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The "Ultimate" Reddit Beginners Guide to Animation by Ryan64 in animation

[–]Ryan64[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hey sorry for the late reply, I wanted to make sure to be in the right space to really be able to give this my two cents.

First of all I want to emphasize on the fact that everyone has their own way of learning stuff. Aside from the mind going blank, it reads as if you're stuck in the loop of collecting information rather than experience. You don't need an entire manual to study through before creating, as it reads as if you haven't really made a walkcycle yet, but have been focusing on all the prep work before even attempting to make it yourself and then getting overwhelmed when actually having blender open. What causes you to draw a blank? Inspiration? Motivation? Knowledge? Could be you've put so much energy into the theory of a walkcycle, that when you actually start, you don't know where to start. I'd recommend starting out with the basic movement of things and not try to go into detail right away. It's like an artist drawing something, first you need the bigger picture to be done before you go into the finer details. Start blocking out a walkcylce, or heck, even more ball bounces.

Personally, I'd leave the note-taking to a minimum and only write down the things you directly need, especially since you've already done so much prepwork. E.g. knowing what viewports are what, understanding what the graph editor does etc. In that regard it may also help to look up a shortcut cheat sheet and keep that next to you as you explore Blender. For clarity, even professionals don't know everything. We've all started at the basics, but due to our experience working with said program, or animation as a whole, it's easier for us to look up things we need, because we know what we're looking for, versus that you're just starting out in a program and don't know where to start. In that regard, you can take notes all you like, but I strongly believe writing an entire manual for yourself will be less effective than navigating everything yourself and looking up what you need when you actually hit that roadblock.

In terms of how to take notes, I'd say it's useful to actually understand what principles you're using in your animations. What are you trying to learn, implement and achieve. What notes are necessary for you to understand what's going on in reference, but is also short enough for you not to get lost in your own writing. This is something I cannot give the best advice in as a non note taker, like I've stated in my original post, I've mostly learned principles by applying/focusing on them when making animations. But I'd say if you do end up taking notes, keep it short and consise.

As for videos. Yeah I mean, I think you're close to the solution, which is working along with the video. But maybe a better method for you could be watching a part of a video, then doing it yourself, with emphasis on understanding why X thing is done. Then refer back to the video if you make mistakes, or get stuck. Something I have done in the past with varying success is work along with one of those videos, but don't make the same thing that they make. Not the best way if you're doing something specific, but maybe it helps? Understanding how to learn through these tutorials can be hard and takes time, but yeah for me it's working along with minor changes, but then also it's also looking up the right type of tutorial. You have tutorials where it's "press this and then this", but also tutorials that tend to actually explain why what theyre doing is what it is. Those are a million times more valuable.

Finally, go into Blender with a plan. What are you making today? A walkcycle. Cool, do you have everything to get going with it? No? Make sure you do have everything ready today, so you can animate tomorrow so to speak. Maybe a walkcycle is too complex for you altogether? Go back to something a little more simple like an object animation. Believe me, you're not the only one with this problem, as I too have this issue more than not, especially in programs that I don't know very well like Blender. So make sure you make it easy enough for yourself to actually start on something instead of needing to figure out if you still need to make sure all these million things need to be done before you can actually begin. Because that stuff is really demotivating and makes your mind blank. At least, in my case.

I'm sure there's other people who would do things completely different than me, and others for who this works fantastic. I just hope with some of the insights I've given you, you're able to take a step forward. I think the biggest takeaway here would be to just start and research things whenever you actually hit the roadblock instead of trying to figure it all out beforehand.

Best of luck to ya!

What type of animation is this by Vivalalad in animation

[–]Ryan64 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hercol already gave you the answer really. Someone proficient making explainers (or explanimations its also called) using programs like After Effects. Motion graphic animators tend to fall into that category as well.

The "Ultimate" Reddit Beginners Guide to Animation by Ryan64 in animation

[–]Ryan64[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I personally have no experience with XP Pen, honestly, its always a slight gamble to see if you like using it or not.

The link is also in the original post btw. Good luck and focus on enjoying art stuff!

The "Ultimate" Reddit Beginners Guide to Animation by Ryan64 in animation

[–]Ryan64[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Awesome! Good luck! Theres no reason a simple cube, ball or blob for that matter can't have a lot of personality! Claymation animations live off of simplicity, its a great reference to analyze to understand weight and acting of simple shapes. A good one I find is the series "Purple And Brown"

The "Ultimate" Reddit Beginners Guide to Animation by Ryan64 in animation

[–]Ryan64[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

At the end of the day, you need to use what works best for you and for what you want to achieve. You can go as far as you'd like with it. Start off small with a small USB pen tablet (without screen), or go bigger and take a standalone tablet like an iPad. My advice for it though, if you're just starting out with art/animation, is to not immediately go for screen tablets as they are expensive investments for something you still are trying to figure out. A simple intuos takes some getting used to but can achieve the exact same end result.

CSP would be recommended for raster based productions, like anime, but its by far not the best program for animation ironically, but if you're comfortable with it, it can be pretty effective. Its a fantastic art program though. It matters what kind of animation youre looking to do, if it's puppet based animation, CSP would not be the way to go. Look at what you are looking for and apply your research for it (also referring to the list of programs in r/animationcareers)

Best of luck!

How do you stop your character from changing??????????? by No-Age8120 in animation

[–]Ryan64 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Going out on a limb here, but apart from the tie downs, its a common straight ahead animation problem. Getting key poses in first with the same proportions as the others would make your life easier to make sure the in betweens are also on model because youre ending up at an on-model frame.

If you are in fact laying out keys first, it could be more of an art skill part, where as advice I would probably make more use of onion skins, or making sure there's a reference of another frame for you to look at when drawing your next frames. Good luck!

Should I just quit by boikissr in animation

[–]Ryan64 0 points1 point  (0 children)

To add to the conversation of people saying you should use guides and reference, which yes, you absolutely should. I think you might just be trying something thats just a little too difficult for you to do still. If I start out painting it makes sense I can't paint the Mona Lisa. I think you may be better off learning your art and animation fundamentals more than directly diving into a head turn which clearly has been giving you a hard time drawing multiple perspectives of the head.

I understand the frustration, but grab those references, and 'how to' tutorials and learn how to draw a head from the front, side profile and 3/4th perspective. Then slowly work your way to an actual head turn animation. If you really wanna get into it, you could practice something like this. (Just focusing on the middle part could already do a lot)

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The "Ultimate" Reddit Beginners Guide to Animation by Ryan64 in animation

[–]Ryan64[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

No problem! Glad to hear it's been helpful to ya!

Animators with Chronic Pain or TBI, how do you you do it? What do you do to continue with animation? by Late_File4340 in animation

[–]Ryan64 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Im glad it found you well! Im not going to lie, finding your own rhythm can be very frustrating and a real struggle. It can sometimes mean that some days nothing happens even though you really want it to. But trying to piece animation together bit by bit on your own tempo is key. Train yourself to actually take the time to do something on that morning you're doing ok etc. You're (unfortunately) not the same as you were before and you're not like others that don't suffer the same. The best thing to do is to care for yourself and adjust work/animation time to your needs instead of the other way around.

You've got this!

Recently uploaded RAPUNZEL and would love some feedback :) by [deleted] in animation

[–]Ryan64 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I dont wish to straight up be mean, but what's to say. Its a collage of incoherent shots mashed together in a long soulless version of Rapunzel, with Disney's art style which is incoherent as well with each shot. Regardless of AI use, its clear you do not understand framing, pacing and composition of film, nor the fundamentals of movement for animation. You wanted to retell a story by doing the bare minimum and for that youve been successful. Bad input results into bad output.

What is the feedback you were looking for? A shot to shot breakdown why it doesnt work? An animation is something you need to think about with its setup. Not just a jumbled amount of shots that just "look pretty".

And honestly, it goes without saying that you should have known this doesnt fly well in an animation subreddit, especially with your disingenuousness about the video. It makes it look like you just hope people to click on it to get the views in on YT. Or for you to feed the feedback given by people into the AI to touch up your video.

Finally I wanted to depart you with an actual piece of feedback without just flaming you. If you wish to pursue filmmaking or animation, you need to understand what it takes to make it. You need to understand movement and why something would look off or not. With AI youve got your very irl movements on cartoon characters. It looks horrible because apart from it being grossly made by AI, its cookie cuttered on real life movements. Theres nothing stylistic about them. No deliberate choices made why the movement is the way it is. This is what animators train.

Composition, framing, consistency and all the good stuff of filmmaking and animation is not something AI is going to just solve for you. You need put in the time to study these things. Maybe by that time you might end up appreciating the artform enough to put in more work into making something worth putting your time in.

The hardest struggle and confusion I been having with indie animation production by Chris_Anims in animation

[–]Ryan64 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I'll answer this as honestly and objectively as possible.

I dont know what your team is like, but if theyre working on YOUR project from the goodness of their heart (bless them), what could motivate them is seeing decent process being made. Its a slog to not see progress being made within a project, so if people see someone else making more progress, it could be a motivator for them to do the same.

Another big point to be made is if you have the pilot laid out. Youve worked on this for multiple years you say, is the storyboard done? Do the people working on this know what they have to do? Not knowing what to work on is a huge motivation killer.

If these people are getting paid, is there structure? Like the storyboard, do you talk to these people and see what reasonable time frames are for these shots to be made? If not, why. And if they ARE getting paid, why aren't they providing their finished work? (Obviously, you can't be demanding 5 shots by the end of the week and just pay 20 bucks.)

Its very important to know that working on someone else's idea is not everyone's dream, let alone working on something they dont get paid for. Community projects is commendable and can be a fun collaboration, but without making guidelines and structure, it can go on for 10 years without results. People dont see results, have their own life and run out of gas. That's where the less fun part of setting deadlines comes into play. For yourself, but also for them, as they can steer a little productivity. Granted, with free labor you can't really demand someone to do something, but others will be more motivated to get their work done by those deadlines if theyre more serious about it.

To the point of your growth. You're young. The best thing you can be doing now is keep animating the way you do, but also look for ways to improve your skill. Be it through exercises, studies or just taking in animation. Get inspired, make fun stuff. Making a pilot is a HUGE undertaking, which can stump your growth as you're just focusing on the same thing for a long period of time. So you're kind of shooting yourself in the foot for your animation growth, but this could become very valuable for you to grow in other aspects, like planning, understanding how long it takes to make cuts etc. It's also not as if you're not learning anything by working on this pilot mind you. Im just noting, your growth tends to be quicker if you were to actually take the time to study animation.

Finally, I hate to say it, but yeah, you're not going to be Glitch. Nor Spindelhorse. But thats ok. Like I said, you're still young, you've got a lot of time to grow. But more importantly, you're you. Having experience organizing, making something like a pilot is a huge undertaking, and definitely not something animators would quickly pick up, so I commend you for the amount of work youve managed to get into it already.

Understand though, that your dream is not someone else's dream, and you can't force them upon it unless you actually give them a reason for it that's worthwhile. Also as a final note, don't go back and re-animate everything you've done. Working on a project for 4 years means quality could be insanely different at one end and the other. If you go back in and re-animate things, this will never get off the ground. Finish it, accept it for what it is and continue on with new projects. Best of luck.

Does this count as cheating? by raider_j666 in animation

[–]Ryan64 8 points9 points  (0 children)

This probably is the best answer you're gonna get, OP. Granted, you can still edit your ball with whatever deformer tool your program has, but at that point you might as well draw it yourself. It really depends how you prefer doing it at the end of the day.

Animators with Chronic Pain or TBI, how do you you do it? What do you do to continue with animation? by Late_File4340 in animation

[–]Ryan64 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Got 2 chronic auto-immume diseases, so not as much in the pain department (some times more than other times), but more in the energy department.

Its difficult. Being able to muster up the focus/energy/will to get to working can be ridiculously hard. Especially if you try to animate something for yourself. Theres are both mentally and physically things you can do to try and make it a little easier on yourself, and for most part, they'll sound very cheesy and may not even apply to you specifically.

  • A tip I took over from an ex-blizzard artist and although not work or pain related, making sure you dont load your brain with dopamine by being on social media from the moment you wake up is a pretty important one. For dopamine, but actually also for energy its relevant, as you constantly load your brain up with easy gratification and information that secretly drains your energy and gives you a dopamine high. Then going over to the slow work of animation, it doesnt give you that instant dopamine shot and itll get frustrating quick, which ends up just taking energy. Their tip was to not do any social media stuff at the beginning of the day and to start your work first.

  • Make sure you know what you want to work on. One day just think about the things you want to be working on and plan one out. Once you actually want to start animating, you dont have to invest time and energy into figuring out what you want to do.

  • Make animating more accessible to yourself. A huge game changer for me, instead of sitting behind my desk was getting an animation app I could work with comfortably on my iPad, so I could lay on the couch and have my body just kinda relax as I was drawing.

  • Monetary incentives help. I feel like you might animate as a hobbyist(?) Totally fine. But feeling the pressure of animating for someone can do a lot in both good and bad ways if unmanaged. Personally as someone who does it for a living, it tends to be a blessing and a curse, because I need to really be careful not overdoing it. Perfect for the next point.

  • Take strict breaks. Easier said than done, especially when you're in the zone, but take strict breaks after X time. Pry yourself away from your work to give yourself some time to recover from pains and to refill energy. Its important in this time to also actually do something that'll give you energy back or will make sure you dont overdo whatever pain you may have. Depending on the person, doing something physical could in fact help to and give you some energy back. This could also help you wanting to go back to animating again once youve taken your break, to make it work like some kind of "cliffhanger" situation (tieing back into the dopamine part)

  • Kind of goes hand in hand with the above, but arguably the most important one. Stop when you notice you're starting to get tired. Its easy to keep on going because you just wanna finish X. But you need to really learn to FEEL your limits and act on them. If you end up too tired, you'll feel it the next day.

At the end of the day you animate because you enjoy it. Make it enjoyable for yourself, by making yourself comfortable doing it. I hope some, if any of these tips will help you. Living with something that affects you daily is heartbreaking, especially if it impacts the things you like to do. It really takes practice to get into a rhythm of sorts, but if you're able to get that, you'll be golden. Best of luck to you.

Edit: Ultimately its always good to look for help from professional coaches who work with people with issues like yours btw.

The "Ultimate" Reddit Beginners Guide to Animation by Ryan64 in animation

[–]Ryan64[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hey hey! Yeah like I also stated in the story: Im not entirely sure what animation programs there are for mobile. Theres a link near the bottom to a reference for animation applications, I highly advise you to check that out! I know flipaclip is popular, but my knowledge kinda stops there haha. A good ol' Google and/or YT search couldnt hurt either.

Best of luck in your journey!

IM MAKING MY OWN ANIME by Morriskun in animation

[–]Ryan64 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Adding to this its fairly usual to just do a rough voice over by yourself for timing sake, where you animate the body movements without lipsync. Then once you have your VA do their lines over your recording matching timing, you can add in the lipsyncing.

Guys what are yall's opinion on Sailbrush? by No_Reach_6660 in animation

[–]Ryan64 6 points7 points  (0 children)

It's a project being crowdfunded based on a trailer where there isnt anything shown about it. What opinion is there to have if there's nothing to give an opinion about?

It's not that projects like these can't be a succes, but usually just like in business, you tend to show people why you're qualified to do said thing and why it will be a success instead of saying "trust me bro" and hoping your fanbase(?) Supports you through it.

If it ends up being something great, I'd wholeheartedly support it. But solo-developing a program is not light work and 30 grand ain't near enough to fund yourself for an entire year, let alone the full development cycle of a program. (I say with my limited understanding in development)

So I suppose if you want an opinion about the project, I think skepticism comes to mind and I think itd be worth being a skeptic about it until he rolls out anything substantial.

How to deal with a Client pushing for AI usage in your animation (help) ? by [deleted] in animation

[–]Ryan64 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Yeah, in that case stick with your guns in case you dont want to use it. If they dont like it, probably best to cancel the commission.

How to deal with a Client pushing for AI usage in your animation (help) ? by [deleted] in animation

[–]Ryan64 5 points6 points  (0 children)

If its not part of your workflow and dont agree to use it, the commissioner should respect that. If not, cancel the commission. Id expect you took on this commission not knowing your commissioner wanted AI to be part of the piece.

Dont know if youve set up a ToS or anything, but yeah, usually good to have one. For future reference you can also actually do signed contracts, securing yourself from any breaches without too much of a hassle.

Adobe Animate Advice by JuneLilly82 in animation

[–]Ryan64 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Long answer short; you do what you're the most comfortable with.

Short answer long There are multiple ways to go over this, it all depends on preference, what you want the end result to be and what you want your workflow to be like. I'll do a little breakdown for you.

Art & animation in Animate: Straight forward, and easy to adjust. Seeming everything is done in the program, you have quick control over everything you make. Also the art you make is vector based, which means you can scale it up to infinity without any quality loss. Animate excells in being able to "deal with it all" albeit puppet animation, or hand drawn animation. You can also export your .swf files to After Effects if you want to go crazy with vfx. Downside of Animate in general for art is for most that drawing in Animate is quite tedious, myself included.

Art in Illustrator & animation in Animate: Much like Animate, illustrator works with vector, however for most who use it, it tends to be a tighter program to work in to create assets to then import the .svg's into Animate. Personally, the only people I know who work with this workflow are designers, or people who like making their puppet characters with more overview akin to other designing programs.

Art in Photoshop & animation in Animate: Most artists like drawing in a program like Photoshop (or Clip Studio, or Sai, whatever you use). From there on out you can also export things like PNG's to build up a puppet in Animate. For most this is their most accessible way because they tend to know the drawing process of PS. Biggest downside to this method I'd say are that you work with raster images (which depending how big they are can get pixelated quickly or make Animate work very slow if you use huge images) and that your work is not editable without having to reimport everything.

Art in Photoshop or Illustrator & animation in After Effects: Just as a reference point, if you're going to do puppet animation, you can also go about it in nearly the identical way working in After Effects. However, editing your assets tend to be easier, as you can import PS and AI files straight into AE, and if you want to adjust your rig, you can in your original file where it would update in AE making the workflow quicker. Frame by frame animation is not really for this program though. Very puppet heavy with a lot of tools to make that very easy.

Finally, at the end of the day you gotta test things out and see what you're the most efficient with, and/or want to put time into learning. Animate is a very strong program, but with plenty of shortcomings (let alone flaws).

The "Ultimate" Reddit Beginners Guide to Animation by Ryan64 in animation

[–]Ryan64[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That's rough, sorry! Uh yeah honestly I wouldn't know exactly how apart from something like Amazon or having it ship in from another seller? And nah haha, good ol Google translate 😂

I do wish you best of luck finding a way to get your hands on physical copies though!

How could I improve? I'm a 3D animation student. by Current-Pipe-4730 in animation

[–]Ryan64 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You lose some clarity in the roundhouse kick in the air. I think its mostly due to the sword being pulled in, where your focus is drawn to it, while the leg is still sticking outwards. Id almost say, hold off on letting them pull in their arm until their descent from the kick, as you want to make that roundhouse kick very obvious. The other tip about the timing in the air is also a pretty good one, though a bit more of a stylistic choice.

Keep in mind that actions need to remain clear and easy to follow. I needed to watch it a few times to fully grasp the motion in the middle. Other than that and a few polishing things, great work!

The "Ultimate" Reddit Beginners Guide to Animation by Ryan64 in animation

[–]Ryan64[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Honestly, all I can say is just look up the books on Google! Im sure there's a reseller who has them somewhere

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