Is there a proper creative order?

[kjrac]

Well, I've been working on animating something for the past few weeks, but I've found it a bit hard to actually do anything. Is there any particular creative process to go through to animate a flash? For instance:

I've been working solely on animating before doing anything else, and well, I haven't hardly done much work at all on the whole thing. I've ended up wanting to get the animation done without even writing out a script or anything.

So my root question, is, should scripting and voice acting be done before any of animation stuff should be done, or what?

Here is the order I've been trying to work in, and not getting very far with:

1. Animation/drawing
2. Script
3. Audio/voice acting
4 Post production.

I seriously think I'm being foolish in trying to animate first, but does it matter?

Also, a general question about animating: Is it easier to animate limbs on a seperate layer than the body? I've already had a bad experience were one of my characters looks like a stroke victim. Ha.

Thanks, and gimme some help! :D

[Ani-x]

At 2/14/10 04:16 PM, kjrac wrote:

1. Animation/drawing
2. Script
3. Audio/voice acting
4 Post production.

Well each have there own ways but I think we cal all agree that script/story is first.
after that it may very, for me it goes
1. Script/ Story
2. Story board.
3. Story animating (kind of like moving story board, with key poses and such)
4. Voice acting.
5. Animation.

[bl00db47h]

i think it is a lot more important to the voices first. So you know it all syncs up. Heres mine:

Script
Voice work
Story Board
Character Animation
Backgrounds
Menu + Any Extras

[Bubbowrap]

I'd agree with voices right after the script, but I'm finicky and often change lines around as I work. I think it'd be annoying to my voice actors if I kept asking them to rerecord things.

[kjrac]

At 2/14/10 09:21 PM, bl00db47h wrote: i think it is a lot more important to the voices first. So you know it all syncs up. Heres mine:

Script
Voice work
Story Board
Character Animation
Backgrounds
Menu + Any Extras

I like this order, but I can't say I do a lot of story boarding, although I definitely should. So, I gave it a little thought after I posted and actually did a script.

So, the next thing I have to do the voice work and whatnot.

So, from what I can gather, this is how I'd think about it now.

1. Script
2. Voice acting
3. Character animation.
4. Backgrounds

And since I'm not very spry with menus I'm not going to have to worry about that as much. Also, I'm not much with storyboarding, since everything shifts around in my head too much to settle on what I want to do at that moment as opposed to when I start animating.

Thanks for the help, ya'll!

[M-Shack]

The one you selected works well, but between storyboard and animations you should put Animatics. That is kind of like having all of your storyboards timed up and synced with the audio, so everything is timed properly and you don't have to go back and alter your frames and animation. This is the best example of it http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/52 4960

He doesn't animate it, but changes the stills during main parts that he will have to change the poses on