I've been trying to get things set up to make an almost full length 2D animated movie for a story that I'm still working on. (about 9 and a half chapters into it.) But I'm having problems with the characters because I'm not good at having them divided into the right number of parts.
How do I go about the following?
- How may pieces should the character be divided into (without the details) Example: arm 3 pieces, parts: Upper Arm, Lower Arm, Hand
- How should the layers be sorted?
- How should I go about using the bones for this? (I manually bind)
- other useful information.
Thanks
setting up a character
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Datawraith
- Posts: 73
- Joined: Fri Jun 11, 2010 2:50 am
setting up a character
A device that makes bad weather. . . interesting :/
There is no set number. If you are going for a more cut out look then separate the arm, forearm, hand etc.. But you can also make the arm and the body a whole, depending on what action your shot calls for. Or make the arm a whole but separated from the body. There are many combinations but you have to look at your storyboard and see what the character is doing in the shot. I know the majority of AS animators make one character 'rig' with a few different angles, but don't be afraid to rebuild the character for a specific action. It will be more suited and give the audience more visual interest.
The auto-binding is quick and useful when you don't have overlapping objects that need different bones to control the points, therefore manual binding [which you use] is the solution. Again, it depends on what the shot calls for. You will find it a lot easier to answer these questions for yourself if you plan out the action on a storyboard. It does not have to be elaborate, and can be a few simple stick figures, but just make sure the stick figures look like how you want to have the character posed [i.e. copying the actions of the more detailed character].
Layer sorting is yet another thing that depend on the way you work. For example you could create all the shapes of a character on one layer and use manual binding on the bones. That will mean your layer sorting would be bone layer~>vector layer.
The auto-binding is quick and useful when you don't have overlapping objects that need different bones to control the points, therefore manual binding [which you use] is the solution. Again, it depends on what the shot calls for. You will find it a lot easier to answer these questions for yourself if you plan out the action on a storyboard. It does not have to be elaborate, and can be a few simple stick figures, but just make sure the stick figures look like how you want to have the character posed [i.e. copying the actions of the more detailed character].
Layer sorting is yet another thing that depend on the way you work. For example you could create all the shapes of a character on one layer and use manual binding on the bones. That will mean your layer sorting would be bone layer~>vector layer.