I'm struggling with cleaning up

[PounchPounch]

Hello

So I do 2D traditionnal animations (not professional just amateur, big ass amateur)

I have a problem when I want to clean up my animation, I don't know WHEN (and also how) to do it, see my animation is already done, I have all my keyposes, inbetweens, and all my frame already done but my lines are not clean at all because I was focusing mostly on animation and now how my lines looks

I've already tried it, but is sooo boring and time consuming, to re-do all the lines of all the frame in a clean way furthermore, when I do this, my animation is modified because the lines are now vibrating !

So I wanted to ask you guys, what is your definition of cleaning up, do you clean up and do the animation at the same time, or do you it in a other way, I really want the opinion of someone qualified

[ZebraHumor]

I animate in paint and windows movie maker. I can't really clean up. I find it exhilarating that every frame I do has to be a final draft. It is a rare occasion I go back and clean up anything in animation.

The creators of South Park once said something like if they spent 3 months on an episode that only takes them 6 days to do, the episode would only be 10% better. And it was not worth it to them to do that. Maybe that 10% better is important to you. Maybe it isn't.

[PounchPounch]

At 7/5/18 04:13 PM, ZebraHumor wrote: I animate in paint and windows movie maker. I can't really clean up. I find it exhilarating that every frame I do has to be a final draft. It is a rare occasion I go back and clean up anything in animation.

The creators of South Park once said something like if they spent 3 months on an episode that only takes them 6 days to do, the episode would only be 10% better. And it was not worth it to them to do that. Maybe that 10% better is important to you. Maybe it isn't.

Well the thing is my style is very very different than Southpark's creators, we don't have the same vision of what is worth or not
My characters change pratically every frame, my lines are constantly moving, so I think it's important that my lines are clean and smooth

[ValterValyun]

(I believe I've addressed this answer to you some time ago).

The unfortunate news is that cleaning up is going to be the most tedious and boring process in animation, and that's never going to change. Plus, cleaning up is another skill-set that should be taken into account, so it will take much practice to avoid the "vibrating" lines you've mentioned.

And no, you should always rough and then clean. Otherwise if you try to go clean in the first place, then you will lose sight of the whole project altogether all because for creating "clean frames". It's best to focus on the character animation rather than how clean it looks.

Now I cannot say on how you actually attempted on cleaning your frames, but I always keep my rough layer and my cleaning layer separate. It is much easier to onion-skin the cleaning frames rather than try to go back to the rough animation and fix it altogether.

[PounchPounch]

At 7/6/18 10:17 AM, ValterValyun wrote: (I believe I've addressed this answer to you some time ago).

The unfortunate news is that cleaning up is going to be the most tedious and boring process in animation, and that's never going to change. Plus, cleaning up is another skill-set that should be taken into account, so it will take much practice to avoid the "vibrating" lines you've mentioned.

And no, you should always rough and then clean. Otherwise if you try to go clean in the first place, then you will lose sight of the whole project altogether all because for creating "clean frames". It's best to focus on the character animation rather than how clean it looks.

Now I cannot say on how you actually attempted on cleaning your frames, but I always keep my rough layer and my cleaning layer separate. It is much easier to onion-skin the cleaning frames rather than try to go back to the rough animation and fix it altogether.

Of course, I've used another layer !

Your answer actually helps me a lot man, there is just one thing you didn't mention is, at what stage is your animation when you're cleaning up, I've seen a lot of animator cleaning up and also doing their inbetweens... ?

[ValterValyun]

At 7/13/18 03:22 PM, PounchPounch wrote: at what stage is your animation when you're cleaning up, I've seen a lot of animator cleaning up and also doing their inbetweens... ?

That's more of a judgmental call than a "is this right" question. Typically, you would rough out the whole thing, inbetweens and all and go right back at it for cleanup.

However, if someone were to be in a time crunch or just want to take a shortcut, you can go about just roughing out keys and breakdowns, clean those up, and just straight up draw the inbetweens during cleanup phase.

But that's really up to you, but I'm gonna believe it depends on the design or complexity of the character.

[PounchPounch]

I see ! I was thinking the same way until I've tried, and that's where I had this vibrating lines problem

[xixGoBL1Nxix]

As far as '"vibrating lines" go, from my experience this happens only when an object/character, or part of an object/character are still and the lines that are supposed to remain still are drawn again and again on every frame of the cleanup.

What I suggest is that you separate the lines that are in motion during a segment of animation to a separate layer. Use a different layer for moving lines and stationary lines. For me doing this stopped the problem of dealing with vibrating lines. Doing this would mean you only have to redraw the moving lines every frame, or whenever they move. It will give you less to do if the stationary lines don't have to be redrawn every frame.

[Yassinius]

It think that your animation style might play a big role in this. Your lines are very thin so it's easier to see inconsistensies in your line work. I'm still crap at cleaning up my animations and my line work isn't that great, but I'm getting better. Usually consciously redrawing a line makes it look less jittery. Again, this is harder to do in your case since you use very thin lines, but people usually won't notice a line is vibrating if it's in motion, like xixGoBL1Nxix said.

[PounchPounch]

At 7/17/18 04:45 AM, xixGoBL1Nxix wrote: As far as '"vibrating lines" go, from my experience this happens only when an object/character, or part of an object/character are still and the lines that are supposed to remain still are drawn again and again on every frame of the cleanup.

What I suggest is that you separate the lines that are in motion during a segment of animation to a separate layer. Use a different layer for moving lines and stationary lines. For me doing this stopped the problem of dealing with vibrating lines. Doing this would mean you only have to redraw the moving lines every frame, or whenever they move. It will give you less to do if the stationary lines don't have to be redrawn every frame.

Hum ! I know a very good animator Ryan Woodward, who's doing that perfectly, in a very smooth way, however it's not easy for everyone because static lines are kind of dangerous and can lead to a weird looking animation, but anyway it won't kill me to try that technique and see how it goes,

thanks btw you all for replying and helping