if you SERIOUSLY can’t follow the tutorial.
———————————————–
Jai Nice
One Haunting Video Shows “Beauty Through The Decades” In New Light
Karolina Żebrowska’s “Beauty Through The Ages” video shows not only on the glamorized versions of women but also the real, middle and lower class women as they lived in the past century.
GIFS VIA.
Fashion Inspiration - Warrior Queens
Clothing that serves as armor
(via potatofarmgirl)
Art Deco automobiles
(via king-in-yellow)
