[ Beginner ] School Project

[Zuryen]

Hello guys,

I got a school project about animation, which has to be finished within one month. The topic about our animation is about "fragile".
As I never made an animation video (besides stopmotion), I wanted to use this chance and get into it.
I used to browse through Newgrounds a lot, so I thought maybe I could get some help here.

_________________________________________________________________________

My question is, is it possible for me to make an animation about 1 minute lenth, within one month?
If so, which software would you suggest to me? ( I would need to learn the basics of that software too )

I read alot about Adobe Flash in this forum, but I don't know if it is realistic to use it for my upcoming school project.

Thanks in advance for all suggestions!

[QArtsMedia]

Well if your a quick study you may make it. But flash is a pretty big program and without training you may find it difficult to learn and complete something within your time frame. You may have the same problem with any other program you use. Best of luck.

[khawill]

At 12/15/16 11:50 AM, Zuryen wrote: Hello guys,

I got a school project about animation, which has to be finished within one month. The topic about our animation is about "fragile".
As I never made an animation video (besides stopmotion), I wanted to use this chance and get into it.
I used to browse through Newgrounds a lot, so I thought maybe I could get some help here.

_________________________________________________________________________

My question is, is it possible for me to make an animation about 1 minute lenth, within one month?
If so, which software would you suggest to me? ( I would need to learn the basics of that software too )

I read alot about Adobe Flash in this forum, but I don't know if it is realistic to use it for my upcoming school project.

Thanks in advance for all suggestions!

A month is pretty short to both animate in and learn a program (It might take a week to get passable for example). If you're in school, you'll need to take into account that you don't actually have a month, since your time will be used in other ways (unless you have vacation). For the class, you might have an easier time hand drawing traditional frames on paper, and use your stop motion experience to scan/compile them (or use photoshop or SAI to do it digitally). This will take longer than digital animation, but you won't have to learn a new software.

If you really want to use flash or toonboom or what have you, then check out Lynda for structured guides to using the programs (10 day free trial), or see if you can find Youtube channels that help you.

[ChillyCheese]

At 12/15/16 11:50 AM, Zuryen wrote: Hello guys,

I got a school project about animation, which has to be finished within one month. The topic about our animation is about "fragile".
As I never made an animation video (besides stopmotion), I wanted to use this chance and get into it.
I used to browse through Newgrounds a lot, so I thought maybe I could get some help here.

_________________________________________________________________________

My question is, is it possible for me to make an animation about 1 minute lenth, within one month?
If so, which software would you suggest to me? ( I would need to learn the basics of that software too )

I read alot about Adobe Flash in this forum, but I don't know if it is realistic to use it for my upcoming school project.

Thanks in advance for all suggestions!

It's possible, you are going to hit a lot of walls though, learning programs and animating at the same time is an uphill battle. Plan accordingly. If you have experience using Photoshop or other programs learning Flash isnt so hard. You dont need to learn every nook and cranny of the program, the basics will do. When you feel comfortable with the basics make a storyboard/animatic. This is the framework that you will build upon. A minute is very hard to fill if every scene has intensive animation, keep that in mind. Dont be afraid let some scenes be minimalistic.

[GarBe]

At 12/15/16 11:50 AM, Zuryen wrote: My question is, is it possible for me to make an animation about 1 minute lenth, within one month?
If so, which software would you suggest to me? ( I would need to learn the basics of that software too )

I've dabbled in various animation software, but always found myself returning to Flash. I own CS6. It's simple to understand, but capable of extremely complex techniques. YOU build your OWN technique in Flash.

For a one-minute animation in a month, you're likely going to want to stick with tweens over FBF. This is coming from somebody who personally hates the look of highly-tweened animation. I've got a 4 minute long FBF animation in the works, with me as the single person working on the project, and it's been in production for two years.

If you go with tweens, first thing I would absolutely suggest is to learn about tween easing. This little graph is extremely effective. You may also want to look into EaseCaddy for reusing custom tweens, and KeyframeCaddy for.. well, swapping out keyframes.

I built the attached gif of a shotgun shotgun as a mix of Tweens/Linear FBF within 30 minutes as an example for another user on this forum.

You can download the source file here to look at the technique I used.

[GarBe]

Another extremely important concept you NEED to understand is Symbols. A symbol is an object's timeline. You can have symbols within symbols within symbols and layer motions upon motions.

This gif is some of my Symbol work - an iris rig. I would stick to Graphics symbols for now. Movie Clips have their uses but I consider them to be more advanced and situational.

If you decide to go with Flash, I wish you luck and hope this has been insightful.

[Zuryen]

At 12/15/16 08:18 PM, khawill wrote:

At 12/15/16 11:50 AM, Zuryen wrote: Hello guys,

I got a school project about animation, which has to be finished within one month. The topic about our animation is about "fragile".
As I never made an animation video (besides stopmotion), I wanted to use this chance and get into it.
I used to browse through Newgrounds a lot, so I thought maybe I could get some help here.

_________________________________________________________________________

My question is, is it possible for me to make an animation about 1 minute lenth, within one month?
If so, which software would you suggest to me? ( I would need to learn the basics of that software too )

I read alot about Adobe Flash in this forum, but I don't know if it is realistic to use it for my upcoming school project.

Thanks in advance for all suggestions!

A month is pretty short to both animate in and learn a program (It might take a week to get passable for example). If you're in school, you'll need to take into account that you don't actually have a month, since your time will be used in other ways (unless you have vacation). For the class, you might have an easier time hand drawing traditional frames on paper, and use your stop motion experience to scan/compile them (or use photoshop or SAI to do it digitally). This will take longer than digital animation, but you won't have to learn a new software.

If you really want to use flash or toonboom or what have you, then check out Lynda for structured guides to using the programs (10 day free trial), or see if you can find Youtube channels that help you.

Actually I already have my story board and it isnt anything big. I tried keeping things simple, as being mostly in the total perspective, I thought this could help me out a little with learning a new program. I decided to go for flash because 1. a friend suggested at to me and 2. I saw a free download on Newgrounds.

I never heard of Lyndra but will check it out for sure, is this some kind of paid forum where you can find tutorials?

[Zuryen]

At 12/17/16 09:12 AM, ChillyCheese wrote:

At 12/15/16 11:50 AM, Zuryen wrote: Hello guys,

I got a school project about animation, which has to be finished within one month. The topic about our animation is about "fragile".
As I never made an animation video (besides stopmotion), I wanted to use this chance and get into it.
I used to browse through Newgrounds a lot, so I thought maybe I could get some help here.

_________________________________________________________________________

My question is, is it possible for me to make an animation about 1 minute lenth, within one month?
If so, which software would you suggest to me? ( I would need to learn the basics of that software too )

I read alot about Adobe Flash in this forum, but I don't know if it is realistic to use it for my upcoming school project.

Thanks in advance for all suggestions!

It's possible, you are going to hit a lot of walls though, learning programs and animating at the same time is an uphill battle. Plan accordingly. If you have experience using Photoshop or other programs learning Flash isnt so hard. You dont need to learn every nook and cranny of the program, the basics will do. When you feel comfortable with the basics make a storyboard/animatic. This is the framework that you will build upon. A minute is very hard to fill if every scene has intensive animation, keep that in mind. Dont be afraid let some scenes be minimalistic.

That was my plan honestly, as I said to someone else before, I'm trying to keep things simple. Heck I'm probably even going for stick figures in a 2D colored world.
The only other question I have right now is, how old is actually the Adobe Flash which is being downloadable on Newgrounds if I'm going to check out YouTube tutorials such as these:

Bowz - Dovahbear

If the old Adobe Flash isn't going to work, I would first need to look for an alternative.

[GarBe]

If you're talking about the MX 2004 version in JesseJayJones thread, yeah it works. I'm on Windows 10 64bit running it in compatibility mode for XP SP2.

It has all the necessary tools for animation. All the fancier features like ActionScript 3, tweaking the radial fill center point, pannel tabs, etc are nice and all, but you don't really need them if you're only going to be animating. 99% of what I do with CS6 could be done with MX 2004. It even supports extensions. Once you get comfortable with the stock toolset, I'd definitely check out extensions if I were you:

http://toonmonkey.com/extensions.html
http://gamedev.michaeljameswilliams.com/2009/05/24/six-great-free-flash-extensions/
http://ajarproductions.com/blog/flash-extensions/

The biggest problem with it is the UI. It's a bit clunky and messing around with panels has caused a few crashes for me.

That said, if I didn't already own CS6, I'd definitely be using MX 2004 as my daily driver. It's extremely capable.

[Zuryen]

At 12/24/16 01:01 PM, GarBe wrote: If you're talking about the MX 2004 version in JesseJayJones thread, yeah it works. I'm on Windows 10 64bit running it in compatibility mode for XP SP2.

It has all the necessary tools for animation. All the fancier features like ActionScript 3, tweaking the radial fill center point, pannel tabs, etc are nice and all, but you don't really need them if you're only going to be animating. 99% of what I do with CS6 could be done with MX 2004. It even supports extensions. Once you get comfortable with the stock toolset, I'd definitely check out extensions if I were you:

http://toonmonkey.com/extensions.html
http://gamedev.michaeljameswilliams.com/2009/05/24/six-great-free-flash-extensions/
http://ajarproductions.com/blog/flash-extensions/

The biggest problem with it is the UI. It's a bit clunky and messing around with panels has caused a few crashes for me.

That said, if I didn't already own CS6, I'd definitely be using MX 2004 as my daily driver. It's extremely capable.

Great! Yes I was talking about the one in jessejayjones' topic. In that case I will try this one out and check out some tutorials.
The extensions look good, but honestly I don't think I have the time to include them into my next month. I will simply stick to the basics for now and afterwards check them out.

Thanks for your reply!