Animation work flow help

[jlahham]

I am intending on starting a new short using TVPaint. I am very new to this software and I would highly appreciate it if anyone of you pros would hint me on a good work flow. I know the basics of layers, I animate I just don't know how to organize my work and my scenes and what's the best way to layout a scene in BG MG and FG.
I'm pretty sure anything helps.

Many thanks in advance.

Jam

http://www.jamillahham.com/

[Elodie]

Hahaha, I like your animation with the inuits ! I can't wait to see what you are able to do with 2D animation =)

[slowtiger]

From your question I think you should concentrate on storyboarding first. The program doesn't matter in this stage. Do it on paper, or do it in TVP. You need to translate your story into a storyboard. There are numerous books about that subject available if you need additional input.

[Paul Fierlinger]

I suggest you do in TVP what you have been doing in school. Looking at your exercises it seems like you have been given some good guidance -- for instance, keep it short; you're not making movies yet. Get very familiar with TVP by just fooling around. After being present on these forums for many, many years I can say that there are almost as many workflows as there are animators. I, for one, consider storyboards a waste of time unless it's something you need to do for a team job or a client.

You say on your website that you are looking for a job in a studio that offers animators creative freedom... that's an oxymoron from my point of experience. Studios are setup for teamwork and I see very little opportunities for creative freedom in teamwork (as I understand creative freedom). So you are not exactly rushing into teamwork. In that case play a lot with TVP; at least 6 hours or more a day, every day of the year and keep an eye open for just one thing: Originality. Your schooling isn't done by graduating with a diploma. You need 3 more years of sitting at a tablet all day long studying on your own -- convince your parents that your school years will become a waste of time if you can't get as many years of internship with yourself.

Let your pen flow with wherever your spirit will take it to in the moment and chase away whatever you have seen on TV. Stay away from making movies. That will come all by itself when you are ready. You have a good sense of acting and timing and observation. Draw people as you alone see them; real people albeit cartooned. Stay away from formulas and magic tricks -- those are tools for the lazy ones and I don't see you as lazy. There is no escaping practice. Practice those six or more hours a day, preferably a lot more and see where this will take you in a year.

And just one more thing; since you crave artistic freedom, stick with hand drawn animation. When was the last time anyone saw anything unusual and pleasing made in 3D? You don't need 3D because you can draw and you yearn for creative freedom. 3D animation is bondage. So is rotoscoping.

[BenEcosse]

you'll find lots of helpful advice on work flow here

[Paul Fierlinger]

Unusual, I agree, and some nice emotions towards the end; really nice. But how much better this could be if it were to be done with pure, skilfull drawings from beginning to end! It starts with a desperate cutout look and the acting is nil. It's stiff. Then something happens and the end is nice and surprising.

But how I would like to see this just well drawn so that I could admire the skill of an artist behind the extraordinary mood. BTW, I prefer this kind of interpretation of a child's mind compared to the obligatory cutesy stuff that floats down from white clouds everywhere around the U-tubs. There is depth in that little piece. It could be deeper yet if the animator took the time to draw everything.

[BenEcosse]

and lots of different opinions to learn from too

[Paul Fierlinger]

Interesting; I thought that was the whole film. This is something jlaham might like to think of as a good length for a short, short story for starters. Just the way that sample works it has a beginning a middle and a surprise ending which leaves one still thinking and it's a story with a very personal approach. The theme of a gaping animal mouth coming out of the wall next to the child's bed is apparently a reoccurring dream which comes to many children. According to Jung it is most often an image of an ass, or mare, thus some say, the origin of the expression nightmare. I used to have exactly that one as a baby too (up until about 3 or 4) and still remember it. This is what I mean by animating personal feelings and experiences and aren't such films really the most interesting ones? Especially when you can just tell that it's not entirely fiction. I bet this one isn't ... it would be fun to find out.

[jlahham]

Well I didn't expect all these replies to be honest with all of you. Many thanks. I actually have a plan, a premise, a loose storyboard in the phase of development and many many scribbles for character designs. All of it is going to fall into place but until then I thought I'd overlap it with learning the tricks of TVPaint. For instance under the tutorial link I watched the bouncing ball tutorial and that was very beneficial to me. I feel just like the old traditional animators when they wanted to make the leap towards CG animation, they all were animators they just didn't know how to use the tools, but in my case it's backwards.
I think a Tips and Tricks session is what I'm looking for.

[BenEcosse]

I've been learning since January. My advice is to watch all the tutorials on this site, read all the topics in the forum and read the manual cover to cover. This forum is very helpful, even if you think your questions are beginners

[toonsisters]

Welcome Jam,

I have a classical 2D animation background and experience with digital flash animation.
This was surprising new to me, working with TVPaint animation:

You can organize not only different scenes of your film in different projects of TVPaint but also different parts of one scene.
Somewhere in this forum somebody (I bet ZigOtto or Tantalus) told me to keep big backgrounds in separate projects and then open an fx with the background project as source for moving it behind the animation or for just show a cut out.
You can also keep walk cycles in separate projects just to source them by fx. This can help keeping the level window shorter and overviewing the whole project.

It took a time for me to realize how to save the special pen szise and colour I needed. Very usefull to find out!

Also a new way of working to me was using the animated custom brush. The possibilities for tuning an animation by cutting out and pasting a selected part over lots of frames are impressive.

I still use some scripts other animators were sharing. One very usefull is Cut & Paste in place for keeping cleaned up feet exactly in position. Just comp through the contest sharing forum. This really pays off!

Hope, this can help

Vera
PS I love your inuits, too! Well done cartoon animation style by 3d - fun to watch!

[toonsisters]

workflow

Sent at: Thu Apr 30, 2009 8:25 am
by jlahham
Great...Everything you said is great, but my problem is that I have no methodology ...Like for instance if I were to animate a shot in 3D I would know how to start and organize my work and what not...but here I feel like I fairly know the tools but I have no clue of how animate a character walking in an environment with pan cam ..see what I mean? I found a couple of tutorials about tools but none of them covered the workflow.

if you happen to have an easy workflow that you can share that'd be highly appreciated.

Many thanks for your response

---------------------------

Re: workflow

Sent at: Tue May 05, 2009 11:24 am
by toonsisters
Dear Jam,

me and my team are animating our first project with tvpaint animation.
and we decided to check out this new digital system because the film has a very simple structure.
No cuts, no camera movements. So my project files will be no usefull help.

But after several month of experience this is how I would organize a film project.

- create an animatix to split each camera shot and define the length of it.(since you already produced short films, I do not explain these terms. If you need an explanation, please feel free to ask) you can do this by tvpaint or other software you are used to.
- create a new tvpaint project for every single camera shot of your film
- create a new tvpaint project for every different background you want to use
- inside each scene project create an layout animation layer for each character to be animated and do the rough scribbeling in just a few key frames all over the scene
- inside each scene project create a background layer and open the fx window to import the background by choosing the motion - key framer effect and choose the project list as source to be shown in the render tab. If you want to move the background you have to create a key frame you have to press the c button next to the position in the fx window and then go to the last key frame of your background movement and create a new key frame. then select all frames of the background level and hit apply in the fx window. (very short summary of a complicated fx. I hope it works)
Maybe you should not work with the full detailed backgrounds while working on the animatione. Sometimes it is easier to make a simple copy by drawing the essential lines and work with it until coloring or rendering.

- After rendering a movie of the rough animation scribbles and rough backgrounds, you can use a comon cutting programm to add all the scenes of your film and watch them in line. While working on the animation you just update each scene movie and keep the overview in timing and athmosphere of your film.

- Working on the animation means you substitute each layout animation layer by more detailed animation layers or add more keyframes in the animation for more flowing animation.
Since you come from 3d animation maybe it is usefull to know that in 2d animtion sometimes it is time saving to keep the unmoving part of a character on a seperate layer and animate only the moving part f.e. a waving arm on another layer.

I hope this can help you start. but the main thing is : JUST START. Nobody is able to start without doing mistakes. You will find out while working.
If you don't mind we should copy this work flow suggestion back into the forum, so others can reply better ideas or use them.

I am very interested in your progress, maybe you can create a WIP topic in the animations forum to keep us up to date?

all the best
Vera


---------------------------


Re: workflow

Sent at: Tue May 05, 2009 3:20 pm
From: jlahham
To: toonsisters
WOW This is really really helpful you have no idea how much I appreciate that... Many thanks, and WIP is coming soon.

Regards,

Jamil

[Peter Wassink]

Thanks for posting this Vera, a very neat explanation.

[toonsisters]

I would appreciate other examples. I'd like to learn more about it, too.

Maybe other insiders could please share their knowledge about organisation methods and structure of their work?

[Sierra Rose]

FWIW I have have been working by always making a sound track first, then stretching out the layers, keeping the timing of the sound track.

Even if it's just my voice pretending to be an airplane until I can find the right sound or my voice saying what I want the character to say in a better voice, it still gives me the timing. I can't think how to start without this as a first step.

I'm not rigid about it, meaning I can make changes as I go along, but just as I start the project, I am doing this. (Not that I don't make mistakes that involve extra work anyway, but this seems to cut them down).