Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Hope you guys have fun today whatever you choose to do. Anyways, before I get into animatics, I want to repost the link to where you can learn the flash interface if you don't know already. It doesn't seem to work in the other post and it stinks that I can't edit it. Here is the link to the tutorial created by Tom Fulp:
Flash Introduction
DAY THREE
ANIMATICS
Now that we have flash open and our scanned images in our library, we can start to create our animatic. Usually animatics are made when you already have your recorded voices. However, because it takes a while to get voice actors, it is a good idea to just jump into animation and base the timing on your script and mimicking the voices yourself. Sometimes I record lines myself and just put them in flash until I find the right voice actor for the job. If you don't need voices and you are just doing a music video, then it's easier for you to jump in.
There are two ways of making your animatic. You can do the slideshow type of animatic that consist of just images, or (like me) you can do an animatic that is made of very rough animations for timing sake. I'll go over the slideshow method first.
In flash, you want to make a layer exclusively for your scanned images that are underneath every layer in your timeline. That way, you'll have an easier time tracing your images. Because I do frame by frame, I only use three layers for my character. Here is a breakdown of the layers:
1. The upmost layer in my character folder (make sure you make a folder to contain all your layers for you one character) I have a mouth layer. This mouth layer is for my lip sync. The last thing I ever do is lip sync. It's like the icing on the cake in my opinion
2. The middle layer is for my eyes. I draw my eyes on a separate layer because sometimes you always are likely to change the way you want the eyes. You might want to make the character blink, but its hard if it's already in your character layer
3. The last layer is everything else. I animate my entire character in this layer
In your character layer where you want the fbf for your entire character, you will trace the scanned images. For right now, we will focus on one scene. Since you are doing one scene, you will probably only be tracing one image, unless you did more because the scene happens to be the most complicated. When you are tracing a scanned image, you don't have to be super perfect. This is your animatic and will not be included in your final product. Also, you should never trace in black. The best color to trace in is a light color. Stick with primary colors such as, red blue and yellow. The colors I use when I do an animatic are red and green. Some people use blue. I see blue as the most used color for an animatic, but it's your choice really. Also, don't worry about the background if you have it in your scanned images, we will be going over backgrounds later. The main thing you want to focus on is your character.
Example1
Once you finish tracing your character, you can pretty much stop right there. If all you want is a slide show, then you have your image ready. But I recommend adding your key frames at the very least so you can get a good sense of movement. Key frames if you don't know are the frames in your animation where the most extreme changes occur. These are the starting and ending points of a smooth transition, where in between are your frames known as... well in-betweens. Here is an example of my scene with just key frames:
Example 2
Now, for this project, my animatics were made into very rough animations. I made my character into a "madness model" for the rough animation because you don't need to go into super detail. Since you have your key frames, it makes it easier to fill in your in-betweens.
Before we start in-betweens, I want to go over the quick keys in flash that I use frequently when I animate:
F5 - Add frame
Shift F5 - Delete Frame
F6 - Add Key Frame
F7 - Add Blank Key Frame
F8 - Make Symbol
Enter - Play
Space Bar - Move Stage Freely
Ctrl Z - Undo
Ctrl Y - Redo
Before you start your in-betweens, turn you your onion skin so you can follow every frame to make sure it comes out nicely. Now in frame by frame, drawing in-between is the easiest part. All you are doing now is drawing one image between your two key frames. Then you draw an image in between your new in-between and your key frame- and so on and so on. If you have a hard time figuring out the movement of a certain action, act it out for yourself and see how your body moves. I can't tell you enough how much that helps.
When you finish your in-betweens, it's time to add some additions to really make the frame by frame shine. Now, you don't really have to add them now if you don't want it. It's better to insert these when you are doing the clean/final animation. The two techniques I'm about to show you are things that I do. I'm not sure if everyone does it, but I'll just tell you guys anyways just because.
The first technique is called BOUNCE and STRETCH. For my animation, it was good to keep it realistic; to I didn't add that much of the technique. So, I would copy an existing frame, select my transform tool, and slightly skew the image to add a really nice bouncy effect.
The second technique is the BUILD UP technique. Sometimes in real life, you will notice when you walk, that there is a build up moment that happens when you lift your foot. Most of the time because you are making in-betweens, things come out to evenly and you need to add frames to slow things down and add build up. To do this, just onion skin only one frame whether it's a key frame or in-between. Then you slightly change the movement. If his hands are by your characters mouth, you move it slightly to his ear or just a tad away so it looks like he barely moved at all. This will add a nice transition to help make the movements more realistic.
Now that you have your animatic for this one scene, you repeat what you did for each scene until the whole animation is filled with animatics. That way, you can start looking for voice actors and show them what you have so far to get them interested. Here are some examples of my animatics. You will notice during the days that the timing will change just a tad from the final, which will happen most likely for all of you when you finish.
Well, that's about it for your animatics. You can save your project and start looking for voice actors. Tomorrow I will show you how to go about doing that. Again, have a nice thanksgiving everyone.
*fun fact really fast*: I was just watching An Extremely Goofy Movie and in the credits, I just saw Adam Phillips (the creator of brakenwood) as the special effects director/ or supervisor (I forgot which) for the animated film. Just thought I post that since it was awesome seeing his name.
