Animation

[Andy.tom]

Has anyone had any experience in animation as I was considering making a short animation about zombie pirates. If so did you do it by hand or using a computer(if that's possible, what software did you use)?

[FadedNumber]

Computer - Macromedia Flash. You can do frame-by-frame animation, as well as use "tweens", which basically fills in frames for you between two key points.

For an example of a kick-ass flash cartoon, check out http://www.ninjai.com By the time they got to chapter 12, they pretty much mastered flash cartooning, methinks. Or go to http://www.atomfilms.com/af/animation/flash/ to see more.

[Vertino]

All depends what style of animation you want to do. I've been using After Effects for most of my animation, using photo cut-outs, which follows a Monthy Python/South Park style.

[eddie123456789]

Ive done some stop motion animation.
Using a super 8 camera, with single frame, and also with a DV camera hooked (firewired) up to a MAC running BTV software:

http://www.bensoftware.com/

I found BTV to be fine for these purposes.

[jb_617]

I use MAX 7 for my animations. Or a camera and cutout shapes on a flat table. I'm moving into the world of stop-motion at the moment.


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And, Jesus, is it time consuming.

[Matty2phatty]

it took me a year to learn 3ds max [img]eek.gif[/img]

[Chance1234]

on the subject of stop motion, saw a fantastic stop motion short in cannes.

Basically this writer was having writers block and the paper was attacking him. It was very nicely executed.

One of the tricks used , was where the sheet of paper was on the desk, that was actually a tray of milk totally flat on the sruface , so when the guy went to write his hands slipped right into the the paper..

[Nigel]

I was a DP on an Stop-Motion/Claymation short. It was really very cool. I would show up and light the scene, check the camera and lens, discuss the shot then walk away. They would do their thing for a day or two and then I would get called back to do the same thing all over again.

Talk about shooting ratios--It was shot on 16 and I think that practically every frame was used. It would be fun to do another.

[Andy.tom]

Thanks for the help. What do you think about the software you recommended? Is it easy to use or not? I'm thinking about doing a 2D animation as I don't think i have enough time to learn how to do good 3D animation.

[sn-films]

You may want to look at Hash's Animation Master. Of all the 3D packages, it gives you a lot of flexibility for a relatively small price tag ($300). It has a decent toon-renderer that will let you do cartoon-like animation, and will also allow you to grow into more complex 3D animations later on.

I bought a copy a few years back, and within a couple weeks I was compositing animated clips into one of our movies.

Good luck.