Any New Method For Blending Between Rotational Poses?

GregSmith · Post by **GregSmith** » Fri Jun 05, 2009 12:38 am

Slice:

I read that entire thread, but it is not totally clear to me the exact steps that Greykid pictures uses within Anime Studio. If they are using just switch layers for the point movement all parented to one bone rig, then, yes, I can see that they don't deal with entire character rotation using this method.

How, then, do they rotate their entire characters - or do they? Most "modern" animation never rotates the entire character - I do understand that. But I find all of those animations to be very flat and lifeless, myself - no matter how convincing the head movements and lip sync are.

Maybe everybody needs to watch the "dance sequence" from Snow White and the Seven Dwarves again, paying close attention to the movement of the dwarves. We should be able to do this with Anime Studio Pro, and the right amount of 2D modeling talent.

Greg Smith

heyvern · Post by **heyvern** » Fri Jun 05, 2009 1:05 am

To be perfectly honest, I am having a really hard time understanding exactly what it is you are looking for or what the point of all this is. 2D is not "automatic" unless of course you try to make it automatic in AS with scripts and bone constraints

.

It almost seems like this question regarding body rotations is just a way to bitch about bugs in AS 6 "cloaked" in a "question"...

I'm not asking for an automated rig of any sort. Only that the tools provided with this release actually work - Actions, in this case - with the entire pose being recorded in the action, (both bone movement and vector, point movement, simultaneously).

As it stands now, actions do not work in this fashion without errors being introduced.

What clues me in to the fact that Actions were intended to work in this fashion is that they do work, the first run through the playback - only after this do the errors crop up.

I think you don't know how to use actions properly. An action must have ALL elements keyed or else the next action keyed will cause some parts to move in a way you didn't expect.

If you have 10 bones, and an action only has 4 of those bones keyed, applying another action with all 10 bones keyed will will cause odd behavior or make it appear that there are "missing keys".

--------

Please please please document clearly, very very clearly the EXACT steps used and provide the file, for any bugs you encounter. I have not seen this bug regarding "vanishing, or missing keyframes".

You must be very clear rather than making accusations of AS being "broken". When reporting a "bug", DO NOT LET EMOTION CLOUD THE DESCRIPTION.

You can be angry and frustrated, I'm not saying you should pretend you aren't or to subjugate your emotions, but those emotions expressed in the "report" are not going to help fix anything. Be clear and succinct in your descriptions. Step by step from point A to point B to create the error.

It could be user error but there is no way to know unless you document it. I or others can't test to verify. If there is no way to duplicate what you see then there is positively no way to fix it.

I make this plea to ANYONE with issues in AS 6. Document what you see happening. Pretend you are "Mr. Spock". No emotion just logical steps.

-vern

slice11217 · Post by **slice11217** » Fri Jun 05, 2009 3:51 am

GregSmith wrote:Slice:

How, then, do they rotate their entire characters - or do they? Most "modern" animation never rotates the entire character - I do understand that. But I find all of those animations to be very flat and lifeless, myself - no matter how convincing the head movements and lip sync are.

Maybe everybody needs to watch the "dance sequence" from Snow White and the Seven Dwarves again, paying close attention to the movement of the dwarves. We should be able to do this with Anime Studio Pro, and the right amount of 2D modeling talent.

Greg Smith

Pay close attention to Greykid's clips. Oftentimes their character rotations (whether it is the entire character or just body parts) is very limited within the scene. A lot of what is perceived as full rotation is accomplished via very artful editing.

As an example, in scene 1 character A might begin to rotate his head to see something to his right. The rotation itself would go from a front view to a 3/4. Then, in scene 2 the "camera" is positioned behind and to the right of character A and we see his head go from 3/4 to a profile. -You never see the entire head turn in one shot because it's been broken down into more manageable pieces, helped along by skillful editing.

This is just an example, I know that in La Reine Soleil Greykid did a full turn from front to profile. This seems to be rare for Greykid.

I personally built a model that was 2.5D, with the intention of making it capable of being dropped into any scene by any user, positioned appropriately, and then animated. I have to tell you that this is a very long road to go down and when you compare it against utilizing a strong storyboard and careful scene planning and strong design, you're far better off going with the latter. It's faster and ultimately looks better anyway.

GregSmith · Post by **GregSmith** » Fri Jun 05, 2009 4:57 am

Slice:

The method you described is quite artful, and actually fairly realistic, when compared to "real life" situations and movement.

But, this is not the style I'm trying to animate in. I prefer the raw wildness of early Disney and some 40's Warner Bros. Not very realistic but fun to watch. It entertains rather than informs.

Greg Smith

slice11217 · Post by **slice11217** » Fri Jun 05, 2009 5:14 am

GregSmith wrote:Slice:

The method you described is quite artful, and actually fairly realistic, when compared to "real life" situations and movement.

But, this is not the style I'm trying to animate in. I prefer the raw wildness of early Disney and some 40's Warner Bros. Not very realistic but fun to watch. It entertains rather than informs.

Greg Smith

I.... kinda get the feeling you're missing my point. I don't think that the difference between what Greykid is doing (at least how I described it) and what Disney was doing is as black and white as you describe. Both can EITHER entertain or inform as the case may be. It's really a matter of what is EFFECTIVE in getting the intended message across.

Does Greykid lose any entertainment value by not doing a complete body rotation (or head, arm, whatever) in their work? I think not. Is their work limited to just "informing". -No. It's a matter of effectiveness and expediency.

Does this mean to never build a head turn or rotation? -Of course not. Just use it wisely.

knunk · Post by **knunk** » Fri Jun 05, 2009 8:47 am

GregSmith wrote: Maybe everybody needs to watch the "dance sequence" from Snow White and the Seven Dwarves again, paying close attention to the movement of the dwarves. We should be able to do this with Anime Studio Pro, and the right amount of 2D modeling talent.

Greg Smith

..erm, no.... thats just nonsense! Sorry Greg.

In your defence, I must say you have great taste. But I do find your quest somewhat devaluing to the great artistry of animators like Fred Moore. http://fredmoore.blogspot.com/ . Just look at those Mickey Mouse drawings!

I realise thats not your intention, as you obviously love that stuff.....but for me it has nothing to do with what I think animation is. You are coming at it all wrong.

Its deeper than rigs!

slowtiger · Post by **slowtiger** » Fri Jun 05, 2009 9:19 am

I could try and write down what amount of wrongness I see in this attempt to mimick 1928's pencil-on-paper frame-by-frame with a 2009 vector based automatic inbetweening software ... but others already found a nice term for the underlying problem. I often feel uncomfortable in recent animation films because for my personal taste the elements don't really fit together. Wrong animation style for a certain design style, wrong movements for a certain software, and so on.

Please read this article by Keith Lango:

http://keithlango.blogspot.com/2009/05/ ... rmony.html

It is OK to want to achieve a certain look, like 1925's rubber hose animation. But I think it's odd to complain that a 2009's animation software isn't tailor made for that style. If you want to have complete turnarounds in a highly graphic 2D style, you need to work a lot. No software will ever change that.

The400th · Post by **The400th** » Fri Jun 05, 2009 12:34 pm

Maybe everybody needs to watch the "dance sequence" from Snow White and the Seven Dwarves again, paying close attention to the movement of the dwarves. We should be able to do this with Anime Studio Pro, and the right amount of 2D modeling talent.

Trying to do that style of animation is not playing to Anime Studio's strengths. It's always going to be easier to do that style by hand-drawing, because of the sheer amount of rule-breaking going on, and also because in today's market you can just draw the keyframes and send it out to Korea or China to be inbetweened cheaply.

I may be wrong, but it seems that Greg knows this and is just trying to point out one of the few areas where Anime Studio ISN'T the best tool for the job. I wonder if its the same Greg from the Mirage/TV Paint forums? Because TV Paint DOES happen to be perfect for this type of animation.

GregSmith · Post by **GregSmith** » Fri Jun 05, 2009 3:04 pm

A tool is a tool is a tool. It matters not which one you choose to use. The tool itself should have no effect on the style one wishes to achieve. Today's vector interpolation technology should just make the job easier, that's all.

If you can break rules with pencil and paper, you can also break rules with software. If it is a laborious process, then the answer is not to say it is the wrong tool, the answer is to make the tool simpler and more capable in this area.

You folks aren't saying this cannot be done, are you?

I can see by my preliminary tests with Anime Studio Pro 6 that Mike and whoever else is involved actually are trying to make this kind of rotational interpolation happen, since the action, bone, point movement combination worked, for me, the first time through. It's just loaded with bugs, at the moment. Maybe they will fix it if we show them what is not working.

Greg Smith

The400th · Post by **The400th** » Fri Jun 05, 2009 3:34 pm

You folks aren't saying this cannot be done, are you?

It's not that it CANNOT be done, but the question is whether it would be worth the effort to do it in AS compared to just drawing it. You have deliberately picked very full traditional animation as your example. AS is best at semi-full animation.

Look at La Reine Soleil (GreyKid's contribution) - that is the level that can realistically be achieved with Anime Studio.

What do you think of ToonBoom's high-end morphing tools? Can they satisfy you? Because they DO claim you can do turnarounds.

slice11217 · Post by **slice11217** » Fri Jun 05, 2009 3:54 pm

GregSmith wrote:A tool is a tool is a tool. It matters not which one you choose to use.

Really? Have you ever tried to screw a screw with a hammer? -Or tried to pound in a nail with a saw? -Sure it can be done; I think it's obvious that there are some tools which are appropriate to the task at hand and some that are not. Your job is to know which is best.

GregSmith wrote:If you can break rules with pencil and paper, you can also break rules with software. If it is a laborious process, then the answer is not to say it is the wrong tool, the answer is to make the tool simpler and more capable in this area.

So given the above analogy, perhaps you should start digging serrated edges into your hammers so that they have a cutting edge, and putting a dense flat surface on your saws so that it has an area for pounding nails.

I simply think you're following a misguided path here. I mean certainly, a software should be written to be as inclusive as possible but the user should also search for creative solutions to accomplish his/her goals. If you search on this forum long enough, or ask enough questions here, you'll get to a solution. The people here are pretty helpful. Vern in particular is quite helpful, as is Genete and Furby. I know I'm leaving out plenty more helpful people here. I mean no disrespect, it's just that these are the first names that come to mind.

There's a lot that Anime Studio couldn't do for years and as a result Mike Clifton decided to stop trying to put out all these little fires and instead made it so that the users could write scripts which would allow them (us) the flexibility to do what we needed. He realized that he couldn't think of everything ahead of time so he gave us the ability to add or subtract from Anime Studio as needed (within reason).

GregSmith wrote:I can see by my preliminary tests with Anime Studio Pro 6 that Mike and whoever else is involved actually are trying to make this kind of rotational interpolation happen, since the action, bone, point movement combination worked, for me, the first time through. It's just loaded with bugs, at the moment. Maybe they will fix it if we show them what is not working.

I'm sure that whatever bugs you've noticed will be fixed if they're made apparent to actually BE bugs. I believe Vern or Genete asked that you be much more specific in your description of the problem, or that you post the actual project so that others can pinpoint the source of the bug, but so far you have not done either of these things.

I, myself, have actually created some 2.5D models using mostly DarthFurby's action method, including bone animation into the rotation and I found that for the most part, the only bugs I found were in my own shortsightedness of planning. Seriously, it takes far too long to set all of that up and to think of every possible little detail that I realized production would simply go a lot faster to only use rotations where necessary (such as in head rotations) and to focus more on effective staging and posing. Software simply can't substitute for a lot of skill as an animator and I realized that perhaps I needed to grow more in this area.

heyvern · Post by **heyvern** » Fri Jun 05, 2009 3:55 pm

Greg, the actions are not "broken" they work fine. This dang "bug" you keep harping on was in 5.6 as well and you never mentioned it till now. Were you keeping it a secret? Hoping it would be fixed without telling anyone? You just want to use YOUR perceived failures by Smith Micro and Mike as an excuse for your inability to produce the EXACT effect you desire.

It isn't a "broken" feature in AS holding you back... trust me. If you want something bad enough nothing should hold you back. Stop blaming the tools. If your pencil breaks sharpen it or get a new one.

-vern

GregSmith · Post by **GregSmith** » Fri Jun 05, 2009 7:35 pm

Vern:

You are just too much in your responses, most of the time. You like to make assumptions and presume motives that are not there, at all. I think you like your power, whatever that is, quite a lot here on the forums.

I did post a video and it showed the bug in question. I haven't used Moho since it was Moho, so I was unaware of this bug pre-existing. And now, after this monumental release, I was hoping some things got refined a bit. I'm telling those on the forum what I have found that seems, to me, to be broken.

I've also stated the effects I'm trying to achieve with the software. I'm not asking someone to do this for me.

Really, I'm trying to ascertain if the software is broken, or not, and whether it will be fixed before I have the opportunity to pay for the upgrade.

Please keep your presumptions and assumptions to yourself. Don't be rude, Vern.

Greg Smith

slice11217 · Post by **slice11217** » Fri Jun 05, 2009 7:43 pm

Um... I think I'm missing two things in this thread:

1.) a link to this video that you've posted wherein you detail the "bug" so that we can all see what you're talking about...

and

2.) Vern's rudeness. He's been nothing but helpful, as has everyone else who's responded to this thread.

GregSmith · Post by **GregSmith** » Fri Jun 05, 2009 7:45 pm

400th:

Yes, the ToonBoom Animate software has some very nice rotational tweening functionality. Those aspects of the program I like very much. But there are many overly complicated aspects that are done much nicer in Anime Studio. Point motion tweening, for one, (or morphing), and the shading effect for shapes. Toon Boom Animate's timeline seems overly complicated to me, whereas Anime Studio's timeline is quite easy to deal with.

Both programs have their appeal. But, for me, eight or nine hundred dollars for the Animate software is out of the question. And, Anime Studio is properly price positioned for me. It makes sense to see what it is and is not capable of doing and whether Smith Micro will release a buggy version or not.

Greg Smith