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For anyone new to the world of animation, important to know that the software used to do this wonderful short is free (opensource).

And you can download it from here.

I animated this as a test for a short film I'm trying to make. We motion tracked the environment and added the house and the bug. You can see the full resolution video on my Kickstarter page. I hope you'll check it out. We're trying to raise the funds to film it.

Edit: If you guys would like to see more animation like this, please support us by backing us on Kickstarter! Even $5 really helps us out. Remember if we don't reach our goal you keep your money. Thanks!

this was done with Graphics Gale, (I highly suggest it for pixel animation, and it got free in the last months, link here

for the glowing effects, photoshop is used o7

As a writer who's taken multiple courses, read dozens of books (on writing) and hundreds of screenplays, and has written multiple shorts, pilots, sketches and features I would say that the first thing you have to learn is "ass on chair" which means: you gotta sit down and write as much as possible if you want to get better at it.

As for a course, as a beginner you will probably get a lot from a Masterclass, I like Aaron Sorkin's.

I'd also recommend you find three books about writing and read those. Here's a list of ones I can remember right now. On Writing, Creating Animated Cartoons with Character, Save the Cat, Elephant Bucks, Aristotle's Poetics. After you read three books, you'll realize they all start repeating each other.

However, this is what I recommend the most. Pick your favorite three movies, TV shows, and books and read those screenplays, easy to find them online. Now, analyze those screenplays, then watch the movies or shows, and quickly you'll realize what you like and what you don't like to see in a screenplay. Here is where you start developing a style.

Now, you also have to write, every day! Even if it's word vomit or a free write session, don't let writers block stop you. If you have to, write about your day. Remember, ass on chair.

Finally, don't hesitate to partner with someone if you feel like writing isn't for you. You could find a writer and be the artist and animator for their stories.

Hope this helps.

UPDATE: I might have been a bit quick here, according to Anime News Network it might also just be a restructuring:

"Suzuki discussed the great changes that the entire studio is undergoing at the studio’s shareholders meeting, and mused that these changes may include dismantling the production department. While there has been talk among some about dissolving the studio outright, Suzuki emphasized that the truth is that the studio is considering “housecleaning” or restructuring for now. The end result would be “rebuilding” the studio and creating an environment for the next generation."

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2014-08-03/ghibli-co-founder-suzuki-studio-considers-dismantling-production-department/.77263

Sure!
Firstly, I made all of this in Blender, which is mostly a 3D program that has gotten some nice 2D animation features the last couple of years.

For this animation, I actually based it on some old unfinished animatic I had made in Flash. So using these drawings, I first created the 3D scene in Blender. I then place the cameras where I wanted them for each shot, and then I would draw in the 2D animation and props. For the more complex camera movements, I would use some very simple 3D objects as placeholders for the 2D elements.

Since the 2D doesn't really interact with the 3D, some shots also has the 3D placeholders placed begind the 2D elements, to fake shadows and reflections (such as the red reflecting in the faucet)

Blender is a free 3D program you could download today and start fiddling around with. It's not widely used in the industry, but you can start getting a grasp of the basics of working in 3D.

If you decide to go to college for animation, make sure you do your research first. There are a lot of predatory schools out there with outrageous tuition rates and subpar animation programs (Art Institute and Full Sail, just to name a few).

As for the industry, its extremely competitive. If you want to work on things like Disney and Pixar films, you'll have to apply yourself and really kick ass to make your demo reel stand out. Positions at those studios are highly sought after and you'll be in competition with tons of animators from all over the world. Even then you might only get in as an intern. But hey, its a foot in the door.

If you're willing to settle for less lucrative work, you could always just apply for smaller animation studios that do mostly commercial and vfx work. There's a lot of competition for those jobs too, but not nearly as much.

Hopefully this is an okay place to ask this. But as someone who already used "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain", what would be the next step? Gesture drawing? Construction? Perspective? Every tutorial I see has someone starting in a different place and none of them seem to help me. Most of them are just videos of someone saying "You draw an action line...then you draw like this and like this and put a line over here." Yeah, that's great that you can draw by 'feeling' but it doesn't help me figure out how to do it.

If you read these books I think you'll be in pretty great shape:

Save the Cat! <---for writing scripts (which is hugely relevant)

The Writer's Journey <---basic storytelling

The Visual Story <---For basics of visuals

It's great that you don't just want to make parodies, and it's always going to be a struggle to find original ideas. When it gets to be almost impossible to come up with something, I try simplify as much as I can. A character is trying to get something, but there's something in their way, how do they overcome it?

A mailman is trying to deliver a package, but the owner is gone and their angry dog is dangerous, how does he deliver the package? Just as clear a situation as you can get (mailmen deliver mail, dogs hate them), then from there, finding a unique twist or way of telling that tale. Does he overcome the issue? Does he fail? A setup (mailman w/ package), a conflict (oh shit a dog), then a resolution (however your unique storytelling voice guides you).

You may think your life is boring, but once you understand how to find your ideas, you'll be able to form them from even the tiniest of occurrences all around you.

Don't be too hard on yourself, be patient and persistent and it'll become more and more natural.

Best of Luck!

The best step is to read Richard William's "Animation Survival Kit". This book will teach you the fundamentals of being a great animator. I recommend animating the animation tutorial examples that you will find in this book; such as walk cycles, bouncing ball, and etc. Since you are on a budget, you can download Krita 3 because it comes equipped with a free animation program.

Link: https://krita.org/en/krita-3-0-release-notes/

I am just a lowly animation student that's just finished my 2nd year at university. I focus on 2d animation, specifically in flash at the minute but I am going to start learning Toon Boom and maybe CelAction (if anyone in here uses these programs I wouldn't mind knowing any pros/cons about them.)

I am most proud of this animation, I was the director and also did some of the character animation. It was a university project that also doubled up as an entry to a competition to make and advertisement for local Guild festival, we ended up winning and got some prize money.

The last piece I worked on was a short for a competition on Newgrounds, all the animating was done in two days so a lot of it is basic tweens sadly, also the editing had to be done in flash as we needed to export a .swf. I would normally export the scenes into after effects so editing and adding sounds in flash was a nightmare but here is a link for anyone interested, but again please don't judge at a professional standard as the whole project was rushed from storyboards through to finished product.

Any and all constructive criticism and feedback is highly welcome as I am a student and always wanting to improve my work.

Cheers.

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=animation

The word itself means to bring something to life. Motion graphics are for bringing attention to something. I don't think your definition of animated matches that of most the people in this subreddit.

And honestly there's nothing worth checking out in that 4 sec clip.

If you're interested in traditional 2d animation (in a digital environment)-rather than vectors, rigging and tweening-Sketchbook might be worth a look. The newest version includes a timeline mode for animation https://www.sketchbook.com/

NB. It might be a struggle to produce a complete animation in sketchbook without using another software for compositing (eg. after effects), mainly because of its limit on the number of layers you can use in an animation (4, i think).

Hey man, I'm just starting out too. Don't get too caught up in trying to learn how to draw. If you keep a sketch book, practicing whenever you can with that is a good idea.

Study both 2D & 3D and see what appeals to you more. As far as 2D goes, Manga Studio is good and cheap. This video helped me figure out the program

Hello there!

We continue to polish the characters of our mobile game Final Dungeon and today I would like to introduce Arthur - a familiar pet of the paladin girl Aina, who you probably already know (https://np.reddit.com/r/finaldungeon/comments/qwukwz/miss\_aina\_pendragon/). Each pet in our game has two states - peaceful and combat. In his peaceful state Arthur is a cute little lion with whom you want to play. But when it comes to fighting, he turns into a fearful dangerous beast. I’ll show his combat version later and now I want to ask: how do you like peaceful little Arthur from a point of view of character design and animation? Should we work on him some more?

If you want to pay for software check out "Toon Boom Harmony". Harmony now has a subscription model for as little as $15 a month. Harmony is the industry standard for 2D animation and is in my opinion superior to Animate.

Here is a demo vid page:

https://www.toonboom.com/products/harmony#harmony-overview-video

I assume you're talking about 2D animation. There's no reason you can't produce a cartoon in Blender, shows like South Park are animated in Maya (which is a similar 3D package). Realistically there will not be a big difference in the final product, so use what you're comfortable with, but 2D animation's industry standard is ToonBoom's Harmony.

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/10-amazing-short-films-free-software/ has some shorts made in Blender, including a 2D-ish South Park short.

This was done in Blender (3D) but you could do it in almost any program because the shaders are quite simple. They're half-lambert, ramp shaders with phon spec and a rim light. The lines were generated in freestyle w/ fixes done by hand. I'm working on another project involving more secondary animation (clock hand moving/etc.) and camera movement haha.

You can find the passes done for this here : https://www.behance.net/gallery/26307379/A-Cafe-Memory

I would suggest making a digital template of a storyboard page and than printing of lots of those, and drawing everything by hand, and than scanning those back into the computer and putting them together in animatic form in your favorite video editing software with sound effects, music and voices.

Here is the illustrator template that I used

I would suggest this as storyboarding needs to be a very free and open minded process, and I still find, after many, many years working at a computer, that it is hard to get into the right mood to get the ideas flowing.

>.im just shocked a 10 minute cartoon can run up to 30K ...

Starting at 30K, and I was lowballing it assuming you would be doing a lot of principle animation.

For some perspective, here is what 50,000 dollars will get you. Seth McFarlane made this for 50K. It took several months, and he had to do both voices and animation to save time and money. Fox put up the money for that.

For another perspective, look at the recent Bee and puppy cat kickstarter. This is true TV quality production levels. They budget 100K for six minutes of animation. That is WITH existing production facilities, staff, and equipment. They are also able to outsource animation internationally to cut down on costs.

Animation is hard, and it is fucking crazy expensive.

>just for the sake of conversation i think i got the next pokemon...atleast in my head lol

Remember, pokemon was the product of a highly aggressive marketing campaign for a videogame made by a multi-billion dollar corporation. There also have been dozens of other knockoffs targeted to that exact demographic, most of which bombed. It is unrealistic to think you could something of similar quality or length.

People don't want "the next pokemon". They want something completely new and unexpected. If you think you have that, try building it up. Write a book, draw a comic. Start small, build a fan base to use as a ladder to bigger things.

Recently graduated with a Degree in Animation from Dodge College in Southern California. Still looking to break into a job. Any advice or leads? Here is my most recent reel: https://vimeo.com/44960785

If you're looking to get into 2d, Opentoonz is pretty sick too. It has a confusing interface, and it's kinda buggy for me, but there are tutorials on youtube, and since it's open source, hopefully the bugs don't last long.

I recommend reading "The Animator's Survival Kit". It is a fantastic book for learning how to draw 2D animations. That book is a great place to start.

You can check out Toon Boom's Harmony for as little as $15 per month.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGGUMuJSyg0

If your phrase "Starting with 2D" means you are also interested in 3D, check out Blender (free and awesome).

https://www.blender.org/

Animator (2D traditional) at a production house in Florida for 10 years, then Cinematics Director at Vigil Games for a year, working on Darksiders II. Now freelancing.

You can check out my reel here: https://vimeo.com/41902145

Welcome to a lifelong obsession!

-I bought my first tablet, a Wacom Bamboo, for about $75 (in 2008). It's a smaller model but you don't need anything giant to animate on, in the beginning. And Wacom is THE brand to have, in my opinion.

-I started Flash on 15 fps, as I was a little intimidated by 24. But I'd recommend going right into 24, as it's really not much different. You won't get any bad animating habits like I used to, when I worked at the wrong fps.

-I stick with 40 Smoothing on my brush. Not too angular, and not so smooth that the lines start to break up.

-Google 'The 12 Principles of Animation'. Do them all, multiple times. Each of these things are like gold. Also check out Richard Williams' The Animator's Survival Kit. I found a pdf online and it put me on a great path.

-For lip sync, check out Draw with Jazza on Youtube. He is my personal favorite, and extremely helpful when I was learning how to lip sync.

Have a blast, we're here for you!

EDIT: Here's Jazza's link regarding lip sync: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3l3txgnf_A

Animator's Survival Kit

I work with a group of international animators and we just started communicating using Slack: https://slack.com/

It integrates well with Google docs and scoops and organizes all the files you post in the chat channel. Definitely better than hopping between google docs and long email chains (our previous method). Also: free.

I learned the basics of animation from Tony White's The Animator's Workbook. It's designed to teach you not only the basics of animation, but how to do it yourself. Of course, since it's from the 80s it also tells you to use film with a camera... a cell phone scanning app is probably easier and cheaper now :) That being said, the basic principles haven't changed, and you can use his guide for filming your animations as a starting point to make your own system. At this point you can probably get it for $5 from Amazon, but if you want it for absolutely free try your library.

Seconding flipbooks though. That's how I got started. They're really fun and easy.

Very helpful advice for me. In fact, it often confounds me at how so many teachers and books don't explain this. They just say 'take out a piece of paper and draw' or 'practice the fundamentals'. But they never explain what those are or how to seek them.

I feel like this simple article told me more about starting out to draw than the entire book of "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain". While the book was good, it also just throws you into drawing without any kind of starting point. Just telling the reader to sit down and draw, wither you want to or not, because it'll help you down the road. But being forced to do something hardly ever gives you the motivation to do more.

Really, you should only be doing that if you're studying their approaches and secondary timing.

Before this, you should have good draftsmanship and sequence under your belt. Draw a bunch of comics and sketches of motion, to see how pictures look in sequence.
Recommended reading - "The Natural Way to Draw," "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain," "The Illusion of Life," "The Animator's Survival kit."
Sharpie and a flipbook. Make something abstract. If you like the motions, you're getting there. Then try to make it jibe further and further with a given anatomy. That helps immensely.

Illusion of Life is nice, but it's not so much a drawing book.

The Archive Series, Animation, Story, Design, Layout and Background are nice books too.

Creating Characters with Personality is decent, and pretty cheap.

The Preston Blair Book is nice, and you can find most of it online. The older version online has Tom and Jerry, etc. I think the newer one had to remove most of the actual cartoon characters.

The Animator's Survival kit is a great book too.

Character Animation Crash Course

Tony White's Animator's Workbook. I haven't seen his Animator's Notebook that came out a few months ago, but it looks pretty neat too.

Drawing with Force is decent.

Personally, I love the Drawn to Life books as well, if you are looking for a book on drawing, but is similar to Illusion of Life, these are what I'd go for.

There you go, that's my top 10 or so list in no particular order. For drawing, I also like the Andrew Loomis books, the cartooning one is called Fun with a Pencil, but really all of the books are worth a look through. You can find them online for free too.

Wow, that's some very well done music. I don't think I'll be doing a reel this year, but I'll definitely be keeping you in mind for future animations.

On another note, have you thought about reaching out to game developers here on reddit or elsewhere? I'm not an expert on game development, but your music seems like it could go very well as a backing track to a game. It's not super-in-your-face music, and seems like it could go perfectly with some flash games or other indie projects.

Good sound is something a lot of online games lack, and a decent game can garner a ton of exposure. It seems like it could be a great situation for you and a game's developers.

If you feel it might be a good fit for you, /r/gamedev might be worth a look. Newgrounds also has a good community and forum worth checking out.

Subbed on YouTube, and looking forward to more tunes.

Edit: Newgrounds could also be a good place to post your music (if you're interested in it being posted in more places than it is now). The audio portal lets animators and game devs put your music into their works, and gives them an easy way to credit and even share ad revenue with you. The community there is always looking for people to collaborate with, and even has a few yearly competitions for musicians.

Maya or TV Paint. But learn animation before you learn software. Separate things. The Animation Bible

I understand Thurlow's perspective, but he could have tried starting his own company or continued to make work on his own. Not to invalidate his feelings about the industry, but I know plenty of American animators who make their own work that's 100x better than any of the big studio stuff you're going to see today. Also there are some young people in their 20s and 30s who are showrunners that are making really innovative stuff, like Steven Universe. Things aren't perfect, but it's definitely better than running off to Japan and killing yourself.

Also I do think Japanese animation has more variety than American cartoons, which is really unfortunate. But they too produce a lot of garbage. There are plently of japanese animated shows that are just pornography of pink-haired girls, dumb gross-out comedies, or excessive gore with poorly-written plot. Miyazaki himself doesn't even respect the industry at large.

Yes, thank you.

Also Newgrounds has a large amount of amateur voice actors looking to land a few jobs. Some even do it for free.

I'd recommend going to the audio forums.

Thank you for the constructive criticism. Pencil Animation's replay makes the whole thing look slower than it is when exported. Anyhow, I tried to tweak it up a bit and added a little bit to the scene.

Edit: I don't think I really solved the problem, but I'll be back again with another edit, lol.

Edit: Well, I didn't exactly follow your advice, but I think it's alright looking... Also, Happy Reddit birthday.

I sculpted the revolver in Pixologic Zbrush, imported the sculpt (object file) into Cinema 4D, rotated the revolver in C4D, rendered to Adobe After Effects, duplicated the revolver composition, mirrored, animated the up - down movements with a sinus curve and rendered 24 images to a folder. Because I wanted a "cartoony" look, I traced the 24 images and estimated stylized shadows and light in Adobe Illustrator. I have described my process in detail at http://dribbble.com/SteinarV. Click on the red shots. That is it.

Depending on what you want, I'd be up for doing some music and I'd love to try my hand at sound design.

Check my soundcloud and let me know what you think: https://soundcloud.com/epicbearconcepts

Super Smash - Pretty awesome Mario/Super Smash Bros. Tribute

I can't really think of any others, but essentially any scene from The legend of Korra or Iron Giant.

Moho is a very powerful animation software for 2D animation. There's also Moho Debut for 60 bucks which gives you everything to start animating and moving to Moho Pro later is a breeze.

https://moho.lostmarble.com/

I graduated with Rebecca! This is actually part of trilogy where other characters from other people's film are neighbors and they bump into each other. They each make a cameo on each other's films. It was fantastic seeing it on the big screen. I'll have to look for the other films when I get the chance.

EDIT//the other two films:

CAT - Peyton Harrison Metromorphosis - Mikhail Shraga

Upon reading some of the responses here and in hopes to give you a better understanding.... If you would like to take a stab at this yourself I recommend blender as a free 3d program https://www.blender.org/ . I kid you not though, it will be difficult to learn, but will give you an understanding of the process of a 3d animation. 3d can be pretty costly (well for that matter so can 2d) but it really depends on the level of artistic detail(AKA production values) and action in the project. Example Disney's Up cost $175 million divide by 96 minutes = S182,2916.67 per minute. However every animation project is different and thus has a different set of numbers with multiple factors affecting the budget. Yours could be far, far less, but still pretty pricey as in the thousands or tens of thousands, who you get to do the character creation and animation will also effect the budget as studio pricing varies wildly. I do encourage you to do more research and planning as it could lead you to getting your vision made. Here is a pricer, it is only for 2d animation but may give you some insight. http://animpricer.com/

Have a look at Davinci Resolve and Hitfilm Express. They’re both free versions of more robust studio quality editing/vfx apps (like After Effects).

Davinci is great. Hitfilm looks very interesting but I haven’t used it personally. Hope this helps

I cant afford Maya Im using blender https://tapas.io/episode/719797 A comic I made, the writing is TERRIBLE and there is one page , I am super proud of it as everything the hair , clothes and backgrounds are mine {except base models} and it looks pretty good.

Tab- if you dont want to drop all that cash on a cintiq, you can grab a Wacom Intuos 4. wireless tablet for around 300 bucks.

Programs - Adobe's creative suite is stacked. Flash is great for animating, but you can use the timeline mode in Photoshop or post produce your work in Aftereffects as well. Here's a link to a photoshop animation tutorial from two of my favorite animators, Charles Huettner and Caleb Wood https://vimeo.com/78969465

Digital Brush Pack- If you want to give a more illustrative look to your work, your going to want to grab some professional digital brushes. you can probably find free ones online somewhere, but its only a few bucks for a trusted product. Try Kyle T Websters brushes out, and it really will feel like your painting with your new tablet. https://gumroad.com/kyletwebster

Go buy ShovelKnight on Steam. It's a fresh game from a very successful Kickstarter and it's awesome! The later levels get pretty difficult. Someone said it best when they said it's like a bastard child of Dark Souls and Megaman.

TVPaint without a doubt. It's a multi-platform, professional 2D animation software that's recently been released for Android (their "nomad" license) as of version 10.

http://www.tvpaint.com/

I recommend the software in general -- however, if I were you I'd wait till they release the latest version 11 for Android (currently available for Win/Mac/Linux), which should fix an interface scaling issue that makes the UI too tiny to be usable on any modern tablet with a display resolution larger than FHD. (1920x1080)

Also, don't expect to be pumping out full-res 1080p+ animation on your tablet like you can with your laptop; though I'm sure you knew that. My Samsung Galaxy Note Pro 12.2 can muster 720p before it starts to get a little choppy on the playback. Though for on-the-go roughs, it isn't that big a deal, since I'll later be cleaning up on my workstation anyway. I actually tend to use it way more often and effectively for storyboarding and animatics, as well as a hell of a sketching app.

Though they're not clear on the pricing for Android (you'll have to email them for a quote), I'd expect to pay somewhere in the $500 USD range -- possibly lower if they offer student pricing on Android licenses -- but I admittedly have not had to deal with that. The full, unrestricted "Pro" license for Win/Mac/Linux is around $1350 USD.

At the very least, give their demo a try.

I don't feel like there is much that fits the criteria of free without a lot of of limitations but as far as I know the best option might be the old version of Plastic Animation Paper (they are working on a new version).

Otherwise TVpaint is the best full featured in terms of hand drawn feel but its fairly costly. Also mentioned is Toonboom (Toonboom studio is the cheapest solution versus Animate or Harmony) but it also is costly and lacks the hand drawn feel since it is a vector based software.

Also worth a look is animating in a newer version of Photoshop (CS5+ I think) with the aid of plugins like AnimDessin2 which would facilitate the process and missing features. With Photoshop you get all the variety and option of brushes so there is no limit to what it can look like.

Those assets come with the nodesetup predone.

And the composition? Did you even look at the composition? If I were to ask you to draw out what was supposed to be there before would you be able to? I wouldn't, there is dirt yet none of the pillars are partially buried and there is a path that is higher than the dirt meaning those pillars where placed at random on top of the dirt.

Lastly the lighting, as OP utilises other assets why would an HDRi not be that far off from his shopping list? He seemed to have created nothing himself yet also couldn't do the simpelest of animations, here is a 3 min video on how to make a particle animation, small dust particles via the curves through the scene, add in a Force Field for Wind for good measure and bam you actually have some animation in the scene.

Really you could make this in any software. Its super simple low-poly work and looks like it makes use of cubes and simple shapes. MagicaVoxel could work, but you'd be better off working in one program to minimize confusion, particularly if you are a beginner.

MagickaVoxel

I personally use Blender

Jump right in to Sculptris. Two nights ago I used it for the first time and made This. It's a modeling program, but that, of course, is the first step.

“You can create full animation in PAINT EX, while PRO and DEBUT allows you to create short animation or moving illustrations with up to 24 frames.” From the website

But yeah clip studio is pretty nice. Wait for sale.

If it's highly complex traditional animation, then OpenToonz is your best bet. It's the software used and developed at Studio Ghibli. It's open source, so you can get it for free and use it commercially. https://opentoonz.github.io/e/

There's this:

https://opentoonz.github.io/e/index.html

I've never used it, but it's been used by Studio Ghibli, and the guys who do Futurama.

Or, if you want to do 3d, there's Blender:

https://www.blender.org/download/

Blender is a free 3D animation program if that's what she's interested in! Industry professionals sometimes use it, too. If the learning curve for that is too steep, she could try 2D animation as well, though I'm not familiar with any of the open source software. Here's one that I found by googling. The principles of animation are the same no matter what medium you're animating in! I second a copy of Animator's Survival Kit. There are exercises in there she can try out.

I work in the animation industry currently, so please PM me if you or your daughter have any questions!

You don't mention what platform you're on but Krita's animation branch is shaping up pretty nice if you're on Windows or Linux. And it's free/open source too.

Krita had a kickstarter to get animation features in it, I think it will be ready in the coming months.

A test someone did

It's a very good application for painting so I recomend it anyway, very nice brushes and stuff. Backgrounds and animation in the same package!

Adapter! I use it a lot. its ffmpeg based but has a nice user simple user interactive instead.

Great for all that kind of stuff (frames to video, video to frames).

Link: http://www.macroplant.com/adapter/

its really just simply, drag all images into the program, select output (.mov, .mp4, .avi, whatever you like it has them all), put in the framerate and hit convert.

How do you feel about a film featuring three gypsy musicians with a Balkan feel to them? I'm currently working on my thesis film with a few colleagues and recently our plans and expectations about a partnership with some specific people have failed. At this time I am supposed to start to sketch some music, but I barely have the time to even think about it... Here is a movie clip we sent to a contest. This is very old and still very WIP but you can sort of feel the vibe.

I saw you did some work with violins. The band is composed by a violinist, guitarist and upright bass player. Even if you would resort to synthesized sound to compose we could definitely find the help of a few students to record the same thing with real instruments. Of course, this would only be the case if the digital version didn't feel convincing enough, which was not the case with your sample.

I have a lot of more details if you want, but please, tell me your opinion and don't be afraid to be honest.

No matter how fast you learn, I don't think it is doable in Maya. Try to figure out rigging the characters in AE and plan simple movements. Even blinking adds a lot instead of still images. Ryan Boyle has some good and simple animation tutorials. here it starts: https://vimeo.com/23994521

Yes that's what spine does, you create a skeleton, assign body parts and then animate it. There have been a lot of updates with great features such as inverse kinematics. I've been working with it for a year and i'm very satisfied with it.

As alternatives that i know you have: . Spriter http://www.brashmonkey.com/spriter.htm . Puppet2D http://www.puppet2d.com/

I've used spriter and it does the same but its updates are slower so it feel like it's getting behind in some aspects. But it does the job well if you don't want to animate anything that complicated.

Never used puppet 2d but it seems to be quite reliable from its website.

You can also create skeletons on flash to a certain extent.

May i ask if you want to make those animations for a videogame or an animated series? .

Thanks for the feedback!

Also, if you like my work feel free to follow me on behance and facebook.

first of all, you are insanely talented. animating characters with realistic proportions like these is super hard so great job!!

I do think some of your walkcycles still look a little rough though. If you would like to learn to improve them, consider buying the Animator's Survival Kit: https://www.amazon.nl/Animators-Survival-Kit-Principles-Classical/dp/086547897X/ref=asc_df_086547897X/?tag=nlshogostdde-21&amp;linkCode=df0&amp;hvadid=430671742064&amp;hvpos=&amp;hvnetw=g&amp;hvrand=7488386459259133356&amp;hvpone=&amp;hvptwo=&amp;hvqmt=&amp;hvdev=c&amp;hvdvcmdl=&amp;hvlocint=&amp;hvlocphy=1010659&amp;hvtargid=pla-395340047230&amp;psc=1

Good luck with future projects!!

Well... It’s actually from a set of cheap cake modelling tools that I bought to do clay modelling with! (instead of overly expensive professional stuff)

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Wilton-Fondant-Paste-Starter-piece/dp/B00IE6Y3SC/ref=mp_s_a_1_17?dchild=1&amp;keywords=cake+modelling+tools&amp;qid=1610672154&amp;sprefix=cake+modell&amp;sr=8-17

Ended up making this robot with them: https://www.instagram.com/p/CGP-w6FBNFB/?igshid=o2d4flf7vpfs

If you're already painting in photoshop, thats a great place to start animating!

Here's a great tutorial on workflow tips for animating in Photoshop, by a really talented animator named Alex Grigg: https://vimeo.com/80851591

I'd say play around for a bit just making things move around before getting into more technical animation training. Approach it like you would draw flip books in the corner of a textbook. Just make things move around and experiment. Once you've played around a bit, and gotten a feel for using photoshop to work across a timeline, I suggest checking out a book that is one of the standard textbooks for classical animation, "The Animator's Survival Toolkit," by Richard Williams (he was the animation director on "Who Framed Roger Rabbit"). You can find it on amazon here:

http://www.amazon.com/Animators-Survival-Kit-Principles-Classical/dp/086547897X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1427217884&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=animators+survival+kit

Hope this helps!

Absolutely. Keep going on the animation grind. If you need a cheap tablet that works well for how much it costs I recommend https://www.amazon.com/dp/B075T6MTJX?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share. It's not the best but it's only $40 so not the worst deal and it's a start.

Read the 12 principles of animation (ideally get a copy of The Illusion of Life, DO NOT SKIP THE BASICS!, animate bouncing balls until you’re dreaming about them, watch and study various types of animation- frame by frame if possible, and, above all else, practice, practice, practice.

These books are your friend!

Elemental Magic, Volume I: The Art of Special Effects Animation https://www.amazon.com/dp/0240811631/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_tai_csJlFbTEJ0C0V

Elemental Magic, Volume II: The Technique of Special Effects Animation (Animation Masters Title) https://www.amazon.com/dp/0240814797/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_tai_xpJlFb7YJG8Z0

"Keys to Drawing" by Bert Dodson is a great second book to check out after "Drawing from the Right Side of the Brain". He talks a lot about 'sighting' (seeing silhouette shapes) and introduces some gesture tips and structural rules that aren't very intimidating and clinical. I teach figure drawing and always suggest it to students who need help outside of class. Great drawing philosophy in there too. https://books.google.com/books/about/Keys_to_Drawing.html?id=E9AnudWoHRkC

When I was 23 I started art school in the same predicament. I bought "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain" and self studied and built a small body of work that got me accepted. In class there were many kids who were so much damn better than me. They had been doing this since they were old enough to pick up a pencil. However, I wasn't the worst either.

A few words of advice:

• Defeat procrastination. Animation and procrastination (while they do rhyme) do not mix. I had to learn this the hard way. I dicked around when I got an assignment and then tried to fake it at the end. Doesn't work. I ended up turning in something that was damn embarrassing.
• Competition is intense. There are more qualified people trying to find work than there are jobs available (if an animation job is your goal that is). Many of these people are really REALLY talented, and animation schools are churning them out by the busload every year. Mentally toughen yourself and prepare to have your heart torn out when people (like your "friend") fill your head with negativity.
• Drawing, animation, and storytelling are skills like any other that can be learned. Practice and you will improve. Keep it in perspective though. You'll get out of it what you put into it and not a bit more. This is a long term skill. Expect to spend years even decades honing your craft. Keep that in mind when you think, "I've been drawing for a couple hours a week and it's not getting any better."

Google got me this CMV thing, for the iPhone

Just dl'd it. It's pretty neat (except for the ugly UI). You can scrub through the timeline, go forward/back one frame each, skip ahead/back 5 seconds, and play the vid at 2x, 1x, and 0.5x. Plus, you can draw over it all with lines and angles and stuff (although it looks annoying and messy).

This looks like the Android equivilent? I don't have an android on me, so I can't test it. The video they have to demonstrate it seems like it's a normal videoplayer with slow-mo/frame-by-frame capabilities. No drawing tool, if that's what you need.

Hey! I’m a developer and I have learned design myself. This is my first animated logo for our design industry report (How Design Companies Win Users).

The logo has a meaning, I wrote a longer description of on Dribbble. But the short idea is such:

‣ The report is about community -> Community is about people -> The community must be grown -> Building community means growing it -> Trees and leaves could be a representation of growth in nature.

As a result of such thinking I've come up with the logo, which is:

• Tree leaf which has a form of heart

• It has vibrant color as a representation of diversity. Leafs could be different, not just green.

• The leaf has holes here and there as a representation of the dynamic nature of communities.

I did some editing and stretched it out to a minute 21 seconds. The music ended up being really dark.
Hope you like it! https://vimeo.com/98687867 In case it still hasn't rendered on Vimeo here's the youtube link: http://youtu.be/EyY-l7AH1AQ

Actually, it's the other way around. FAT came out in 2011 and was a graduation film. The ROLLIN' WILD pieces started in 2013. Check out the description for FAT on the Vimeo page.

You may be aware that a new swf to video converter by the name of Swivel was recently released and I think pretty much everyone would agree it's pretty much the best converter there is. So using that, you could convert your swfs to video and use any video editing software you've got available to compile your demo reel.

I'm personally a fan or Adobe Premiere but as someone else said, you could probably just use iMovie or Windows Movie Maker if you don't have the money/don't want to start gettin' all illegal

How's it going?

Let me know your thoughts on the gif above.

Meet the guy in our free-to-play Idle Pet Shelter game:

Android - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.outloud.petshelter&amp;hl=en&amp;gl=US

iOS - https://apps.apple.com/us/app/idle-pet-shelter/id1592275133

The drawing tablet I personally use the XP-Pen Artist 12. I got mine from a guy on Facebook Marketplace for like 160USD, but even buying it new it's 200USD, which is *really* cheap for tablets with screens. I've had no problems with it myself, and from a glance at the Amazon page, it seems the company is really helpful. It works really well, pressure sensitivity is fine, and I have no issues with it. It just connects with an HDMI and a USB cable (the box says to connect both the red and black USB cable, with the black one for input and the red for powering it, but I've found that my laptop puts out enough power to power it completely via just the black cable).

I just wanted to share my new free Android game here Tap Tap Tumbling 2

Many of the effects are real-time code, but the character is rotoscoped from real tumbling footage (many tricks have been captured not just the ones in the clip). I feel like I really drew on my animation A-Level for this one :D

Any feedback would be lovely, and of course please try the game to see the rest of the animations, they all adjust their timing to link together (fairly) seamlessly!

Totally, actually book 2 just came out last month!

She's self published

Ill share the link (Mods, tell me if I need to remove this. I get no kickbacks, just a friend who wants their friend to succeed)

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1520303254

Here's the first book (paperback and kindle)

https://www.graceohare.com/

And here's her website with more links and art

You can joint the open test of the platform by the link (Google Play). If you have any ideas or ready to help with improvements the platform, feel free to contact me

Thank you! Someone mentioned this as well: https://www.amazon.com/Acer-SFX14-41G-R1S6-Creator-LPDDR4X-Backlit/dp/B093TK1PXF/ref=mp_s_a_1_1_sspa?crid=GGWH45QSR6UF&amp;keywords=acer+swift+x&amp;qid=1659271884&amp;sprefix=acer+swift+x,aps,59&amp;sr=8-1-spons&amp;psc=1# . Is this the same as the Inspiron or better?

Animating on paper is indeed enjoyable and watching your drawings magically turn into movement during a line test is incredibly satisfying. More so than animating digitally. However, the labor-intensive cost of doing so may not be worth the effort. Not only do you have to animate the old fashion way, you have to then ink all your drawings, essentially doubling your workload, even if you choose to ink them digitally. To ink them, you're also going to have to photograph/scan all your drawings, which is another lengthy process.

I would suggest doing some flip books on post-its first. If you enjoy the process of roughing and cleaning up and inking your work, you can proceed to buy equipment for an actual animation work station.

Since animation paper and animation hole punches are pretty expensive and hard to find these days, you could use regular printer paper and a regular 3-hole punch to register your drawings.

https://www.amazon.com/Animation-Standard-Natural-Versatile-Plastic/dp/B085W9WX4R

While you may need a station to do your tie-downs and clean line work, you can do your roughs just by flipping pages on something more portable, like a perspex animation disk.

https://www.lightfootltd.com/content/12f-student-pro-animation-disc

In animation school, I personally just glued a pegbar to a clip board and ripped the clip part off so I could animate during my more boring classes.

I'd also like to know. I bought a cheap USB mic & it was fine for home voices & such, but it broke really quickly.

I'm thinking about something like this - https://www.amazon.com/Cubilux-Lavalier-Microphone-Recording-Interviewing/dp/B07ZQB2VF3/ref=mp_s_a_1_3?adgrpid=54885437486&amp;gclid=Cj0KCQjwtvqVBhCVARIsAFUxcRvszavSj-bqQZqxwrPNUZXjVSpu5Q9R5J517ZPRtCxHYYh5hMeW8NcaAueEEALw_wcB&amp;hvadid=4099415101... - that I can plug into my phone & record while out of the house.

And something under $100 for at home? Maybe one of those podcasting sets? Mics can get hella expensive really fast, & I'm worried other people will be able to tell I cheaped out.

Hey, well it took 6 months, but the game is out! You can get it on Googleplay: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.elevadergames.Elevader or itch.io if you prefer: https://elevadergames.itch.io/elevader

The advantage of the deform tool (Blender lattice) is that uou keep the original art which preserves the look. You probably can use the lattice in Grease Pencil too. I don't see why not. It's still all in the 3D space.

FYI there's a book on Grease Pencil 2D animation: Blender 2D Animation: The Complete Guide to the Grease Pencil 1st Edition by John M. Blain. I liked it.

Good luck.

Your macbook air should have a thunderbolt 2 port on one of the sides. Its the squarish one with the two notched corners on the top half. It's also known as a mini display port. You can get mini display port to hdmi adapters. I would recommend that if you dont already have one. I dont think apple plays well with hdmi on standard usb adapters. really depends on what you are using as an hdmi adapter, apple is picky sometimes.

Belkin Mini DisplayPort to HDMI Adapter. 4k Compatible (Black) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B013P0JTX0/ref=cm_sw_r_awdo_XQ77NBTW223XCVMZQCBS

Hi there!

We're about to release the new Wizardry update in our Idle Inn mobile game ;)

If you enjoy Harry Potter vibes, you'll definitely gonna love it! Choose your house, study magic, and inspect creatures.

The game is free-to-play, so give it a try.

Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.welldonegames.InnEmpire

iOS: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/idle-inn-empire-tycoon-game/id1518975917

Hey!

Any ideas about what this made for?

It's used in our fishing event location.

Idle Inn Empire free-to-play mobile game

Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.welldonegames.InnEmpire

iOS: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/idle-inn-empire-tycoon-game/id1518975917

Happy Friday!

If you need to deliver something, please contact us. The only thing is that delays occur since the pelican is often distracted by fish.

Idle Inn Empire - free to play clicker mobile game:

Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.welldonegames.InnEmpire

iOS: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/idle-inn-empire-tycoon-game/id1518975917

As always, appreciate your feedback!

Sharing is caring!

Our recently released free to play mobile game called Idle Pet Shelter is for your attention

Available on Android - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.outloud.petshelter&amp;hl=en&amp;gl=US

Thanks for the feedback :)

Get this book https://www.amazon.ca/Animators-Survival-Kit-Principles-Classical/dp/086547897X/ref=asc_df_086547897X/?tag=googlemobshop-20&amp;linkCode=df0&amp;hvadid=292927562355&amp;hvpos=&amp;hvnetw=g&amp;hvrand=15691581222360951749&amp;hvpone=&amp;hvptwo=&am... and do them all

Hi there!

Are you ready to dive there and swim with inflatable ducks?? :)

You're free to do that in Idle Inn Empire - Hotel Management Simulator. It's free to play so give it a try.

iOS: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/idle-inn-tycoon/id1518975917

Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.welldonegames.InnEmpire

What's up, r/animation!

How's it going? I messed up a bit with the position of a guy, but still xD

Taken in our ftp mobile game called Idle Inn Empire!

Android - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.welldonegames.InnEmpire

iOS - https://apps.apple.com/us/app/idle-inn-empire-tycoon-game/id1518975917

I appreciate it, if you want to learn a walk cycle, this book was really helpful for me

https://www.amazon.com/Animators-Survival-Kit-Principles-Classical/dp/086547897X/ref=sr_1_5?crid=124D0VHQB732C&amp;keywords=Animation+book&amp;qid=1648612787&amp;sprefix=animation+book%2Caps%2C70&amp;sr=8-5

Happy weekend!

As always, trying to give you some vibes ;)

Any feedback is appreciated!

Download Idle Inn for free:

Android - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.welldonegames.InnEmpire

iOS - https://apps.apple.com/us/app/idle-inn-empire-tycoon-game/id1518975917

Get him a physical copy of this book :) It's pretty iconic in the animation scene.

Otherwise a graphics tablet perhaps?

Happy Tuesday, Redditors!

Find this owl in our mobile idle game called Idle Inn Empire, once we release the new Wizardry event location. It's free to play, so you're more than welcome to test it out!

Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.welldonegames.InnEmpire

iOS: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/idle-inn-empire-tycoon-game/id1518975917

If you have any feedback on the gif above or about the game in general, feel free to express yourself here :)

There you go, its not the cheapest, the cheapest is never the best option. These tablets dont have screen, they work with your PC and you see what you are doing on your monitor. Do some research before buying it tho! https://www.amazon.de/Intuos-Bluetooth%C2%AE-Graphics-Tablet-Pistachio/dp/B079JD3V8M/ref=mp_s_a_1_16?adgrpid=80846936583&amp;gclid=Cj0KCQiAxoiQBhCRARIsAPsvo-yJt0GZSO_xhYvovFq9HNMwWCiCjf07lEbFsmcNqqrFe7wpQtSoGkAaAiM9EALw_wcB&amp;hvadid=394612156749...

The weekends are close, hold on folks!

Models, anims, design, everything are taken from our indie mobile game called Idle Inn Empire.

It's free to play, so if you're enjoying some time killers, check it out!

Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.welldonegames.InnEmpire

iOS: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/idle-inn-empire-tycoon-game/id1518975917

As always, appreciate your feedback!

I'm not sure if there's a better place specifically for games animations, but these are some of the animations I've been working on for the post-jam version of my game, "You have One Shot" - I made the original version in 48 hours for the GMTK game jam.

Speaking of which, the rating period is coming to a close and I would appreciate some feedback from the folks around on this subreddit! You can check the game out here:

https://itch.io/jam/gmtk-2019/rate/462609

What do you want to do, and where do you live? There are a lot of good CG resources. 2D I'm not sure, but if your goal is employability you may be safer going the CG route. Animation Mentor, CGTarian, Anim School and Anim Squad all have good reputations. If you're in Cali theres the Animation Collaborative which is a physical place that sounds amazing, I did a masterclass with the founder, Mike Makarewics, last year and was very impressed. I haven't bought these yet, but they look awesome if you're into 2D: https://gumroad.com/stringbing

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I can only speak to CG, but timeline doesn't have to be crazy. If you have experience then you have a huge head start. It's more about understanding the idea of animation than the day to day practice, in my opinion. I think you could improve without any practice if you REALLY cracked down on your theory. If you get a good teacher and work hard I don't see why you couldn't be working entry level in under a year. Of course it depends on where you're at, how much you can commit, the jobs, etc, but there are a lot of jobs these days.

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Best of luck to you! If you think it will make you happy, you gotta try it. It's super fun! ... most of the time ;)