Animation Questions- Tips For Noobs

[Jom]

Okay so I am getting sick of stupid questions surfacing in the animation forum.
What FPS to animate at? What stage size?
It would be so easy for people to just search google or do a forum search!
Now I made this thread for Newbies to post questions instead of spamming the forum.
Here are a few things I will tell you in case you don't know.

Frames per Second:
I use 24 FPS, But that is only to be used at an intermediate level.
Beginner's should use 18 or 20 FPS.

How to make a Flash:

Make your script- The story
Character Sketches- Create all of the characters it can be a basic sketch as long as it keeps the idea fresh in your mind.
Storyboard- Make a rough plan of how you want the animation to go.
Animate the rough- This is basically the last storyboard or animatic. It is pretty much creating better movements for the animation
Final Animation- Clean the rough make the final animation
Polish- Ink the animation add effects

How to fight animators block-
Get some inspiration
Watch some high quality animations!
Watch some movies. Animators Block is usually brought on when you don't have fun or your not pushing yourself OR pushing to hard. Whichever the case you need to ease into your comfort zone. When you get to the point where you have a warm fuzzy feeling inside when you animate that is when you know your out of the animators block. Also not following the animation sequence above brings this on as well. Staring at the flash layout doesn't help much trust me you won't think of anything. AND PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE!

Programs-

I hear this one alot.
What program do you use derrr?
Uh well its called fucking flash animation so what do you think?
Wanna be a flash animator download flash. You can always get it for free if you know what I mean but I'm not going into detail as I actually bought my flash. Download a trial of the latest flash if you want to try it. or Download a trial of Flash 8 Professional.
HERE

I'm sure some other people have things too add but I'm tired so you guys can add it.

Thanks for reading
-Josh

[RyanBustersword123]

yeah I've been sick and tired too, so I'll add some, and maybe place this thread on my sig
anyway here's some flash tutorials [animtaing and coding] and go google and stuff and ask real questions that you can't find at google oh and before making a new thread, use the search bar, and look for good some threads manually

[Jped]

This is actually a very good thread choice, should deffinitely be bookmarked by any beginners. You can guarantee people will still find more questions to ask but it really is all here. The process is what almost everyone does and I think animation block happens all the time. So well done for making such a good thread! :]

[EvilRaccoon]

The concept of starting at a low fps is actually not a good idea because you train yourself to work at something not justifiable other than flash animation. Work at 12fps or 24 or 30. The reason being is that when you move up from 12, you double frame so judging timing is the same. Training yourself to work at a framerate of 16-20 is actually not a good idea.

I started on 12, moved to 16 and then to 25/30 in flash. I found it that timing animation became difficult to judge and when moving from 16 to 25. However, when I started traditional animation, we started and stayed on 25fps all the time, but shooting on twos (double framing) then shooting on ones (single framing) when we needed a smooth movement, or things seemed jerky. The same way studios work. I really suggest that if you're looking to work in a frame rate you choose 25fps (UK) or 30fps (USA) when beginning too because you'll train yourself to deal with correct timings instead of giving steppings to eventually get there.

[Markface]

I don't think it matters how people work through their animations. Everyone has their own process.

[starman70]

this helped me out! thanks!

[RyanBustersword123]

i found some good tutorials from terkoiz1 (you know the guy who made shock3 and b.y.e.) and i wanted to share them about 2 weeks ago but i forgot..so here you go look for the videos under "flash request tutorial #", i found number 1 the best so check it first