Tips on Animation?

[FleuraBelle]

My dream is to become a 2D animator so I can make cartoons, video game cutscenes, commercials, and etc.

I haven't animated all that much so far but I was wondering if any of you have experience with animation and would like to give some tips. :>

Thanks! ♡

 

[spookycipher]

SIT DOWN KIDS DANA'S LAYING DOWN SOME TRUTHS

BOI LET ME TELL YOU

ANIMATION MORE LIKE SIT DOWN AND STARE AT A COMPUTER, WATCHING YOUR LIFE WASTE AWAY AS YOU REDRAW THE SAME THING OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN, MAKING SMALL CHANGES EACH TIME

DOING IT SO IT MATCHES UP TO SOUND OR MUSIC OR SOMETHING AND THEN HAVING TO ADJUST EVERYTHING WHEN YOU MAKE THE TINIEST MISTAKE EVER

BUT THERE IS NO BETTER FEELING THAN SEEING YOUR FINISHED WORK
YOUR BABY
SHOW IT 2 EVERYONE RUB IT IN THEIR FACE POST IT ON YOUTUBE SHOW THE WORLD YOUR HARD WORK!!!

I USE ADOBE FLASH (it's on my school computer so i gotta wait a few weeks until i get into school so i can work on my animation hahahahhh) BUT ATM I USE PENCIL WHICH IS FREE SOFTWARE (but it's hard 2 export but is v good @ animating) LINK

YOU ALSO GOTTA BE PATIENT YOU AREN'T GONNA PICK UP THAT PEN AND THEN BECOME A DISNEY ANIMATOR NO MAN U R GONNA RIP OUT YOUR HAIR BECAUSE IT TAKES A LONG TIME TO DO IT RIGHT BUT IT'S TOTALLY WORTH IT

PrACTICE AND WATCH MAPS AND SMALL ANIMATIONS ON YOUTUBE!!!

DONT GIVE UP IT TAKES TIME JUST KEEP GOING

if yOU EVR NEED ANY HELP JUST ASK ME BC I HAD 2 NOODLE IT OUT ALL BY MESELF AND IT WAS A MESS BUT I LITERALLY ANIMATED 4 MY SCHOOL'L ANNOUNCEMENTS AND IM WORKING ON A PROJECT RN SO PLS DONT GIVE UP KEEP GOING

I HAVE NOT SLEPT IN A FEW DAYS IM NOT YELLING IM ENCOURAGING U YOU GOT IT!!!!!! ANIMATE!!!!! DO ART!!!! DONT!!! GIVE!!!! UP!!!!!

 

[FleuraBelle]

BOI LET ME TELL YOU

ANIMATION MORE LIKE SIT DOWN AND STARE AT A COMPUTER, WATCHING YOUR LIFE WASTE AWAY AS YOU REDRAW THE SAME THING OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN, MAKING SMALL CHANGES EACH TIME

DOING IT SO IT MATCHES UP TO SOUND OR MUSIC OR SOMETHING AND THEN HAVING TO ADJUST EVERYTHING WHEN YOU MAKE THE TINIEST MISTAKE EVER

BUT THERE IS NO BETTER FEELING THAN SEEING YOUR FINISHED WORK
YOUR BABY
SHOW IT 2 EVERYONE RUB IT IN THEIR FACE POST IT ON YOUTUBE SHOW THE WORLD YOUR HARD WORK!!!

I USE ADOBE FLASH (it's on my school computer so i gotta wait a few weeks until i get into school so i can work on my animation hahahahhh) BUT ATM I USE PENCIL WHICH IS FREE SOFTWARE (but it's hard 2 export but is v good @ animating) LINK

YOU ALSO GOTTA BE PATIENT YOU AREN'T GONNA PICK UP THAT PEN AND THEN BECOME A DISNEY ANIMATOR NO MAN U R GONNA RIP OUT YOUR HAIR BECAUSE IT TAKES A LONG TIME TO DO IT RIGHT BUT IT'S TOTALLY WORTH IT

PrACTICE AND WATCH MAPS AND SMALL ANIMATIONS ON YOUTUBE!!!

DONT GIVE UP IT TAKES TIME JUST KEEP GOING

if yOU EVR NEED ANY HELP JUST ASK ME BC I HAD 2 NOODLE IT OUT ALL BY MESELF AND IT WAS A MESS BUT I LITERALLY ANIMATED 4 MY SCHOOL'L ANNOUNCEMENTS AND IM WORKING ON A PROJECT RN SO PLS DONT GIVE UP KEEP GOING

I HAVE NOT SLEPT IN A FEW DAYS IM NOT YELLING IM ENCOURAGING U YOU GOT IT!!!!!! ANIMATE!!!!! DO ART!!!! DONT!!! GIVE!!!! UP!!!!!

;v; thank u

 

[EtchaSketch]

Okay, so I've been animating for a few years now. I'd recommend Adobe Flash, since it's free and has pretty basic controls

In flash, you can customize the workspace by dragging the windows by their tabs. I recommend moving the toolbar to the left of the screen and the timeline to the top (this is a basic layout i use)

Layers are your best friend. Never go into an animation and just start with the final lines. Just like with drawing, sketch out the basis of the animation first. Draw out the movement in this layer, it can be very very rough sketches. To make things easier, use onionskin (found somewhere along the bottom of the timeline, hover over the option to see the word "onionskin" pop up. Use the onionskin to the very left). This shows a transparent version of the previous drawing on your current frame.

Keyframes are the most important aspect of flash and any other animation program. In flash, in order to add more movement, you need more keyframes. To add these, right-cick one of the rectangles on the timeline and choose "insert keyframe". Depending on where you put the keyframe will affect the timing. If you put a keyframe immediately after another then you are changing the movement quickly. Placing the keyframe further, for example, 5 frames after the previous frame will hold the image still for longer. Experiment with this a bit.

To change the FPS, or frames per second, double click the fps on the timeline and manually type in a number. This determines how fast your animation will show the frames in the final result. The faster the fps, the smoother the animation, but more frames are needed.

Adding tweens in flash can be an easy way to make quick animations. The ones off the top of my head, motion tween and shape tween, have different effects that speed up the process of making simple animations if you use them correctly. Tutorials on these can be found easily online.

If you have anymore questions, please come ask me. Animation is my thing<3

 

[Bowie]

Well, I'm a 3D modeller/animator, which is even more infuriating than being a 2D animator (as far as I know), and my tips would be just to go through trial and error. I can't give you much software advice since all mine are for 3D animation, but with animation in general, you've really just gotta practice. Know your software, and then practice.

 

[riummi]

lmao im scared now - maybe going into animation isn't a good idea anymore xD

 

[Jint]

animation is pain lmao blinking is pretty much my limit //rUNS
but yes!!! Flash is the software you'd want to go to first, I love its tweening feature, it saves lives //orz
Otherwise... you could go hardcore and just draw everything over and over again ((like spookycipher mentioned)) and produce something like this after drawing for a week or two (and this friend of mine draws pretty quickly too cries)
Personally I'm not a big fan of doing animation since I'm not that much of a patient person... lol... I'd recommend you to try doing simple gif animations (like blinking, waving, etc) first to test the waters and see if that's the sort of thing you like, and wouldn't mind investing time into before starting out 8")))
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