# What are some methods for reducing workload in animation



## septango (May 29, 2013)

Ive been wanting to do some hand drawn animation for a wile but dont really have a buttload of time to spend on it

what are some methods to reduce the workload of this artform?

any stylistic choices?

techniques?

editing tricks?

 now I know im still going to have alot of work to do, I just want to know how to have less so


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## Dokid (May 29, 2013)

Well I've found that if you keep your characters to simple shapes and little detail that helps. You can always add more details in later. 

Other than that copying key frames is one way to reduce the work amount or teaming up with other people works just as well. Especially if it's a big project.

Animation is tedious though and always will be. I recently did a walk cycle in blender (after a long time of not doing anything with blender or any 3D animation program) and even when I thought I was done there was so much more tweaking I had to do between frames.


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## septango (May 29, 2013)

I was think ing since one of the themes of the peice is isolation, i could have background characters be verry gray/minimalist looking


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## Dokid (May 29, 2013)

septango said:


> I was think ing since one of the themes of the peice is isolation, i could have background characters bee verry gray/minimalist looking



You could. Do you plan on doing 3D or 2D animation? 

I also found that if you do 2D animation and you're on flash you can create a bunch of background characters and copy and paste them to fill a scene. Even better if you animate walking cycles for them. 

Keeping to somewhat simple shapes is really good for 2D because you still have a lot of leeway for moving. I've also seen some pretty good animations with very little movement. So you could go that route.


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## septango (May 29, 2013)

2d, its actually for a game so they all will be sprites

and I intend to do the animation hand drawn, like paper and pencil hand drawn, since thats the medium im best at


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## Dokid (May 29, 2013)

septango said:


> 2d, its actually for a game so they all will be sprites
> 
> and I intend to do the animation hand drawn, like paper and pencil hand drawn, since thats the medium im best at



Oh okay. Well I know there are some basic animation base sprites somewhere if you want to go that route. Otherwise expect a ton of time being devoted into designing the characters to not all look the same.


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## Car Fox (May 29, 2013)

If one of them is a spite for a game, onion skinning might help a bit. Other than regualarly checking frams, and playing the animation to check smoothness, this is the only thing I can recomend.


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## septango (May 29, 2013)

onion skinning?


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## Car Fox (May 29, 2013)

septango said:


> onion skinning?



Basically, some programs offer a feature called "onion skinning". Basically, when you start a new frame of an animation, it will display the image of the previous frame behind the current one in a different color scheme.


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## septango (May 29, 2013)

oh, yeah but im doing this on paper so that doesn't really help, but thats why im using tracing paper so i can see the previous frame


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## Mserene (Jun 1, 2013)

Ok, you want to do traditional animation?  Some basic things you'll probably want would be a light box, round peg bar, and hole punch so that a.) you can see previously completed frames/the composition b.) so that you don't have to worry about paper shifting and c.) so you don't have to buy animation paper and can just use some copy paper and punch it yourself.

Do you know the basic steps to start doing animation? The principles behind it?

Starting with a basic composition. Draw the character very roughly (stick and ball) in all of the major positions it will be in (I'd suggest using different colors for this if you are having the character in mostly one place.) Use this a a frame of reference. Remember, 12 frames per second.

Draw out these out as the key frames. Scan it, see how it runs.

 Then break down the transition slowly, a few break down frames between each key frame.  Scan it, see how it runs.

Then connect these frames with those final few to make it a bit smoother.

Scan these and begin your work.  I don't sprite, so I don't really know what you would be doing here.

In the interest of having what you do look right, look up the animation principles. Learn how to use them.

Shameless plug for my short as hell animation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55-U0uBiNUU&feature=youtu.be It took me a semester at college to learn how to do that.  Don't be discouraged if at first you don't succeed.

If you have any questions, feel free to shoot me a pm.


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## drpickelle (Jun 1, 2013)

septango said:


> oh, yeah but im doing this on paper so that doesn't really help, but thats why im using tracing paper so i can see the previous frame



'Onion skin' is already built in, to traditionally drawn animation. If you have an animation desk with a light box, you'll be able to see all the previous frames anyway.

Also-- 'quick tricks': draw the key frames first, and animate/tween between them. The animation will be more fluid and with purpose, and since you'll know where it's going, drawing the in-betweens goes faster.


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## septango (Jun 9, 2013)

how about lip sync, should i record before and draw to that- or draw the movements and dub it afterwords?


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## Arshes Nei (Jun 9, 2013)

I highly suggest picking up this book http://amzn.com/086547897X


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## Taralack (Jun 9, 2013)

There are no shortcuts. Only practice and hard work. :V

Seriously though, start with a bouncing ball. Don't move on to anything else until you perfect that ball.


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## HipsterCoyote (Jun 18, 2013)

If you're asking about methods for reducing workload you are not going to finish reading Richie Williams.

Get Cartoon Animation by Preston Blair.  Once you finish that, then you can pop open the Survival Kit and expect to get more than 3 pages of it read.

@edit Goddammit, I'm just going to have to break down and do that animation thread I promised three fucking times already. 

As for dialogue, you can summarize your dialogue into 10 standard mouth shapes. Or two: open and shut. Or twenty eight. Or whatever.  Either way, here is a convenient and nice standard, although this assumes that you are using layers properly, traditionally or not. 

1. Closed.

Vowels:
2. a in "*a*fter" 
3. o in "*o*ver" 
4. u in "T*u*be."
5. u in "*u*nder"

Consonants/Semivowels: 
6. s in "*S*aint" 
7. f in "*f*reight"
8. L in "*l*oose"
9. Th in "*th*en"
10. Ch in "*ch*owder" 

I was taught to do two sets of ten. One, with a happy mouth. The second, with a frowning mouth.  Throughout dialogue, you mix the two regardless of the expression on the character's face in order to produce a wider variety of sounds.  Notice that this isn't corresponding to letters, it's corresponding to mouth shapes.  For example, although I trust you to figure out a great lot of them yourself, 
- The "Ell" shape is used for the 'n' sound in 'next' 
- The 'ess' shape can be used for the 'z' in 'zeebra' or 't' in 'tea' and 'd' in 'death'. 
- Timing will play a part in what a shape feels like: hold shape 1 (closed) for just a beat and it's a little plosive like a 'b' in 'badger', hold it a little longer and it's the 'm' in 'movie'.


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## Aulendra (Jun 18, 2013)

-do basic animation exercises first. A bouncing ball, leaf blowing in an arc. Use a hopping sandbag to learn movement and momentum. Then graduate to basic walk and run cycles. Animation is tricky and if you don't get the basics down first, your movement will be stilted and awkward.

-when designing your characters try to remember to keep them simplistic, as every single feature will have to be drawn over and over a million times from various different angles. Especially if you're just beginning you'll want to avoid things like tigers with stripes, a teddy bear with stitching, a guy with a scar only on the right side of his face... You get the idea.

-with traditional there are no shortcuts unless you shoot your animation on 3s, 4s or higher (aka jerky anime style instead of american traditional animation, which is shot on 2s for tv and 1s for movies. this is why the old bugs bunny shorts and Disney movies look so fluid.)

-Shortcuts are mostly digital. I'd highly recommend Flash with a drawing tablet as you can sketch, animate, onion skin, layout and color all at once. However, you need to learn how to traditionally first. If you do use Flash, for the love of God don't tween walk.


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## HipsterCoyote (Jun 18, 2013)

No offense, man, but there are too shortcuts with traditional animation, even if it's on ones. 

For the record septango, "ones", "twos", "threes" refers to the frame rate. 25+ FPs counts as "ones", the ballpark of 15 FPS is "twos", and low-budget bullshit like dime-a-dozen anime (not the quality stuff) are at 8-10 FPS, or called threes.

Those shortcuts:
- Motion Capture/Rotoscoping/TRACING, FACE IT, IT'S USEFUL AND GOOD! JUST GIVE IN. 
- Looping.
- Smear animation.  Don't get all fucking My Life Me about smear animation, but it is a hell of a shortcut.
- Layering.  Remember that in cel animation, cels are not 100 percent transparent.  The newer ones tend to have a sort of blue undertone, and the old ones were sort of brownish.  It's very subtle, but if you use 8 or more cel layers, you will definitely see a color shift you can not ignore. So, to fix this, either go look up the awesome color-shift-by-layer charts and thereby adjust the cel colors according to how 'deep' they are in the stack by painting them appropriately, or fix it as you go, or just plan your animations to use less than 8 layers.


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## Smelge (Jun 18, 2013)

Pay someone in China to do it.


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## HipsterCoyote (Jun 18, 2013)

Oh shit, how could I forget that?  You can outsource to India for 25% of the pay-rate in the States and to China for I think 50%.   Outsource, my friend! 90% of Spongebob is made in Korea!


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## Arshes Nei (Jun 18, 2013)

HipsterCoyote said:


> If you're asking about methods for reducing workload you are not going to finish reading Richie Williams.
> 
> Get Cartoon Animation by Preston Blair.  Once you finish that, then you can pop open the Survival Kit and expect to get more than 3 pages of it read.



I didn't recommend it to reduce workload. It was more of "know wtf you're doing before thinking you can take a shortcut"


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## HipsterCoyote (Jun 18, 2013)

It's a hell of a book, indeed! I love it, own it, and recommend it if you have the time to read a 398-page text book.  

It just doesn't suit this guy's apparent wants, that being, something concise.

If you're a position to be asking for shortcuts, be it because of a deadline, lack of free-time despite your interest, or general impatience, you just aren't going to get through Survival Kit.  Cartoon Animation by Preston Blair presents enough information to people who don't know what they're doing so that they have the resources to produce a professional-looking work.  And, since being overwhelmed isn't the same as being insincere about learning, Cartoon Animation is also a very good alternative for aspiring students who get overwhelmed by Survival Kit.


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## Arshes Nei (Jun 18, 2013)

Person wants to do game sprites using traditional means. Good luck.


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