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DragonYugi -> The Ultimate Pivot Tutorial I ~ Begginers Hall (11/29/2008 5:34:30)
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The Ultimate Pivot Tutorial
Use this tutorial to upgrade your animating skills with Pivot. All .stk and .piv files can only work with Pivot 2. I am sorry that if you use Pivot 3 but I couldn't find better files for it. Because the tutorial is very big I suggest you use CTRL + F to search for terms of your interest. For example push CTRL + F and search "lightning" and it should automatically direct you to the part of the tutorial were it says about lightnings. Please also read the Credits at the end of this post. First I want to tell you that the tutorial is separated in your animating skill level: Begginer, Intermediate, Veteran, Elite; so please don't just go to the Elite part directly... Read carefully. Because begginers need more attention the biggest part of this tutorial is for them.
Contents
1. Beginners Hall
1a. Getting To Know Pivot
1b. Creating Models
1c. Where To Start?
1d. Learning Basic Vital Movements (Walking, Running, Combat)
1e. Learning Basic Effects (Particles, Blood, Tremor, Fade, Blur, Trails)
1f. Implementing Simple .stk Backgrounds
1g. Improving Your Drawing Ability
2. Credits
Begginers Hall
1a. Getting to know Pivot
Here is your interface:
http://i242.photobucket.com/albums/ff135/YugitheDuelMaster/Interface.jpg
1.) Controls:
“Play”: View the frames in sequence.
“Stop”: Stop animation from playing.
“Repeat”: Tick to make your animation loop, or play repeatedly.
Scroll Bar (Located next to “play”): Adjust frames per second, or the speed of the animation.
“Stickman”: After loading a figure, its name will appear here. Click the downward arrow (drop-down bar) to view the list of figures currently loaded. “Stickman” is the default figure. To load others, create and then save them. (See section 3.)
“Add Figure”: Add the currently selected figure to the animation.
“Edit”: Change the dimensions of the joints of your stickman. (Length, thickness, static/dynamic segment, toggle segment etc.)
“Centre”: Move the highlighted figure’s orange joint to the centre of the screen.
“Flip”: Make the highlighted figure “mirror” itself, e.g. this bracket “[“ going “]”. :D
“Colour”: Change the highlighted figure’s colour. (I don’t recommend blue, red or orange, as this interferes with the animation.)
“100”: This figure denotes the percentage size of the highlighted figure. A higher number means a bigger figure, while a lower number means a smaller figure.
“Front”: Move the highlighted figure to the front of the animation, blocking your view of those behind it.
“Back”: Move the highlighted figure behind the other figures.
“Next Frame”: Capture the screen as a frame, and move onto the next one.
“File”: Make a new animation, load a paint background, clear the background, create a figure, load a figure, open an animation or save an animation.
“Options”: Change the dimension values of the animation, or the size of the animation.
“Help”: View legal data about the Pivot Stick Figure Animator program.
“Exit”: Close the program.
2.) Simple Figure Operation:
Each figure has a number of “joints” (the red circles). Click and drag the red circles to move each joint. The orange circle (the origin) moves the entire figure. When un-highlighted, all the joints will be displayed in blue. When you click “next frame” and move a joint, you’ll see a grey outline of where it was in the last frame. This is called the “onionskin”.
3.) Accessing Models/Animations:
To load a saved animation:
1) Click “file”.
2) Click “open animation”.
3) Find the animation you want to load and double click it.
To load a saved model/figure:
1) Click “file”.
2) Click “load figure type”.
3) Find the figure you want to load and double click it.
If you find my explanation of pivot confusing, look at this interactive tutorial made by Jon: http://droidz.org/RANDOMFILES/getting_to_know_pivot/
1b. Creating models
To create a model, click “file” and then “create figure type”. This opens up a new window. Here you’ll see a straight line and a few buttons on the left. Highlight each button to see its function.
http://i242.photobucket.com/albums/ff135/YugitheDuelMaster/StickCreator.jpg
“Add line”: Create a new line segment to attach to the model.
“Add circle”: Create a new circle segment to attach to your model.
“Toggle segment kind”: Change the segment from a line to a circle, or vice-versa.
“Change segment thickness”: This edits the thickness of separate segments. By setting thickness to 0, you can make “invisible lines”.
“Duplicate segment”: Makes a copy of the highlighted segment, which can then be attached to another segment.
“Static/Dynamic segment”: Dynamic segments can be moved around in animations. Static segments cannot be moved.
“Delete segment”: Removes the highlighted segment from the model.
“File”: Here you can start a new model, open a saved one, save the current model or add the current model to the animation.
“Options”: Here you can undo a mistake made with the model or switch to edit mode.
“Edit mode”: This mode is used to change the length of a line or circle on your model.
I recommend that you only attach one segment to the master joint, and continue constructing your model from that new segment. If you attach two or more segments to the master joint, you won’t be able to rotate the entire model without leaving half of it behind. This obviously doesn’t apply to stickmen.
1c. Where to start?
First of all, you have to be sure you enjoy pivot. If you do, try animating small things like fights between two stickmen. When you get bored with that, have a look around the gallery and you may find some interesting subjects to inspire you in your animations. Entering competitions and collaborations will also inspire you to animate better. When it comes to the actual animation, you’ll want to make your animations as smooth as possible. Even if it looks crap, as long as it’s smooth, that’s all you want. As you practice more and more, you’ll be speeding up without even knowing it, and your movements will slowly but surely get more realistic. It took me over a 2 months to start animating movements at an intermediate standard; so don’t worry if this process takes ages. It will, and there are no shortcuts around it. Practice, practice and more practice. :)
1d. Learning basic vital movements
This section is for perfecting the most basic and useful movements you’ll need in your pivot career. The number one and most important rule is that every joint must move in every frame. Even if it’s a tiny, indiscernible move, it still adds to the realism of your movements. There are rare occasions where this rule doesn’t apply of course. Particles and foot joints on the ground are good examples. But for the most part, it’s the key to realistic animation.
1.) Walking:
Learning how to make a stickman take a step is the most important thing, ever. It’s pretty much impossible to animate anything realistically without steps. Anyway, here’s how you do a left to right walk cycle:
Frame 1: Your stickman is at a standstill, about to move off.
Frame 2: The right arm moves forward slightly, the left moves backward slightly, the origin moves forward slightly, the right leg moves back slightly while still on the ground, the left leg moves forward. The spine leans forward a tiny bit.
Frame 3: Same as frame 2, except the right forearm moves forward slightly more than the right bicep. The left arm stays straight however. The right leg stays on the ground in the exact same place, the left leg rises more, the left foot also rises slightly. The origin moves forward.
Frame 4: Same as frame 3, except the left forearm curves slightly toward the body of the stickman. The origin moves forward.
Frame 5: Same as frame 4, except the left foot touches the ground. The origin moves forward.
Frame 6: The left foot stays where it is, the right thigh comes forward, the right shin goes back, the right foot is still touching where it originally rested, the right forearm keeps curving forward, the right bicep moves back, the left arm moves forward. The origin moves forward.
Frame 7: Same as frame 6, except the right foot leaves where it originally rested and rises into the air. The origin moves forward.
Frame 8: Same as frame 7, except the right shin now moves forward instead of back. The origin moves forward. It is vital that the two legs and arms now cross over each other at angles, to simulate a realistic crossing over of limbs. This part of the walk cycle is probably the most important for realism.
Frame 9: The arms and legs move apart again, continuing their original paths. The origin moves forward.
Frame 10: The left arm moves forward, the right moves backward, the right leg moves back while still on the ground, the left leg moves forward. The origin moves forward.
Here’s one I made, following my own tutorial:
http://i242.photobucket.com/albums/ff135/YugitheDuelMaster/Walking.gif
2.) Running:
1: Running is naturally a fast motion. Speed is better than smoothness, but speed results in choppiness. Finding the balance between smoothness and speed is very difficult. In my opinion, 4 frames per stride is the best for speed, and 9 is the best for smoothness. 7 is the best for realism.
2: When running, the camera should be following the stickman. Usually you’d have the arms going back and forth in a moving camera run. You’ll get a normal looking run out of that. However, if you animate running with a stationary camera, you have to find something to do with the arms. To alleviate the choppiness, you can try a masking blur (See my third general tutorial). Also, you could occupy the stickman’s arms with a machine gun or a sword or something; otherwise you get an extremely choppy animation. I’ve seen at least 4 DD elites make this mistake, including me. :P
3: There is a “vital frame” theory for running, or so I call it. Even if you animate running as you imagine it in real life, in most cases it won’t look right in pivot. The most important vital frame is the one where the legs and arms cross over each other. One limb must be angled slightly, while the straight one crosses over it.
4: When running, both feet come off the ground longer than the feet on the ground. Don’t go nuts with this though, otherwise your stickman will look like he’s floating. One frame’s difference is enough.
5: Running adds motion and “cinematic speed” to your animation, which means animations with running in them are better than ones where the stickman is moving around the same space all the time.
6: Keep the stickman leaning forward while running. It makes him look like less of a loser. Yeah.
7: When the front foot slams down onto the ground, make the head bob down slightly on the next frame, and then resume its position the frame after. Also, the spine moves up and down slightly and rythmically while running. Don’t overdo either of these, they’re really just small details if you’re after some s**z running.
8: When the stickman is standing stationary, about to run, lean forward slowly and move the arms less intensely as you would when in full, fast running. Make him crouch slightly on the front knee, and then you can take off into the main running.
Personal Best:
http://i242.photobucket.com/albums/ff135/YugitheDuelMaster/Run.gif
3.) Combat:
Learning how to animate fighting is a great way to learn how to animate many diverse movements, not just punches and kicks. Fighting animations are also the most popular kind, so, you may as well learn now.
3a.) Punches:
Punches are the most basic building block of a fighting animation. Chaining a series of fast punches and combining them with blurs and tremors can make an animation very exciting for the viewer. Here’s how you animate a few different types of punches:
Punch from a standing start:
Frame 1: Your stickman is at a standstill, legs apart, spine curved, arms loose.
Frame 2: The right arm moves forward, the left bicep moves backward, the left forearm contracts slightly and moves into the bicep. The right leg slides forward on the ground slightly, and the left stays where it is. Both leg’s knees drop slightly, making the stickman crouch.
Frame 3: Same as frame 2, but each movement is more pronounced.
Frame 4: Same as frame 3, but each movement is more pronounced.
Frame 5: Same as frame 4, but every joint except the arms slow down.
Frame 6: Same as frame 5.
Frame 7: The right bicep moves back, but the forearm still moves forward. The left leg is brought forward. The origin rises over the right leg. The left arm is almost folded into one joint. It’s important that you don’t fold them perfectly; otherwise it looks like your stickman has lost half his arm.
Frame 8: The right arm comes back, with the forearm bisecting the torso. The left arm should now be hidden inside the right arm, to suggest that the arm is going straight through the stickman. It looks unrealistic, but no one notices one frame. :P
Frame 9: The left arm fully extends out, making the punch look explosive and fast. The right elbow is pointed backwards. Don’t ask me why, it just looks the most realistic to have it like that when the punching arm is fully extended.
Frame 10: The punching arm stays extended for one more frame, to emphasise the locked out arm. The rest of the limbs start to drop.
Here’s one I made, following my own tutorial:
http://i242.photobucket.com/albums/ff135/YugitheDuelMaster/Punch.gif
Now, that looks mega boring right? That’s why you’ll have to do combos. Here’s how to do a simple three-punch combination.
Three Hit Combo:
Frame 1-9: Same as above.
Frame 10-13: You simply repeat frames 7-10, but the right arm drops faster to make way for the left arm to punch.
Frame 14-21: The two arms rotate in a circle, with one arm folding almost double. Have the arms form a vertical line as the left leg crosses over the right leg during the step. Also, the right foot should be rotating backwards to allow for the knee joint to bend. If you don’t animate the foot rotating, your stickman will look reverse jointed, or as if his knee was broken.
Frame 21-26: Move your stickman into a stylish stance. :P
Here’s one that I made, following my own tutorial:
http://i242.photobucket.com/albums/ff135/YugitheDuelMaster/Combo.gif
Two types of punches will get old fast of course. Try animating different kinds of punches like haymakers and hammer blows. If you need inspiration for different types of punches, watch some Homoshokaiden or Shotokan videos on Google. Uppercuts are fairly popular, so here’s how you animate one.
Uppercut:
Frame 1: Your stickman is at a standstill.
Frame 2-8: The right foot slides forward until there’s a medium sized space in between the two feet. The left foot stays where it is. Both knees bend forward. The spine slowly bends backward into a slight “C” shape. The left arm pulls back in preparation for the strike, the right arm sticks straight out in preparation to pull back to add power to the strike.
Frame 9-11: The legs lock out and cross to jump, and the arms cross to punch. The right arm remains straight. The left arm, once crossed over, goes to head height on the 11th frame. The front leg that has crossed over comes just above waist height with the shin pointing downward.
Frame 12: The punching arm locks out and points to the sky, the neck leans left to make way for the shoulder, the lower leg moves to the right and the lower knee points to the left.
Frame 13-17: The top leg moves around the waist, still bent double. As it moves away from the waist, it folds out again. The 2 arms simply rotate in an anti-clockwise circle around the head in synchronisation with the legs. The spine curves in the direction of the higher leg. This series of frames suggests a slightly 3D rotation. In the meantime, the origin is coming back down to the ground.
Frame 18-23: Make the stickman land smoothly. When he hits the ground, his head drops slightly, the spine curves in the opposite direction as he’s facing and the knees bend.
Here’s one that I made, following my own tutorial:
http://i242.photobucket.com/albums/ff135/YugitheDuelMaster/Upercut.gif
3b.) Kicks
Kicks add an athletic type of skill to your fighting animations; however, they’re fairly difficult to animate properly. There are way too many types of kicks for me to animate them all, so I’ll just deal with some of the basic ones, and maybe one technical kick. Here’s how to animate three basic kicks:
Straight Kick:
Frame 1: Your stickman is at a standstill, legs apart.
Frame 2-5: The origin moves forward and down slightly, the arms move apart, the right foot stays where it is, the right knee bends, the left leg comes forward and stays straight. The spine curves back.
Frame 6-10: Pretend the left leg is an arm. Now animate this “arm” as if it was punching. Behold, you just animated a kick. :P As the leg comes to the waist of the stickman, start moving the arms back towards each other, and curve the spine in the opposite direction. When the leg is fully extended, leave it like that for two frames to emphasise its impact.
Frame 11-15: Drop all the limbs and straighten the spine.
Here’s one I made from my own tutorial. Sorry about the ending, I couldn’t resist showing off. :P
http://i242.photobucket.com/albums/ff135/YugitheDuelMaster/Kick.gif
If you feel that this kick is too much like a punch, you can try animating a snap kick. This is how you animate it:
Snap Kick:
Frame 1: Your stickman is at a standstill.
Frame 2-4: The left leg is moving forward, bending back as it goes. The right knee bends, the right foot stays where it is. Both arms are moving forward. The spine is curving backwards slightly. The neck moves down slightly, but the head stays up.
Frame 5-6: The stationary leg is crouching slightly to bear the entire weight of the body on it’s own. The kicking leg comes forward quickly, knee first, with the shin trailing behind. On the second frame, it snaps straight out suddenly to suggest an explosive, fast kick. The arms pull back fast to add power to the kick. The origin slows it’s movement forward to counter the force from the kick.
Frame 7: The kicking stance lingers slightly to exaggerate the force of the kick. However, all the limbs are still moving very slightly forward.
Frame 8-14: The kicking leg drops, the stationary leg straightens, the spine straightens, the head comes back up and the arms return to their original position.
Here’s one I made. This type of kick takes a while to get the hang of, so don’t worry if you don’t get it on your first attempt.
http://i242.photobucket.com/albums/ff135/YugitheDuelMaster/SnapKick.gif
When you get the hang of that, you can add a slight variance to it; the slightly harder thrust kick.
Thrust Kick:
Frame 1-5: The exact same as the snap kick, described above.
Frame 6-7: The knee keeps coming up and doesn’t straighten out.
Frame 8-9: The kicking leg now straightens completely out with the foot pointing upward and slightly toward the stickman, to suggest that he’s kicking with the ball of his foot. The arms start coming back down.
Frame 10-14: The leg comes back down, the spine straightens, the stationary leg straightens, the head comes back to it’s original position and the arms drop.
Here’s one I made. It’s simply an edited version of the snap kick, seeing as they’re both so similar.
http://i242.photobucket.com/albums/ff135/YugitheDuelMaster/ThrustKick.gif
Now, those kicks don’t have much visual appeal or skill in them. You can try all kinds of kicks, like knee strikes, aerial kicks, donkey kicks etc. Watching videos of Tae Kwon Do experts really helps for finding new types of kicks to animate. My favourite would have to be the heel drop, so I’ll show you how to animate it.
Heel drop:
Frame 1: Your stickman has both arms behind his back, and the legs are apart.
Frame 2-4: The arms move backwards, and trail in the onionskin. The origin moves forward, the spine curves forward, the head moves back, the kicking leg comes forward, the right leg stays where it is and bends slightly to bear the weight of the stickman on it’s own.
Frame 5-11: The spine curves backward, the kicking leg comes straight up to the head of the stickman, the head leans forward, the stationary leg is still crouching slowly and the arms come up to meet and catch hold of the kicking leg. This helps the leg to tense and therefore give more explosive power and speed.
Frame 12-17: Every joint straightens out, the arms pull back fast behind the stickman to add power to the heel drop, the kicking leg drops in the space of 3-4 frames, the stationary leg locks out, the spine straightens and the head comes back up.
This is of course a very advanced move; it took me ages to figure out how to do it realistically. This is what you should be looking at when you’re finished:
http://i242.photobucket.com/albums/ff135/YugitheDuelMaster/HeelDrop.gif
3c.) Now that you’ve learned the most basic parts of combat, you can use what you’ve learned to animate more advanced fighting moves like over the shoulder throws, head butts and leg sweeps. Those kinds of moves are best shown in videos of Ju-Jitsu and Muay Thai.
1e. Learning Basic Effects
Your animations will never look good with basic movements alone. Effects can be added to your animation to make it more exciting and visually appealing. The more insane the effect, the more enjoyable the animation. However, you have to know how to animate them properly before going nuts. A hard punch to the head can be exaggerated with a combination of a tremor and a spray of blood. A finishing move can be exaggerated by using blurs, slow motion or double framing. A climactic frame (something like a punch line in a joke or the contact point of a flying kick) can be exaggerated by switching the colours to negative and repeating the frame several times. In my experience, beginners find effects very difficult because they’re such a dramatic change from using stickmen. So, I’ll explain the simplest of effects here and their uses.
1.) Blurs:
This is one of the simplest effects, and it’s usually one that beginners discover first. This effect leaves a faded copy of the frame before it in the current frame, and does so over a space of 2-10 frames, depending on how many copies are used. Obviously, the more copies you use, the better it looks. Here’s how to animate a blur:
Watch this animation. I’ve simply moved an object from the left of the screen to the right.
http://i242.photobucket.com/albums/ff135/YugitheDuelMaster/Object.gif
Looks pretty basic as it is. To add a four-copy blur, do the following. I’m calling the model you’re going to blur “object”:
Frame 1: The object is in place at the left of the screen.
Frame 2: Change the colour of that object to dark grey. Now add a second object and place it slightly to the right of the first object.
Frame 3: Change the colour of the first object to medium grey and change the colour of the second object to dark grey. Add a third object and place it to the right of the second object.
Frame 4: Change the colour of the first object to light grey, the second object to medium grey and the third object to dark grey. Add a fourth object to the right of the third object.
Frame 5: Delete the light grey object. Change the colour of the second object to light grey, the third object to medium grey and the fourth object to dark grey. Add a fifth object to the right of the fourth object.
Frame 6-14: Continue this process until you reach the end of the movement. When the main object (the black one) stops moving, delete the following objects in order of their brightness (light, medium, dark).
This should be your result:
http://i242.photobucket.com/albums/ff135/YugitheDuelMaster/Object2.gif
Blurs are great for lots of purposes. If you feel that a particularly fast part of an animation looks too fast, and is choppy, simply edit in a blur. For some reason, even though it’s still moving at the same speed, the animation will appear slower and smoother. Also, blurs can be used as a visual enhancement to a slow motion manoeuvre. You could also use them simply because they look class. :P
2.) Fade
This is probably the simplest effect. It involves changing the colour of a model until it’s the exact same as the model behind it.
Say you want to make something disappear. Deleting it would be the simplest method:
http://i242.photobucket.com/albums/ff135/YugitheDuelMaster/Dissapear.gif
This looks crap, by any standard, which is why you’ll want to fade it out. To fade out a model:
Frame 1: Click the model, and then click colour. This window will appear:
http://i242.photobucket.com/albums/ff135/YugitheDuelMaster/Colors.jpg
Now click define custom colours. This window should appear:
http://i242.photobucket.com/albums/ff135/YugitheDuelMaster/Colors2.jpg
You want to fade black into white. So, click black, then set the luminosity value to 60. Click “Add To custom Colours”. Set the luminosity value to 120 and click “Add To custom Colours”. Set the luminosity value to 180 and click “Add To custom Colours”. Now you have your three shades of grey, light, medium and dark. Select dark grey and click “OK”.
Frame 2: Change the colour to medium grey.
Frame 3: Change the colour to light grey.
Frame 4: Delete the object.
Your result:
http://i242.photobucket.com/albums/ff135/YugitheDuelMaster/Dissapear2.gif
Fading one object against many colours just means that you’ll have to draw several models to make up the original object.
3.) Tremor
This is another simple effect, but one of my favourites. Watch this animation:
http://i242.photobucket.com/albums/ff135/YugitheDuelMaster/Ball.gif
I’ve animated a heavy ball hitting the ground. However, I feel that it lacks weight. So, you apply the tremor effect. This simply means moving the ground and ball down on the frames that the ball hits the ground (frame 6, 11 and 13). This is your result:
http://i242.photobucket.com/albums/ff135/YugitheDuelMaster/Ball2.gif
4.) Trails
This is a form of a blur, and has the same effect. The only difference is that it’s easier to animate, but needs more skill to draw. It’s useful for animating a series of moves that change direction sharply and frequently. Here’s an example:
http://i242.photobucket.com/albums/ff135/YugitheDuelMaster/Trail.gif
Looks pretty choppy, doesn’t it? However, edit it with trails and it looks like this:
http://i242.photobucket.com/albums/ff135/YugitheDuelMaster/Trail2.gif
All I did was use the same model and resized and rotated it until it’s tip was in the end of the onionskin of the frame before it.
5.) Particles
Particles are absolutely vital for any effect. They require the most patience, but pay off in the end. They’re used in blood, fire, lightning, explosions, dust etc. I believe that they’re overlooked by a lot of animators, so hopefully this section will convince you otherwise.
Any particle is animated by degenerating it from it’s original size while moving it along a path. This path usually rises into the air, because particles are lighter than air. However, heavy particles like parts of debris hit the ground and bounce around while remaining at their original size. Every particle is animated differently depending on the object it’s broken off from. Use your common sense as to what kind of physics you apply to it.
First of all, you need to know the different types of particles I’ll be dealing with, and how to animate them. How you draw your particles is up to you, but I usually use simple circles in mass. Other animators that use a lot of particles, for example Doddsy and lf2master, draw their particles as straight lines that get thinner the closer they are to the origin of the particle. There are also animators like eetwo that have a great deal of patience and add details to the particles themselves. I’ll try to show examples of all three methods.
The first particle is the simple static sphere, animated like so:
http://i242.photobucket.com/albums/ff135/YugitheDuelMaster/Particles.gif
The second particle is automatically animated when you resize it. This is done by making the first segment from the origin an invisible line, and having the actual particle about 70 pixels away from the origin. When you make it smaller, the origin drags the particle toward it. The longer the first line, the faster the particle moves toward the origin.
A third type of particle, one that I’ve never used, is one that can be easily seen and rotated when dealing with mass particles. It’s probably best used for rain, snow, flies and sniper lasers. It’s drawn with a dynamic line about 35 pixels away from the origin, and a second static line overlapping the dynamic line and passing through the origin, sized at 70 pixels. Here’s something I did with one of these particles:
http://i242.photobucket.com/albums/ff135/YugitheDuelMaster/Small.gif
These examples are pretty boring on their own, but they make animations look ten times better.
6.) Blood
When a spray of blood comes out of a stickman, people get excited. Don’t ask me why, humanity is just weird that way. :P Animating blood well is fairly important in animations where weapons are being used, like guns and swords. Blood is one of the more creative processes, so I’ll just explain one way of doing it.
My method of animating blood is basically dark red particles in mass breaking off a large clot. Here’s a small example:
http://i242.photobucket.com/albums/ff135/YugitheDuelMaster/Blood.gif
Frame 1: The first mass of blood comes out fully formed.
Frame 2: The full mass holds together, but several particles come behind.
Frame 3: The mass shrinks slightly, and is replaced by several particles. The particles from frame 2 are still following and shrinking.
Frame 4-6: The mass shrinks slightly, and is replaced by several particles. The particles from frame 3 are still following and shrinking. The original particles are veering away from the main stream, varying the animation.
Frame 7: The leading mass has now degenerated completely into particles. You should be dealing with about 20 particles.
Frame 8-14: The particles degenerate while continuing their path through the air. Try varying separate particle’s paths to make the blood seem more realistic.
Other styles of blood involve a mass hitting an invisible wall with no particles coming off (not good), or blood flowing along the edges of an object, mimicking water (pretty good). It’s up to you which way you animate blood.
1f. Implementing simple .stk backgrounds
Backgrounds add the most visual appeal to your animations. They need no actual skill in animation, but the more advanced they get, the more demanding they are on your drawing ability. Filled backgrounds take up the entire screen, and therefore hide the onionskin. Beginners can’t operate without onionskin, so the only backgrounds you’ll need are outlines of buildings, trees, chairs etc. Here are some examples of backgrounds you could use while still retaining use of most of the onionskin:
Indoor Balcony:
http://i242.photobucket.com/albums/ff135/YugitheDuelMaster/Balcony.gif
Dilapidated Room:
http://i242.photobucket.com/albums/ff135/YugitheDuelMaster/Room.gif
Brick Wall:
http://i242.photobucket.com/albums/ff135/YugitheDuelMaster/Wall.gif
Simple Living Room:
http://i242.photobucket.com/albums/ff135/YugitheDuelMaster/LivingRoom.gif
Hospital Ward:
http://i242.photobucket.com/albums/ff135/YugitheDuelMaster/Ward.gif
I’m Running Out Of Ideas:
http://i242.photobucket.com/albums/ff135/YugitheDuelMaster/Lolz.gif
There’s not much to backgrounds. Simply put them there and you win. :P
1g. Improving your drawing ability
When drawing backgrounds and models, you may want to use google image search to find pictures of the thing you’re drawing. If I asked you to draw a cardboard box in pivot, I know that 99% of pivot animators would draw a perfect square with flaps on either side, and colour it brown. But how is a random viewer who knows nothing of how you did the animation supposed to know that it’s a cardboard box? It could be a random block or a podium for all they know. So, the minimum detail a cardboard box needs is the corrugation pattern and two darker coloured sides to show that it’s a cube-like shape. This kind of thing should become second nature whenever you draw something.
Some simple tips:
- Before you draw something, google it! This is probably the most helpful aid for drawing.
- Use transparent windows programs to trace pictures in the model builder. Cheap and effective.
- If you’re using pivot 3, use sprites. Don’t bother wasting half an hour on something that could be drawn in paint in 5 minutes.
- If you’re drawing a highly detailed background for a simple loop with no camera movement or a short 2D test, draw it in paint and load the background in pivot. Don’t waste time with the much slower model builder..
- Although I don’t encourage this, if you’re in need of a specific model, use one made by someone else and credit them for it.
- Draw stuff in real life whenever you get a chance. I’ve been drawing random pictures at school or at home whenever I got a chance all my life, so it helped my drawing ability a lot. The sooner you start practicing drawing, the faster you can apply it to animation.
2. Credits
This is a production of "The Stick Files" gallery. All content shown in this animation is for public services and to help everybody. Don't keep it for yourself. I thank Jon (from DD forums) for making the interactive program (shown in the starting of the tutorial). Happy animating!
There is no Stick Files Gallery anymore. - 28.07.2010
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