Moho Animation Forum

I was watching a cheaply done anime and it seems every other shot was the back of a character speaking. Think of all the work saved, no lip syncing, just drawing the back of the head instead of the face.

Dale

Character walking behind waist high bushes...easy walk cycle that doesn't show feet.

Turn the camera angle the same time you turn the character. You don't need to make a full body turn or even a head turn.

tvtropes.org has a fairly extensive list of techniques that might be considered "cheats":

Lazy Artist

For the most part, this list is tongue-in-cheek.

Nice link neeters_guy, thanks, I especially loved that page.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/M ... geredHands

The Sliding Scale Of Anthropomorphism is also funny...and instructive.

I don't know if some of those things are really cheats are just industry standards because nobody has an unlimited budget and an unlimited amound of time to animate something

something somewhere has to be cut or done easier

its all in how you do it so the audience doesn't notice/or think its a big deal

I don't know if some of those things are really cheats are just industry standards because nobody has an unlimited budget and an unlimited amound of time to animate something

something somewhere has to be cut or done easier

its all in how you do it so the audience doesn't notice/or think its a big deal

I know what you mean. Somethings are done just because it's the cheaper, easy, lazy (take your pick) way but is not that noticeable to those who aren't looking for them.

Shot of a train door opening. Feet of several passengers getting off then a slow pan to the main character exiting. (easier than coming up with several background faces, cloths etc that won't be used again.)

Or a shot of a space ship blowing up. A trail of smoke to a small explosion in the distance. Easier, than one close that would have hundreds of parts moving off, where in the distance 5 or 6 parts that quickly fade works fine.

Or the extreme closeup so no background is need.

All of the above work in the right place with out interrupting the flow of the story.

Dale

Lazy?
Check how much animation is done weekly in Japan and you wlll know why they have to "cut corners". Pretty much mostly frame by frame too.
Also, some of these "lazy" static shots are also done for effect.Part of the story telling.

Patmals wrote:Lazy?
Check how much animation is done weekly in Japan and you wlll know why they have to "cut corners". Pretty much mostly frame by frame too.
Also, some of these "lazy" static shots are also done for effect.Part of the story telling.

I agree. We shouldn't confuse laziness with efficiency ! And you're right about it sometimes being a stylistic choice, especially since a lot of anime have their roots in manga.

What I find interesting is that Japan is producing so much anime these days that they're having to follow the US's lead and outsource a lot of the actual animation work to Korea.

2D animation has so much work involved that it leads to thinking about what will work with out adding any unnecessary drawings.

How often do you see a shot of peoples feet leaving a train in film? Their is no savings having the extras faces in the shot or not. If it done that way, it's for effect not cost savings.

I started this tread about shortcuts that show up in animation all the time. Some might view them as lazy other might view them as efficient. I guess it all according on who is paying for the animation to be done Somewhere in the world is an animator telling his boss that he (or she) can do a really cool explosion in just 2 days and the boss saying 'You got 4 hours.'

Dale

The most used cheat in animation is shooting on two's, or even three's or even four's. Another cheat is cut-out or limited animation, that was developed to cut down on production cost.

Cheats are ok for me, as animation is so involved.

Disney Princess and the Frog movie was shot mostly on two's, so was the latest Winnie the Pooh, tells you allot!

Its only ever classed as a cheat for me if I am distracted by it... no matter what you put in your animations.

If it doesnt 'pop' then no need to drop.


pah 2's my animation is on 24's @ 288 frames per sec much better

Yeah, but in general, animating in AS has the "benefits" of inbetwening for you. Not a choice when doing frame by frame (and I mean "drawing each inbetween").

To be honest, I am not a fan of automated in-between's, as they tend to look to mathematical and are often in needs of lots of tweaking to look good.

My favorite way of animation is by setting the default interpolation to step and just animate on two's.

Of course this is a personal preference!