This week Nev chose Alchemist as animator of the week.
It’s come to my attention that this site has provided a good read to viewers. Plus many would like regular updates.
Elmo has currently got this blog in his mind, so keep checking in for updates in the near future. ( Hopefully )
-Please leave comments and things you would find useful to give the authors of the blog some material that would help you.
-Plan B(iz)
Filed under: 1 | Leave a Comment »
I’d like to apologize to any regular readers for the lack of collumns this week due to various reasons.
Anyway, moving on to yet another Inspirational Idea..
The Wall Method
Im not drunk nor high as i write this collumn, it is a genuine method that ive come across during my time on forums and animating.
The method its self is very basic, simply sit on a chair or lay on a bed and look at a blank wall, take a deep breath and simply think, the tip is however not to think i need an idea what could i possibly animate. Think of recent movies, what you did at the weekend etc. I too thought this was a pointless method but i suprised my self at what i could think of too animate.
Your Everday Life
Even you and and your simple life can create such a creative and original life. Think about your daily routine and give it an exciting edge. Brushing your teeth is a pretty boring thing to animate, but what if another stk man came in and had a toothbrush war XD. Perhaps you could animate toothpaste fight plaque on a tooth both being reprented by stk men.
Even your past time activites can come into effect i.e skating.
This concludes my collumn.
On a side note, my pc i broken hence my absence on msn etc, should be fixed by tuesday, wednesday.
Filed under: Monday | 4 Comments »
Animator/ion of the week
Gotta say I love the stuff Gameslave put out this week. Two new animation scoring both first and second.
#1. Gameslave’s Madness Combat
Click to download
#2. Gameslave’s Kansas City Shuffle
Click to downloadClick to view thread
#3. Crimzy’s Effects
Click to download
Click to view thread
Filed under: 1 | 1 Comment »
Ok, my little talk time, thanks once again to all the people that have been subscribing, I hope it helps you and I’d really love some feedback, it would be great, also we are nearly at 2000 visits, so thanks to everyone that has been visiting and supporting what we’re doing, now to get on with my lil tut for this tuesday.
Simple effects
Right then, simple effects, these kinda things can really spice up and animation and make it look so much better, and like the title says they are simple, so they don’t take much time or effort to carry out, but they can make and animation so much more, and make you as an animator stand out of the crowd, and also you’re on your way to becoming great at effects, because, everyone has to start somewhere.
Ok this one to the left is the anim I sahll be be adding to, with an effect each time so, let us get started with a really easy ground shake.
Most people already know what this is, but some people put them in the wrong place, so I’ll cover them just to make sure it is all good in the hood.
All you do for ground shake is move the subject of the animation down vertically around 4 or 5 pixels, the bigger the force you need the more pixels you move it down, but don’t go too far, because it does look rather strange then, what I personally do is on the next frame I’ll move the subject up by one pixel, do give a small after impression, so let’s see what this looks like.
Here you can see that the small ground shake adds a fair amount of power to the attack, but we can add more, and make it look much more powerful, such as inverting the colours of the frame where the attack takes place, let’s try this out and see what we get.
.
.
Ok, for me personally I don’t like this, but it can add power when used it the correct context and place in an animation, so don’t rule it out straight away.
Next I am going to do something that I don’t see in alot of animations, and this is add a shadow to the stickman, this is one of the coolest little effects you can do, and often it is really rather simple when doing it with no background such as these animations.
..
[piv]
All you need to do for a shadow is create a leg stick, this is the same size as the leg of your base stick, but have the origin of the stick where the ankle would be on the actual stick man, then on each frame, place it behind your stick man, and about 4 pixels below the foot of your guy, making sure the shadow is at the same angle as the leg, you’ll see what I mean in the next anim, enjoy.
Well, that’s it for now, I hope this helps and as ever feedback people, I wanna know what you like and how we can improve pivotblog for you guys.
elmo out
Filed under: Tuesday | 1 Comment »
Get Well Soon Tyson
I’d like to start my post with wishing tyson all the luck in hospital after suffering an eye related injury in a skate accident, if you too would like to leave your regards and best wishes please feel free too in a form of a comment.
Brainstorming
On a lighter note, here is a quick and easy way on how to develop ideas. Many would of heard this technique, and therefore have no need to read on, but just remember it’s a simple but effective tool.
For those who haven’t brainstoriming is simply jotting down ideas as they come to your head on some paper in a form of notes or a spider diagram.
Time yourself, 30seconds to a minute with a pen at hand and some paper and write as many words as you can or phrases. Once done read over what your wrote to develop a base line to an animation.
For example in 30 seconds i typed the following
Pie, Pencil, Paper, Mountain, Sking, Snowboarding, iPod, Music… and so on.
From just these words i could animate a snowboarding related animation perhaps, or an animation revolving around pie.
Brainstorming brings out ideas you didn’t know you had XD.
-Plan B(iz)
Filed under: 1, Monday | 5 Comments »
Animator/ion of the week
There were 4 animations this week that actually had some depth and quality.
#1. Alchemist’s Depths
Link to thread
Great animation. Unique and with backgrounds. Only flaw I can really point out is the lack of action..
#2. Vermi’s Tentaculas
Link to thread
This was a close second. I really considered it for first place but the ending was a little rushed I think. Instead of just showing a dead octopus, showing it dying would’ve helped..
#3. Skempik’s Rambo Preview
Link to thread
Epic start to this one and I’m sure it’d look better without the .gif rape as well. But, it lacks length.
#4. Elmo’s Day 3
Link to thread
The animation isn’t bad but it’s short, black line and there are some slight flaws with position.
#5. UberGamer’s Pole Fight
Link to thread
Loved it but standard black line fighting has been overdone.
Filed under: Sunday | 1 Comment »
Todays little lesson/tip , is 3D in pivot.
The things youll need are :
Now this isnt the conventional way of doing 3d but i find it easiest, first start up youre transparent windows program. My program of choice is martins windows transparency : http://www.tucows.com/preview/335518 .
Then start up your 3d program:
and make a simple cube.
Then open pivot and do the transparency in thefigure maker box.
Then its as simple as tracing, then moving in the 3D program, this can also help with cell shading your objects for a detailed animation, or making FP weapons.
//wereZ
Filed under: Friday | Leave a Comment »
Ok, so I know it is actually friday, and I apologise for that, but we had a bit of a problem with uploading stuff, and wordpress was generally messing me around, but it’s all good now, and here I present our second guest writer the wonderful maximus
//elmo
Hello peoples,
Today, I am going to help you out on your movements. Many people think they may have the movements down, yet; they don’t. So, I asked Elmo if I was good enough to give a little advice, and he said yes. So, here is my advice:
First off, gravity. You may think gravity it just a rule on physics, but its not. It effects movements quite a bit. From they way they fall, to the speed.
I have seen some people make completely ridiculous movements.
Like impossible shit, like an arm bending the wrong way or something, I can’t really make a perfect example, but I will try.
Second. Moving the joints. If you want to make your animation as realistic as possible, you have to move every joint in nearly every frame, following the movements and corresponding to the onionskin and easing. A quick example:
Notice how the whole arm, being both joints are moved in nearly every frame. Also notice how realistic it looks? That’s my point, easing can also be put into this category.
Last, every movement must come to a near or complete stop to be realistic. If you make a kick, the stick figure is going to nearly stop in the air at one point, and the kicking leg is going to remain nearly motionless for realism.
Okay, see how after the punch is delivered; he comes to a near stop? That is important. Very. I even used double framing to put emphasis on it. Using this skill can add power and realism. The double framing is your option. Lol, lemonAde.
Well, I hope this helps who ever reads it.
If you don’t quite get it, just keep studying the frames.
Love,
Maximus.
Filed under: Thursday, guest | 1 Comment »
hey, just a big thanks from me first off to those that have subscribed to the blog, and I’ll be adding alot more stuff to the blog in the near future, but for now, enjoy the new layout, and enjoy our first guest writers entry. //elmo
LemonAde
This is a guest article by lemonAde. You better know who I am, :U.
Hello, faggots, today I’ll be talking about HOW YOU ANIMATE, like techniques such as double framing for example.
First of all, DOUBLE FRAMING IS NOT A STYLE.
I get so annoyed by people constantly using double framing on every single frame as an excuse for bad animation and calling it their ’style’. I’ve taken a lot of these that are supposedly intermediate animations and removed the DF (double framing) and then it’s like low beginner quality.
People use double framing to hide their poor animating skills. And their excuse is that it’s their style.
BUT, EVERY animation technique looks good if you do it RIGHT.
Take Stimpy for example, he uses A LOT of double framing but he can still get away with it. He’s doing it ‘right’.
I’m not saying that there’s a specific right and wrong way to do it, what I meant was that there are ways to use it that looks good or bad. Lol, Fraz.
Experiment for yourself. : D
In my opinion, the number one rule of animating would be to not care about the norms of animating and just friggen’ animate. Have fun, who cares about what other people think?
Personally, I hate using backgrounds as they are too much work for me and they don’t give me enough satisfaction to be worth it. What I do like, is animating on simple backgrounds and enjoy my uber awesome movements.
In my opinion, movements are what makes an animation look good, and that’s why wereZ is one of my favorite animators. That does NOT have to be your opinion, you do what you think looks good.
SO, what can we learn from this shorter-than-it-should-be article?
DO YOUR THANG, DAWG!
Peace, nerds.
//lemonAde
Filed under: Wednesday | 3 Comments »
Well, first off I just wanna say thanks to everyone that has viewed this blog, also I would like you to continue your support by clicking the little orange button on the top right, that will subscribe you to the blog, meaning you get all the updates and all the news as soon as it is posted on this site, meaning you will be ahead of the game, and you’ll know all the little secrets we have to hold for you lucky people out there, so get clicking.
Ok, that’s enough of that, time for me to get on with my update, today I’m gonna be talking about smoothness, wereZ touched on the topic on wednesday, but I’ll fill you in on the little what not’s of it today.
Smoothness
First thing is first, I am pretty much gonna take the opposite view of what I did last week, when I did large spacing, smoothness is pretty much just doing it with smaller spacing, alot of the time though, this will result in the anim coming out looking rather slow, but all you need to do is bring the frame rate down, preferably to about 4 on the frame delay.
Ok, now down to business, same format as last week, I’m gonna pick a simple movement and try it in my usual style, and then in a smooth way, and you can take what you want from it, and improve like that.
All I did here, as you can see, is a normal jump, just a smooth ease down into a crouch, then a jump, then a smooth ease into the landing., that is smoothness, just keeping everything flowing.
Some of my personal favourite animators are very smooth.
I hope this helps you all, and I’ll be seeing you next tuesday, like I said before though, please click the orange feed button.
<3
Filed under: Resources, Tuesday | 1 Comment »
