Moho Forum

Hi,

First post, pretty much a newbie.

Just wondering what your thoughts are in how would you implement a seven second fight scene. I'd been watching Naruto lately, studying the movements and actions, and it looks like those actions I saw probably are too much to be drawn a vector-like way. Naruto was/is probably a cel-based hand-drawn with all that shape-shifting and deforming going on.

So, if I were to play around with a sequence in which...

1) Ninja A jumps to B with an overhead hand chop.

2) Ninja B makes a cool step to the left allowing the chop to pass through.

3) Ninja B makes a quick right side kick to the abdomen, hitting it.

4) Ninja A absorbs the kick and flies to the left, crashing to a wall. Smoke forms and billows.

Is this idea hard/easy to implement? If easy, should I be looking into bone rigging?

Thanks and have a nice day.

If you don't know bone rigging yet you should learn that first.

It would probably help with something that complex. I would also do a story board exactly the way you describe it. Draw pictures showing the action. Then you can decide how much needs to be created before animating.

AS and 2d animation in general is quite different from "3D" in that you don't have every angle of the characters available. You need to carefully plan what you would need for each scene so you don't do more work than you need.

Another thing to do would be to use screen grabs of movies and rotoscoping simple stick figures of your fight scene. Just very simple lines indicating the arms legs and body.

What you ask can be done, but it is very specific and you would have to try it out. If you don't know how to use Anime Studio yet you need to learn it first to see what you are capable of on your own.

-vern

Here is a partially completed cel done in PS, no shading has been done on it. This will cover action #1 described above.

I'm hoping I can use bone rigging to move the character into the chopping/stabbing motion. That would be cool.

Is it possible to divide them into parts and then rig them in order to implement the motion.

The camera follows the face before tracking the hand thrusting forward.

Let me know if I'm overdoing it, though.



hayvern, just like to let you know how thankful I am to you.

THATS FREAKING SWEET!!! Keep it up!
I'm a big Naruto fan and am trying to do a project with action and martial arts in it.
I guy on the forum said(I think it was human) that "Drawing is half the battle for good animation". You've won half the battle.
I would recommend that your build your characters with vector points, its alot eaiser to animate them with bones and it dosint look like South Park(not that theres anything wrong with south park woot woot eric cartman).

Thanks,

I modded the cel image adding a speed blur to simulate fast motion.

My problem is how do I translate all of this to ASpro. This is where I need advice.

O.k lets hope u drew that ninja in layers, if u did then u can import each layer to anime studio and probably translate the background layer upward or downward to give the moving fast illusion.
But if u wanna make the guy move and stuff, he should be in vector form i wonder if Photo shop. can convert to Vector, i know RealDraw can do that. and if u dont know how to bring ur pic into A.s, then i think u should read the tutorials. Somewhere around images or importing an image layer. its not hard .

Wow looking nice, got to keep a eye out on this project.

Well (i forgot) u can also (import different pieces of the the guy to Anime studio and add Bones to the the image layers. meaning u must have Drwan in layers or cut and paste each part. Whew.. thats alot of work. Guys hope any one knows a way to trace & export as vectors in P.s

Hi drawman,

Unfortunately, I started the draw using paper-and-pencil, scanned it to jpeg before moving it to PS. I should've edited it on Flash 8, but I hesitated thinking it was better to play around with PS before moving to ASpro.

You gave me a very good idea on tracing the scanned image in ASpro, using the onion skin mode, separate the parts into layers and rig them up and see if these parts will move on the X-Y plane, though the challenge is moving a part in the Z-plane, it's like modding the size to give the illusion of motion toward the camera. An example of that is the thrusting/chopping motion of the right forearm holding the funai(?). Followed by the retreating left arm to balance out the body, making that hand smaller while changing the finger orientation can be a challenge as well.

Let me know if I'm way off and sounding too optimistic because I'm an ASpro newbie, tell me if an idea is too complex or not.

Yay! my first 72 frames ASpro animation.

I was able to figure out the tools while trying to implement several techniques. Refer to the movie for details.

I'm still newbie and reading tons of documentation and sample anme files.

Anyway, the URL to the two files...

1) http://begonza.com/animation/aspro/test.001.mov

2) http://begonza.com/animation/aspro/test.001.anme

Nice
You might want to try using keyframes that LOOP instead of copying and pasting hair movements all along the timeline.

Make your keyframes for frame 1. Then, make some adjustments at perhaps 8 frames later. Then, another 8 frames later, copy the frames you made at frame 1 and paste them. Them, right click them (the keyframes at frame 16) and set them to cycle back to frame 1. You'll get a smooth repeating cycle.

Thanks for the comment. Really appreciate it.

I just got Ninja B sketched a while ago, so he is probably going to be rendered in ASpro. Hoping I can draw that good enough using AS tools.

Here is the sketch of Ninja B.

hey do u draw ur back grounds too?

I draw backgrounds but not that good, I took that one from google images.

I have two unfinished work shown below, no textures applied.

Hi,

Second test file done, this time putting more emotions into the scene using only a few things learned.

1) http://begonza.com/animation/aspro/test.003.005.low.mov

2) http://begonza.com/animation/aspro/test.003.005.anme

Now, I can't seem to figure out how to go to the next scene. Should I start a new anme file and use frame zero to build stuff up?

Basically, my question now is how do you go about working on the next scene? What is your best practice in handling this?

Thanks and have a nice day.