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Animation Fundamentals

Before we get further into any other form of animation, it's important that we first know how to re-create the oldest form of animation- Cel Animation. We will fundamentally be creating a series of individual drawings that shown sequentially at 24 fps will give the illusion of motion. We will be using Animate in order to accomplish this.

Some basic tools of Animate

Here we see some basic tools of Animate that can help you to make your animations successful. #1 is the select tool, it treats the object you select as a series of pixels (a RASTERIZED) object. This has it's benefits. #2 refers to the sub-select (or, as I call it the VECTOR select tool). The difference between vector and raster graphics is that vector graphics are scalable without rasterization (often called pixelation). The vector tool allows you to alter the shape of an object to a high degree of accuracy. #3 is the brush tool, the difference between the brush tool and the pencil tool (above it) is that the brush tool places a vector around a fill, while the pencil tool essentially makes a line (a simple line vector).

As seen in the picture below - the timeline (located at the top of the screen) has certain features that will help you to do basic animations. #1 refers to the layer name (which can be adjusted by either right-clicking on the layer and renaming it, or by simply double-clicking the layername). When making multiple layers (#4) the layer that is at the top of the timeline is the layer that appears 'furthest forward' on the stage (the area you see when you draw things). In addition to making drawings on the stage, you also can make drawings over time. By pressing F6 (which copies the previous keyframe) or F7 (creates a blank new keyframe) you advance your animation by 1 frame (typically 1/12th of a second, depending on what your framerate is [#6 - can be adjusted]). In keyframe animation (where you draw cel by cel) it is often useful to click on #6 (onion skinning) which by default shows you the previous 3 keyframes. This allows you to see where your objects have been on the stage and thus allows you to plan out where they are going over time.

EXERCISE: DRAW A BOUNCING BALL BEING DROPPED AND RETURNING TO WHERE IS STARTED WITH EXAGGERATED MOVEMENT IN 24 FRAMES

Now we're going to re-draw it in Animate

Gratefully from Liew Yi

To mimic traditional cel-animation on a computer we are going to draw a frame by frame animation in Animate. This technique involves changing each keyframes of an animation to create movement. Here is a simple bouncing ball animation created frame by frame.

1- Draw a ball

Firstly, we’ll draw a ball using the Brush tool. Use the second smallest brush size the Brush tool has. And make sure to set your view as 100% in the dropdown box at the top corner of your stage.

2- Create a keyframe

Press F7 to insert a blank keyframe into the timeline. This empties any graphics on the stage so that you can start drawing another piece of action. A keyframe is what historically would be considered a cel. To give the illusion of motion keyframes are shown 24 per second (24fps). You can get as low as 12fps before the animation begins to 'tear' and no longer is smooth enough to trick the eye. Notice the picture bottom left, the circle is solid black. It is filled with a drawing. Below right we have included a blank keyframe in frame #2. It is empty - Animate lets us know that by showing a hollow circle. If we want to go back and see what's in frame #1 we simply take the current time indicator (CTI) and move it to 1.

BEFORE ADDING KEYFRAME

AFTER ADDING BLANK KEYFRAME

3- Use Onion Skin

This enables you to view the previous animations you have drawn, which appears semi transparent. Click on the icon to enable Onion Skin view.

4- Draw the next action

Make sure you selected the 2nd frame. If you did, draw the circle again, but slightly lower

5- Draw and draw again until you complete the animation

Repeat the procedure to complete the animation! Some tips here, if you can’t see previous animations using the Onion Skin view, make sure the Onion Skin box encompasses all frames. (Refer to figure below)

You can pull the handles of the onion skin box left and right to accommodate as much or as little of your animation as you want.

6- Smooth the graphics

One more useful tip here, you can smooth your graphics easily by selecting the orb you drawn, then click on the Smooth icon (refer to figure above) several times. It is located in the Options tab. This feature eliminates shakiness from the graphics you drawn. It should look sleeker now.

Assignment #8 - Exaggerated movement

Your task now is to tell the BRIEF story of a ball moving on screen for 10 seconds (so 10 seconds x 30 frames per second). Bear in mind the principles of animation we talked about in class and make the motion 'cartoon realistic'. You are to export the animation as an MP4 (File>Export > Movie> H.264

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