[Simple]

Many people have asked me in the past how I make my animations look good.
I just tell them, "A bit of hard work, some practice, and lots of patience."

I don't mean to brag, but many animators out there... well... suck.
But it isn't because they are bad animators; it's mainly because they are new to the program or haven't been told what is wrong or right.


I'll tell you how I went from beginner to pro in less than six months today.


Step one: Learn the BASICS!!!!

Tons of beginners try to start off by making effects and crap when they don't even know how to use the proper physics technique.
The basics are:
1. Physics
2. Fluidity of the animation (how smooth it is)
3. Spacing

Basics part one: PHYSICS!!!
Now if I had a dollar for every time I saw an animation ruined because of the lack of physics, I would be living in a mansion in Rio.

So today I am going to tell you how to use physics to positively influence your animation's quality. (To make it look good)


Physics part one: physics and you.
Physics applies to everything.
And I mean everything.
Even little bitty stick dudes that are being blown up in your computer.

So you need to figure out how physics work.
I could bore you all to death with the quantum theory, or motion transfer, but today I will give you the second-grade level lesson.

I will teach you three different common types of physics that you might use in a lot of anims and how they work.

Physics type 1: motion transfer.

An object in motion will remain in motion unless acted upon by an outside force.
What that means is that if something is moving, and something else runs into it, that first something will be moved by it.

Here's an example:

.piv

Breakdown time!
The black ball wasn't in motion but, (work with me here) it was the object in motion.
The red ball acted as the outside force.

Both balls had properties that they transferred to the other:
Because the black ball was still, the red ball hit it and stopped.
Because the red ball was in motion, it forced the black ball to move forward.

You can apply this property whenever:
1. Making a dude run into a wall
2. Making a dude beat another dude with a hammer
3. Making a dude get hit by a car
Etc...

Physics type 2: Gravity
This might not actually be considered a part of physics, but whatever.
Gravity is what keeps everything on the ground, and it pulls you back when you are off it.

Here is an example:

.piv

Breakdown time!!
The ball started up at the top, but it moved slowly to the ground, gaining speed along the way, until it hit the ground.
Then what happened?

It bounced back up!
Now this is because the ground is stationary. (It can't be moved.)
And once something in motion meets a stationary object, it's motion is reversed.

So because it was moving down, it hit a stationary object and moved up.
Got it? Good.


Physics type 3: weight and motion transfer/gravity
Now, this is for sure not a different type of physics, but I wanted to say it anyways.
The weight of an object will affect how much it affects objects around it.

so lets apply that to motion transfer.

.piv

Mini breakdown:
Pretty much everything I said about motion transfer, except that the red ball was heavier than the black one, so it continued to move forward even after it hit the black one.

Now for weight with gravity:

.piv

Mini breakdown:
Well, this is just about the same thing as above, but the red ball was heavier, so it moved towards the ground faster than the red one.
Yeah...

Basics part two: Fluidity!

Making a choppy anim fluid is basically making crude oil into gasoline.
It flows better, and is better.

Many new animators make their animations very choppy.

Here is an example of a bad walk cycle: (made by Peter Bone. :P)

.piv

Well, to start, there was absolutely no easing in that anim.
To figure out how to make an animation less choppy, ask yourself if that would be like someone in real life would look.

Obviously, in that animation, it would be a no.


Here’s an edited version of that walk cycle:

.piv

Anyone smarter than a dead turtle can tell that that was more fluid than the animation above.
The reason being that it had START UP* and SLOW DOWN** frames.

*A start up frame is a frame completely dedicated to starting up the motion.
Normally, a start up frame does not have much movement at all, with normally only about a pixel's worth of movement.
Example: |-|--|---|--|-|

**A slow down frame is a frame completely dedicated to bringing a movement to a stop. it normally only has a movement of no more than a few pixels.
Example: |-|--|---|--|-|


You can make an animation fluid by moving ALL points of articulation in EVERY frame.
Even if the stick man doesn't need to move his arm when he kicks, make it move with his body so that it doesn't look like his arms are boards.

But you must remember one thing when doing that: Don't overdo it.
If you move each joint a mile each frame, it'll make for a very choppy animation.

Got all that? Good.


Basics part three: Spacing!

If there is one thing I want you to get out of this tut, it is that you MUST use spacing in EVERYTHING.
It applies to physics, fluidity, and everything else.

Spacing is the use of start up and slow down frames along with many other things.


.piv
That animation was used only to demonstrate the need for spacing.
The fact that I moved the guy the same distance every frame made it look very unnatural when he moved forward and then changed direction.

Here is the edited version of that.

.piv
In that animation, I used speed up and slow down frames when he changed direction.

Again, here are the definitions for speed up and slow down frames:


So use all of those techniques together to make a great animation.
You can't have a choppy animation that doesn't flow well that only has good physics.

You need to use all of those together to make a great animation.
So what are you waiting for? Go try them out!

[Simple]

Step two: Learn effects!!

Now, I suck at effects, but I will try to make this look good.
Effects are just there to make your animation look flashier and look more complicated.

Remember to use effects in moderation, because when there are too many in an anim, it starts to look like crap.

And another thing before I teach you what I know:
DO NOT try to animate these unless you can do the basics well.


Effects part one: Blood!

In pivot, I consider blood to be more of an art style than anything.
You just use a crapload of stick figures together and make them get smaller each frame to do it...

I will teach you the 2 styles I know.


Blood type one: Line blood.

This style has to be the easiest and least complicated of all of the styles.
You just take 3 sticks and use them one after the other.

For this style, you will need these sticks:

dload

To animate this style, you make your stick guy get hit by something blood-inducing.
Steps:
1. Put the longest facing towards the direction of the blow. pic
2. Place the shorter stick so that half of it is in front of where the longer one was, and half is on where it was. pic
3. Put the Dot at the very tip of where the shorter blood line was. pic
4. Change the dot's size to "70" and move it halfway across the dot's width. pic

Finished product:

.piv
You can use tons of those sticks to make a really gory effect.

Blood type two: particle blood

This style of blood was made famous by Dodzey.
Darkshadow46 is also known to use it muchly.

This style is where you take 1 very large jointed line, and numerous short lines.

dload

Here is the step by step instruction:
Frame 1: Take the long jointed line out and put it in a kind of wavy fashion towards the blow. pic
Frame 2: Take out 8 of the jointed lines and place them slightly ahead of each joint. THEY MUST ALL BE SIZE 90! pic
Frames 3-10: Continue decreasing the blood’s size by 10 until it becomes so small it can't be seen.

Here is an example of the style because my example sucked:

Credz to DS146 for the anim. No .piv because he requested I don't give it to anyone.

Effects part two: guns!

Guns should be used only when you know how to use them.
I will teach you how.
But first you will need some guns.

Hey! I found some!
158+ guns < credz 4eva to hyga.

Anyways, I suck at using guns in animations, so today I'll only show you how to use a pistol.


To start, you will need a pistol.
So we will use hyga's glock.

Frame by frame instruction:
1. Have him start by just holding the pistol down to his side. pic
2-7. Make him raise the gun until he reaches a point where he looks ready to fire. pic (you can see how this was the slow down frame for the raising of the gun)
8-10. Make his arm pull back until it hits where the trigger is, and make the gun fire. pic
Note: a shell is optional, but recommended for a more realistic effect.
You only need a stick about 10 pixels long and place it where a shell would fly out after the gun fires. You can see the shell in frame 10's pic.
11+. At this point, you have 2 options, make him continue firing the gun at a rapid pace, or you can just have the shell fly towards the ground.
I chose the latter, but it is up to you.

Final product:

.piv
credz to stickphobia for the base.


You like? Well, you can do it too if you try.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sooo... I guess that's about all I can show you effects-wise.
Toldya I sucked.

Anyways, lets move on with...

[Simple]

Step three: Learn basic combat!

Basic combat consists of only 2 things: a punch and a kick.
They are the two things that give combat animations their tick.

We will start with a simple punch.

Combat part one: The punch

The punch is the most major of all combat moves used in an animation
It is the ruler of the kills
The pwner of the n00bs
The buyer of the yachts.

So lets shake things up and start with the breakdown:

Frame 1: Start your stick dude off in a simple combat stance. His legs spaced widely. His arms at the ready. His back bent. pic
Frames 2-4: Move him forward by using the speed up technique we talked about earlier until he is ready to unleash his fist of fury! pic
Frame 5: Make him RELEASE HIS FURY!!!! pic
Frame 6-7: Make him step forward and sort of slide after he punches. pic

Final product:

.piv
Credz to stickphobia fo' the dude.

Combat part two: The kick

The kick takes back seat to the punch, but is very powerful.
Use for a nice finishing blow or a good nut shot.

Frame 1: Start your stickman off in a common standing position. No combat position necessary. pic
Frame 2-4: Move him forward by using the speed up technique while bringing his knee up high. pic
Frame 5: KICK!!!! pic
Frame 6: Slowly move him forward or upward to emphasize his movement forward. I chose to move him forward. pic

Final product:

.piv

That's basically all I can say about combat...
And although I suck at it, I hope I helped some people out!

Lets move on with...


Step four: Stick making!
Now, this is a really basic topic. I mean really really basic.
Like, people who just downloaded the program basic.

First, you need to go to the top left corner of the program and click
FILE > CREATE FIGURE TYPE pic

Then just use this guide to figure everything else out:


Step five: Camera movements

Our final step, camera movements can make or break an anim.
You must have precision animating skill and lots of patience to use these.

Camera movements part one: Unstable camera.

This camera movement is used to make the animation look as if it is being recorded by a bad cameraman.

When using this camera movement, you move the floor and the stick man in small, eased circles. The movements only need to be about 4 pixels wide.

Example:

.piv

Camera movements part two: Scrolling background.

The scrolling background is used to make sort of a following effect on the stickman's movements.
The background needs to scroll in the same direction at the same speed the entire duration of the movement.

Example:

.piv

Camera movements part three: Stationary origin.

A stationary origin movement is where the origin (orange dot) of a stick figure stays in the same place, while the other points of articulation and the background moves instead.

It creates a very neat effect when there is lots of movement.

Example:

.piv


Well, that's all I can tell you about camera movements.
Use them whenever you feel like.
But a stationary background is always good.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Anyways, that was my big tutorial!
Hope everyone took home a little bit of new understanding with them.

Now, howzabout someone moves this to official tut section? plzandthx.
:P


Hope this helped everyone!

[Simple]

Sorry for all these posts, it'll be easier to read.

And sorry for the images not working, you'll all live. ._.