Achieving a "hand animated" look using bones

mike_burges · Post by **mike_burges** » Fri Dec 19, 2008 7:39 pm

Hi guys,

For the film i am animating at the moment I want to try and achieve a hand animated look with the movement instead of the "perfect" computer tweening look you get as a default with digital animation.

I know there is a function in After effects which allows you to offset keyframes by a certain amount to make it less slick and fluid. Is there anything like this in Anime Studio?

Thanks.

slowtiger · Post by **slowtiger** » Fri Dec 19, 2008 8:32 pm

There is no button labelled "make more natural". It all depends on your, the animator's, choice of how many keys, where to place them, what to pose.

But you may try to set your overall frame rate to 12 fps. I do that in scenes which I want to combine with drawn animation, which I usually do on 2's.

synthsin75 · Post by **synthsin75** » Fri Dec 19, 2008 11:27 pm

Also animated noise (the vector tab of the vector layer settings) or some strategic noisy keyframes might help get the desired effect.

rylleman · Post by **rylleman** » Sat Dec 20, 2008 10:58 am

Set keyframe interpolation to stepped and animate.

mike_burges · Post by **mike_burges** » Sat Dec 20, 2008 11:34 am

ok thanks everyone.

mike_burges · Post by **mike_burges** » Tue Dec 23, 2008 2:35 pm

I am experimenting with the settings for the key frames and have am trying out "Noisy Interpolation" to try and get a less uniform movement. I cant for the life of me work out how the settings work! i.e what does changing the AMPLITUDE do and what does changing the SCALE do and how do they affect one another?

Anyone who can sum this up is a life saver... its driving me mad!

Dodgy · Post by **Dodgy** » Wed Dec 24, 2008 7:21 am

Noisy will wobble your bones values (say if you set the rotation to noisy, it'll wiggle them about a bit). Amplitude sets how wiggly they are, and scale will set how slow the wiggle is.

dm · Post by dm » Sat Dec 27, 2008 6:10 pm

Why don't you actually draw it by hand-frame by frame?

synthsin75 · Post by **synthsin75** » Sat Dec 27, 2008 7:39 pm

dm wrote:Why don't you actually draw it by hand-frame by frame?

Mmm, probably because this is posted in the 'How do I' section of the AS forum. I would thus assume he is looking to save time and effort over frame-by-frame. Otherwise he'd probably be using some other software.

p.s. I could swear this guy's a troll. Is it just me, or does it seem like he only posts when he can tout something other than AS?

dm · Post by dm » Sat Dec 27, 2008 8:47 pm

synthsin75 wrote:p.s. I could swear this guy's a troll. Is it just me, or does it seem like he only posts when he can tout something other than AS?

I'm guessing that refers to me. I'm not really clear on what a troll is. Someone who's advertising some other software?

Whatever- how was any other software being touted anywhere in this thread? Are you saying that you can't do hand drawn, frame by frame looking animation in ASP? Seems to me you can. Well, I can, anyway...

slowtiger · Post by **slowtiger** » Sun Dec 28, 2008 12:29 am

Actually it's not so much about a "hand drawn" look but about some tips to avoid that much-too-slick look of any procedural animation. We already had discussions about why it makes sense to animate on two's even while AS is pretty happy to do every single inbetween for us.

synthsin75 · Post by **synthsin75** » Sun Dec 28, 2008 5:40 am

Well you can do actual frame by frame in AS, but overall AS is not optimized nor really intended for it.

I'll admit though that I usually assume traditional frame by frame animation to be associated with something other than AS (even pencil and paper on a light box). Must have misread your intent there.

But I think my point was that that was neither here nor there (at least slightly OT).

mike_burges · Post by **mike_burges** » Sat Jan 03, 2009 12:08 pm

haha. yes it was more about getting rif of the slickness. My characters are all done in a cut out style using images made in photoshop, almost in sillouette. Im not sure if anyone is familiar with the short film called the Geographical Explorations of Jasper Morello- but thats the sort of style animation my Director would like. I think its going to come down to putting in the "imperfections" by hand, adding extra keys which isnt so bad as I am from a traditional, pencil on paper background!

Thanks all for your pointers etc. If your interested in seeing what we are making have a look at this link-

http://www.kirkhendry.com/junk/index.html

My part in it is mainly character design, rigging and animation.

THANKS ALL

jahnocli · Post by **jahnocli** » Sat Jan 03, 2009 12:53 pm

The film has a beautiful look.

billamu · Post by **billamu** » Wed Mar 25, 2009 10:34 pm

Looking at your artwork and character design on your website, drawing and rigging your characters directly in ASP would be your best bet.

Rigging images from photoshop (converted to PNGs) would help you maintain the hand-drawn look, but will lead to longer render times.

As for reducing the effect of perfect animations through keyframes, like Dodgy said, interpolate using the Noisy setting.