who's writing is a 3rd year animation student that is starting to animate his graduation film, and has decided to use this incredible software called Anime Studio Pro
I started a couple of weeks ago to use this software and it's incredible, but of course I can't find how to do few things (and few of the things I've already done look more like workarounds then correct solution), so I decided to ask to someone that has more experience, and here I am.
My short film is a digital cut out animation, and I think I will use ASP in order to create the character animation and then put the animated sequences on AE for some improvement. Right now I'm working on the characters and I'm trying to do the following thing:
I have a character body created on photoshop and split in different parts (Torso, Top Left Arm/Low Left Arm, Top Right Arm/Low Right Arm, Top left Leg/Low left Leg/Foot, Top right leg/Low right Leg/Foot).
Here is a picture (it's still a work in progress and I'll change the stripes in plain colors).
I have of course 4 different views (FRONT,3/4,SIDE and BACK).
The first thing is that I don't want to have a character that can just switch between it's 4 views (like the ones created using the character wizard), but something a little bit more tricky:
a rigged character that can switch between its parts (let's say I want to switch from the front view of my left arm to the 3/4 one). In order to do that I created something like this, but I would like to know if there is a bettere solution:
MAN BONE LEVEL (where I put just few key bones that will be used to keep on place the child bind layers)
--- SWITCH LAYER [LEFT ARM] (binded to MAN BONE LEVEL corresponding bone)
------- BONE LAYER [FRONT VIEW] (where I have a bone for each part of the arm)
-----------IMAGE LAYER [TOP ARM FRONT] (connected to FRONT VIEW Bone layer)
----------IMAGE LAYER [LOW ARM FRONT] (connected to FRONT VIEW Bone layer)
------- BONE LAYER [3/4 VIEW]
-----------IMAGE LAYER [TOP ARM 3/4]
----------IMAGE LAYER [LOW ARM 3/4]
and so on...
Doing this I can move in a rough way my whole character using the MAN BONE LEVEL and then decide which body part I need, switch it, enter on the bone level, move it in order to be exactly in position and then animate it using its bones.
I know it sounds a little bit tricky, but I need to have a character that can be moved as a whole, but also that can switch every main body part (torso, arms and legs) in its different view and still have a bone control on the smaller parts... I've also found the option (on the MAN BONE LEVEL) to keeyframe the level order, so I can easily switch the arms/legs and body position, and this is great!
If you have any other idea, advise, (or doubts 'cause I couldn't explain well enough my situation) please tell me
The other thing is about the head. As you can see the head is missing from the character body because it is supposed to be "hand drawn" directly on Anime Studio Pro. And here is my other doubts. I've thought to use Rudiger's morph script in order to have the head able to turn around without drawing all the inbetweens. I would use this script only for the head shape, because I would like to draw/move the eyes, mouth and nose every time I need, to avoid a too much mechanical feeling. Do you think it is possible?
Another thing I would like to have is a boiling/wobbly line (a loop between slightly different drawn shapes, example from a previous work done in flash http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4GjeJ1HjUU) on the head outline. how can I achieve this result? Is there any system to have a boiling line during the head rotation using Rudiger's script?
If there isn't a system to use both of them, I think I would prefer to have the boiling line more then the automatic head turning, but I can't figure out how to achieve this effect on Anime Studio...
Thank you very much for any help you can give me ^^
