Simon Edmondson Posted October 18, 2012 Share Posted October 18, 2012 http://cyriak.co.uk/blog/?page_id=333 A friend who teaches animation spotted it. Its baffling to me but, some of you After Effect users might be intrigued by this ? simon Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hash Fellow robcat2075 Posted October 18, 2012 Hash Fellow Share Posted October 18, 2012 that's a lot of layers but not crazy if you consider that each one of those 2D characters may require a layer for each body part that is animated. He's made it look extra complicated by expanding compositions that normally would only appear as one line in the interface (their separate parts would normally only be visible in their own composition timeline) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Admin Rodney Posted October 18, 2012 Admin Share Posted October 18, 2012 Yes, if you crack open a typical animation in Animation:Master (without 'Layers') you'll see much the same thing. Layers in this sense just means 'without images as those Layers'. If you were to have every element in A:M be an image that would indeed be quite a few layers. If you have a scene with ten characters in it that might constitute ten layers of characters and hundreds of sub-layers within each of those characters. If you consider that each of those characters might be the exact same character only with adjusted or added layers to differentiate them from the rest then it gets easier to understand and manage all of those layers of detail. The trick in layering (with or without images) is to organize everything in an intuitive way so that you (and others) can manipulate them easily. Added: I think what may be most intriquing to some is that AE historically has not been used in the same way as Flash, Toonboom and other similar programs are used to animate character driven stories as earlier versions weren't easily adaptable to it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Simon Edmondson Posted October 19, 2012 Author Share Posted October 19, 2012 Robert and Rodney. Am I right in thinking you are suggesting it is analogous to traditional Cell animation with different parts on separate layers or Cells ? Regards Simon Ps Pardon my ignorance but, what is Toonboom ? I've heard of Animo, although not recently... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hash Fellow robcat2075 Posted October 19, 2012 Hash Fellow Share Posted October 19, 2012 Am I right in thinking you are suggesting it is analogous to traditional Cell animation with different parts on separate layers or Cells ? Yes. Or like cutout animation where you have many separate parts. AFAIK, AE doesn't have "bones" like A:M does for 3D or like Flash has for 2D. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Bigboote Posted October 19, 2012 Share Posted October 19, 2012 That guy needs to learn to 'nest' compositions. A simple feature I wish A:M had. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hash Fellow robcat2075 Posted October 19, 2012 Hash Fellow Share Posted October 19, 2012 That guy needs to learn to 'nest' compositions. A simple feature I wish A:M had. How would that work? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Bigboote Posted October 19, 2012 Share Posted October 19, 2012 Well- you would use AE as an example. Lets say I make chor 1 and call it 'background' and I set-up an elaborate set with multiple trees, buildings, props etc. and light it the way I want it lit, probably delete the camera. Then I make a new choreography and I call it 'action'... and I bring in my actors, actions and props that they might interact with. I could then drag my 'background' choreography into my 'action' choreography and it would appear as 1 object, and the lights of my 'action' choreography would not affect the lights of the other (maybe there is an option for this) If I see thru my camera that something is amiss in my background, I could go into that chor and nudge the object ot make sweeping changes altogether... even animate things... and the changes would automatically be seen when I go back into my action chor.... I could even add a 3rd, 4th or more choreographies this way... and SINCE the entire choreography(s) appear as 1 object in the master chor, I could even animate those imported entire choreographies as a unit. This is an underlying strength of after effects... it's called 'nesting compositions' (composition = choreography) You can even take it further, and import chor 1 into chor 2, chor 2 into chor 3, chor 3 into chor 4...etc. The only way I have been able to do something like this in AE is to save the choreography... and import it into another choreography... but it brings everything in as a separate object which I can group into a folder, but changing things in the original chor means re-saving and reimporting... which is a mess. I always figured that the A:M programmers were not AE users, or they would have picked-up on this and implemented it in a heartbeat- but then... not being a programmer... that is probably quite a naive thing to think. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Admin Rodney Posted October 19, 2012 Admin Share Posted October 19, 2012 what is Toonboom? Toonboom is something of an industry standard in 2D these days. It's larger suite called 'Harmony' is thousands of dollars out of the price range of most artists but the full featured version has found it's way into studios such as Disney who have the deep pockets to support the program and (in my estimation) have largely found it incompatible for their future needs. They have recognized it as the current state of the art in 2D animation and are working to improve what is lacking in that arena. Toonboom's primary 'Animate Pro' offering is similar to A:M in many respects but from a 2D 'card' based approach to animation where drawings are grouped and manipulated in via bones and layers in 2D and 3D space. At a guess I'd say that to purchase all of the Toonboom products needed to produce an fully animated feature film the cost would easily hit $20K (and that without any support/maintenance agreements). You know you can't afford it when the price says, "Contact your nearest Toonboom Representative." I rate the lower end software offerings as fair and useful but those who are serious about animation won't be satified until they get to the 'Animate Pro' level as there are tools in that package that 2D artists would have a hard time finding anywhere else. Toonboom tends to run a sale every other weekend so if the price isn't right today... wait another weekend. The going rate for Animate Pro is $1,199. What is amazing to me is that short of the actual drawing elements (which are substantial), Animation:Master can do much the same thing and in many ways with a better workflow for $79. This clues us in to the real value of A:M. What is of particular interest to me is how Toonboom's products can be used with A:M. But prohibitively, their pricing sets those products too far out of the reach for the average A:M user. That guy needs to learn to 'nest' compositions. A simple feature I wish A:M had. I'd like to hear more of your specific needs here as well as there are some ways to nest compositions in A:M. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fuchur Posted October 19, 2012 Share Posted October 19, 2012 Well- you would use AE as an example. Lets say I make chor 1 and call it 'background' and I set-up an elaborate set with multiple trees, buildings, props etc. and light it the way I want it lit, probably delete the camera. Then I make a new choreography and I call it 'action'... and I bring in my actors, actions and props that they might interact with. I could then drag my 'background' choreography into my 'action' choreography and it would appear as 1 object, and the lights of my 'action' choreography would not affect the lights of the other (maybe there is an option for this) If I see thru my camera that something is amiss in my background, I could go into that chor and nudge the object ot make sweeping changes altogether... even animate things... and the changes would automatically be seen when I go back into my action chor.... I could even add a 3rd, 4th or more choreographies this way... and SINCE the entire choreography(s) appear as 1 object in the master chor, I could even animate those imported entire choreographies as a unit. This is an underlying strength of after effects... it's called 'nesting compositions' (composition = choreography) You can even take it further, and import chor 1 into chor 2, chor 2 into chor 3, chor 3 into chor 4...etc. The only way I have been able to do something like this in AM is to save the choreography... and import it into another choreography... but it brings everything in as a separate object, and changing things in the original chor means re-saving and reimporting... which is a mess. I always figured that the A:M programmers were not AE users, or they would have picked-up on this and implemented it in a heartbeat. Hm... yes it could save some time... you could of course use folder in one chor (not available in AE) and just place the stuff you want into them to create a nicer workflow... It is a little more work in some situations, but everybody who has tried to match an animation, which is placed in a separated composition before has faced the problem occuring there too... Open the nested composition, move the keyframes in there around, go to the parent composition and see if it worked, etc. this can be quite annoying too. See you *Fuchur* Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Bigboote Posted October 19, 2012 Share Posted October 19, 2012 illustrated(image). folders are nice, but can you select a folder and move it about, scale it... rotate it, give it constraints like translate to...? The way it is now... if I wanted to move about the 1st level(grid of 6X6 basketballs) and have the other levels follow with a delayed offset... I would have to apply the 'translate to' constraint to 36 times, and again for each ensuing level. Now, I know you could accomplish this same thing using action-objects feature or other means in A:M. I am just illustrating here that AE uses 'nested compostions' ase a KEY STRENGTH to it's power... and that if you look at choreographies in A:M and compare them to compostions in AE... that this way of working would be feasible in A:M... and that perhaps it could become a KEY STRENGTH to Animation:Master as well. I need to remind myself that I am in the motion-graphics industry and competing with the C4D's and modo's out there that have ways of replicating objects to the Nth degree, and that most A:M users do not need a feature like this nor ever will, so I understand the futility. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Bigboote Posted October 19, 2012 Share Posted October 19, 2012 but everybody who has tried to match an animation, which is placed in a separated composition before has faced the problem occuring there too... Open the nested composition, move the keyframes in there around, go to the parent composition and see if it worked, etc. this can be quite annoying too. Not really- especially with A:M's robust interface. In the above image as an example, if I saw a basketball in chor1 that I wanted to nudge or rotate differently... I could select it- I could expand the 'LEVEL' chor in the PWS and see that the ball in question is selected(blue) which would then allow me to expose it's keyframes... adjust the rotation... nudge it's position... all while I am still looking at CHOR1 for perfect positioning. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fuchur Posted October 19, 2012 Share Posted October 19, 2012 but everybody who has tried to match an animation, which is placed in a separated composition before has faced the problem occuring there too... Open the nested composition, move the keyframes in there around, go to the parent composition and see if it worked, etc. this can be quite annoying too. Not really- especially with A:M's robust interface. In the above image as an example, if I saw a basketball in chor1 that I wanted to nudge or rotate differently... I could select it- I could expand the 'LEVEL' chor in the PWS and see that the ball in question is selected(blue) which would then allow me to expose it's keyframes... adjust the rotation... nudge it's position... all while I am still looking at CHOR1 for perfect positioning. I can see what you are after... not bad at all yes... this could be done in A:M using a model and copying it in the model-space, etc. (that is kind of a nested object than) but I can see the advantage of being able to do everything in there... There are a few things (which never really worked for me like Grouping objects in the chor, using the "Multiply"-Plugin in the chor, etc.) which could get rid of many of the needs of a nested chor, but a nested chor could be a quite elegant solution. You may want to do a feature request on A:M reports about that. See you *Fuchur* Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hash Fellow robcat2075 Posted October 19, 2012 Hash Fellow Share Posted October 19, 2012 While we're wishing for software to do things it doesn't do, I wish new AE CS6 would load my old AE 5 projects. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Admin Rodney Posted October 19, 2012 Admin Share Posted October 19, 2012 I wish new AE CS6 would load my old AE 5 projects. I saw a topic that mentioned removing a plugin in order to get AE5 projects to open. I didn't understand what they were talking about and it didn't apply to me (unfortunately I don't have AE) so didn't read any further... Perhaps that might give you a lead to a workaround or fix. Here's a bit more information I was able to find: http://editingwhiz.com/2012/05/07/moving-ae-plugins-to-cs6/ Sounds like that is on the Mac however. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Simon Edmondson Posted October 19, 2012 Author Share Posted October 19, 2012 Toonboom is something of an industry standard in 2D these days. It's larger suite called 'Harmony' is thousands of dollars out of the price range of most artists ... I rate the lower end software offerings as fair and useful but those who are serious about animation won't be satified until they get to the 'Animate Pro' level as there are tools in that package that 2D artists would have a hard time finding anywhere else. Toonboom tends to run a sale every other weekend so if the price isn't right today... wait another weekend. The going rate for Animate Pro is $1,199.... Rodney Thank you for the info. It does sound like it is completely outside my price range. I'm presently playing with a freeware ap called Pencil somebody ( an australian whose , pardon me, name I can't recall ) mentioned elsewhere on the forum. The college I mentioned above uses a program called TV Paint http://www.tvpaint.com/v2/content/article/home/ and I was contemplating getting that some ( distant ) point in the future. regards simon Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Admin Rodney Posted October 19, 2012 Admin Share Posted October 19, 2012 I would love to standardize on TV Paint but unless I'm making money at this I think it's a bit out of my price range. If I was fully engaged in a production I'd seriously consider it. IMO TV Paint is a more flexible and customizable approach to hand drawn animation than Toonboom. Toonboom is more of a closed system. Where TV Paint is closed is mostly due to it's feature set. Toonboom seems to embrace what I call 'hobbleware' approach where lesser versions have some of the features... but not all the ones you'll find that you need. This leads to upgrades to the full featured versions which if you'd have just known that from the beginning you would have saved a lot of time and energy. I understand why they do it but... still cannot help but detest the idea of hobbling features. It's that ol' you get what you are willing to pay for thing. Whereas Toonboom is mostly vector based, TV Paint is more raster based although those distinctions seem to dimenish with every release. Of the two approaches I prefer vector for drawing and editing and raster for digital painting. As much as I'd like to like it, Pencil is far too basic for my needs. Very nice things have been created with it and it may suit your needs well. I've been spoiled with the capabilities of Coreldraw and Photopaint and I can't use less than those features so until I find the perfect approach I live in a hybrid approach to animation. That suits me fine right now because most of what I do is experimentation. I will note that all purchases rely on your needs. It may be optimal for you to look into Toonboom products... you just have to assess whether they match your needs. If you are just wanting to draw out storyboards then Pencil may be perfect for you needs. A piece of paper and a pencil might also fill that need. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hash Fellow robcat2075 Posted October 19, 2012 Hash Fellow Share Posted October 19, 2012 I'm presently playing with a freeware ap called Pencil somebody ( an australian whose , pardon me, name I can't recall ) mentioned elsewhere on the forum. Another free 2D app is Plastic Animation Paper. It's free because it's not being developed anymore but it has the best pencil look than anything I've tried so far, if you have a pressure sensitive tablet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Simon Edmondson Posted October 20, 2012 Author Share Posted October 20, 2012 I'm presently playing with a freeware ap called Pencil somebody ( an australian whose , pardon me, name I can't recall ) mentioned elsewhere on the forum. Another free 2D app is Plastic Animation Paper. It's free because it's not being developed anymore but it has the best pencil look than anything I've tried so far, if you have a pressure sensitive tablet. Robert Thank you for the info I shall go away and have a look. I have a ( slightly wonky ) Intuous tablet and a very large Ultrapad which I was hoping to convert to use on the Mac. I was going to use Pencil to story reel next years project. I have a terrible tendency to start production when its only 60% planned. Hope to get over that next time... regards simon Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hash Fellow robcat2075 Posted October 20, 2012 Hash Fellow Share Posted October 20, 2012 I wish new AE CS6 would load my old AE 5 projects. I saw a topic that mentioned removing a plugin in order to get AE5 projects to open. I didn't understand what they were talking about and it didn't apply to me (unfortunately I don't have AE) so didn't read any further... If you ever locate that tip let me know Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Admin Rodney Posted October 20, 2012 Admin Share Posted October 20, 2012 I wish new AE CS6 would load my old AE 5 projects. I saw a topic that mentioned removing a plugin in order to get AE5 projects to open. I didn't understand what they were talking about and it didn't apply to me (unfortunately I don't have AE) so didn't read any further... If you ever locate that tip let me know Silly question but... have you tried to Import the project rather than Open? (Gotta cover all the variables...) To futher narrow the field in what it could be: Can you import any other files from AE5 into AE6? For instance a empty or trivial project? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hash Fellow robcat2075 Posted October 20, 2012 Hash Fellow Share Posted October 20, 2012 Silly question but... have you tried to Import the project rather than Open? (Gotta cover all the variables...) To futher narrow the field in what it could be: Can you import any other files from AE5 into AE6? For instance a empty or trivial project? Nope. It identifies the old project as too old and can't be opened. Without an intermediate version it seems to be undoable. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hash Fellow robcat2075 Posted October 22, 2012 Hash Fellow Share Posted October 22, 2012 Does any other 3D app do nesting in the same sense that After Effects does it? i don't think so. I think our ability to associate many models as Action Objects in an Action that can be dropped onto something in a chor yet still edited back at the Action is fairly close and probably close enough to aid in getting the job done on the infrequent occasions this is needed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Bigboote Posted October 22, 2012 Share Posted October 22, 2012 Yeah... I'll agree. I'm not going to 'push' it as a request. I could also save a chor as an action... this is how I had done my NYC and several football/soccer stadium models in the past. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gerry Posted October 22, 2012 Share Posted October 22, 2012 While we're wishing for software to do things it doesn't do, I wish new AE CS6 would load my old AE 5 projects. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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