switching from 3D -> Sprite rendering to animating by hand - tips for begginers

[piotrek255]

I'm a former enthusiast of a time saving technique for animation, which is 3D animation rendered to a sprite. Recently i found out that animating smaller sprites is better done by hand, that is why i would like to ask you people, how do you animate and what program do you use for animating your character?

also, did you came to some conclusions while animating, any hints that came from your progress that would help a beginner switch to animating by hand?

thanks for any tips that you will share. i really appreciate it.

[bengo]

Dude... I mean, seriously: http://www.wayofthepixel.net/pixelation/index.php?topic=3467.0

[piotrek255]

yeah, i watched all the tutorials regarding colors, animation and creating pixelart. There are lots of tutorials on creating pixelart and generally about animation, but very few on the actual process of creating an animation.

Tips on animating, what areas to leave unchanged, and what not, what tool/application do you use, and why it works for you?
These are the questions i ask.

[LoTekK]

This will really depend on what you end up feeling more comfortable with (and of course, time constraints). Some people like to cut/paste/move for animations, redrawing as little as possible, others enjoy redrawing each frame for a more fluid feel, and still others combine the two.

Tools, anything that has an onionskin feature will save your hair. Honest.

[AdamAtomic]

Change everything, use pro motion, onion skinning isn't actually helpful, practice practice practice

[Helm]

Pixel art is in too small spaces for onion skinning to count for much. Just having your hands on 1 and 2 in pro motion which fips through framebefore and framenext are enough to check consistency.

CHANGE EVERYTHING

[ptoing]

heyhey, what onionskinning is good for is getting spacing for timings right. it helps when you can see the 2 extremes and then inbetween. Very helpful for good ease in and ease out stuff. Tho it's true that pixelling is so small that stuff in general can ge fixed and changed really quick.

[Jad]

Always start working with sillhouettes and scetches. Are you going to draw a punching man?

First make sure that the opening stance looks good. Then try to come up with a good wind-up stance that would look good. Check the consistency between these two frames so that all volumes are intact. Then make a good 'punch connects'-stance while imagining the motion he would make in-between (will he take a step forward, how will it look, and so) until you have three key-frames (still->wind-up->punch).

Then start making the in-betweens, preferrably by blotting out the parts of him that are going to move the most.

Then think about timing. If the delay on each frame is consistent (each frame shows for equal amount of time), never forget that fewer frames between two points translates as faster motion. That's why I like cranking a lot of frames into an animation and then still make the important fast motions go lightning-fast, as to suggest power and agility.

... Gah, that's mostly a lot of rambling, but I hope I said something of interest and relevance. :\

[ndchristie]

Idraw works great because it lets you have an instantly updated animation preview in a side window with adjustable time, zoom, and pause/play functions.

If there is one thing i've learned it's that redrawing everything look best.  However, if i need a frame in the attacking animation where an element is in exactly the same position as it was in a frame of the running animation, i'll sometimes sample that part the old animation into the new frame to save time.

[robotacon]

These are the only rules I follow at the moment:
I first go for the extremes, try getting those frames where the action turns.
Then do inbetweens occasionally easing in or out a bit.
Look at one limb at a time and how it moves.
Look out for wobbly bits.


There are several good books on animation that are worth buying.
I personally like The Animator's Survival Kit: A Manual of Methods, Principles, and Formulas for Classical, Computer, Games, Stop Motion, and Internet Animators the best.
It teaches the basics for 2d animations and is far above whats needed for creating computer animation.