Newbie - WIP

[human]

After all this time, I just did my first serious drawing in AS Pro.

Yes, I've been through all the stages of grief with this--denial, bargaining, anger, and now, acceptance.

Hey, drawing in AS Pro isn't really like having your teeth pulled! It's just different, that's all!

Here's the (early) work in progress:



I wanted to ask for advice before I go much farther, though.

This superflat "cel" look can have a certain appeal--I've envied it in the work of many others--but I want to get beyond the pancake-makeup and simple-splines-everywhere look I'm at right now.

Any ideas on how to hone this?

Even more important... is it feasible to do point morphing from this view over to a true profile I have waiting in the wings... and also to a front view?

Will I have to strictly allocate the same vector points in the corresponding shapes at each key pose?

[Genete]

Firt of all:
Congratulations for your first step. It seems it would be a pleasure walk.

Regarding to the drawing itself I see it fairly good. I only would modify something of the color scheme (for example: all the outlines would match for the same kind of stuff - eg the eyebrows)

And for the possibility of morph it to a side or front views it seems to be more than possible. You should watch DarthFurby's tutorial videos to learn ho to use action for head turn. Also some additional preparation would be needed due that there are some tricks he uses to allow manual masks or hide/show outlines during the turn. Not so easy to explain with words so watch the (more than 3,5 hours!) video. It is worthy.

Welcome!

-G

[funksmaname]

Hey there human.

Congrats! i really like it, i much prefer it to the style of your avatar...
Like Genete pointed out, i think looking more carefully at stroke colour might help - also it seems a little strange to have pure black on only the pupils, which makes his back eye in particular seem a little odd.

As far as head turns, yeah - Darthfurbys tutorials are a great way to get going... most importantly, there are some specific construction techniques required to be able to achieve this and DF gives you a good primer.

Looking forward to progress

Once last thing, looks like his tash might have 2 line shapes on top of eachother? i think thats what casuses that anti alias halo around shapes...

[human]

Thanks, guys.

About the style issue... I was really struggling with that. I was having the same problem discussed here:

viewtopic.php?p=17517&sid=cf2a5917ed67c ... ee127aa77a

Rasheed said, "You can't apply a style by selecting a style in the Styles option list, you need one of the Applied Styles for that.... ....it is a typical mistake new Moho users make."

The newbie abashedly said, "I don't know how I missed that."

Yeah? Well I do, and there's nothing to be ashamed about. It's a typical (and typically severe), flaw in the user-interface design.

The newcomer assumed that Anime Studio honors the same user-interface principles which govern thousands of other software packages. If any of those applications gave you a drop-down list entitled Styles, they would dang well expect you to choose your style from the list.

And typically for AS, the secret trick--to use another one of those totally redundant listboxes, titled in this case, cryptically, "Applied Styles"--is not covered in the help file.

I hope people don't take offense. After all, I could have just learned the lesson and moved on without mentioning it.

I'm not bringing up the point just to be disagreeable, but out of a sincere desire to help improve things for everybody, e-frontier included.

If I sound forceful, I feel the need to raise my voice a little in order for folks to see that this stuff really matters, because apparently it hasn't been viewed as a design flaw-- only as newbie stupidity.

Throw up ten or twelve unnecessary gotchas like this in front of a user already struggling with something as complex as character animation, and who knows but the application might be get a reputation for being buggy or arcane.

I can say one thing: these kinds of user-interface mysteries have been scaring me away from the app for about a year now.

On the other hand, I feel that if these things are fixed, it could significantly increase the success of the product in the marketplace.

Come on--it should be relatively simple to fix this kind of thing, because it doesn't involve changing any program functionality.

[funksmaname]

so where would you select/edit the styles themselves?
tbh i dont see this as a flaw at all... also, tutorial 2.7 highlights everything?

imho, you need to take a chill pill and not get so het up about something that isn't REALLY a problem when you look at it

In all the time it took you to write this post, you could have been working on your character!

Also, you need to select a style in the style selection drop down in order to get to its timeline for changing it over time... a drop down is the only solution!

[human]

tutorial 2.7 highlights everything?

OK, I stand corrected. I won't belabor it, but this belongs in the feature documentation as well as in tutorials.

So I made a mistake, but I have not changed my mind about the value of applying the same user-interface standards to AS as to any other graphics application.

Compared to the unique and advanced functionality of the product itself, it's not rocket science.

Apple and Microsoft have both published user-interface standards. Learning industry-standard practices from one or the other could bring AS ease of use up to par with its high functionality.