Sijun Forums :: View topic - How do I make Animations on my COMP like NInja 2?

assa · Posted: Sun Aug 13, 2000 2:01 pm

Joachim wrote that the ninja anim was done
during his amiga (melon dezign hehe..)
period, so i quess it's all done by EA's good
old Deluxe Paint IV.
Hours and hours of pixeling pleasure on a
really great machine, damn this brings back nostalgia hehe..

assa
-----
pro artist.designer
dutch art student

[This message has been edited by assa (edited August 13, 2000).]

sfr · Posted: Sun Aug 13, 2000 2:38 pm

Nowadays you might want to consider making it in Flash, its advantages are browser compatibility, small file size and crisp appearance (no compression artifacts like you'll get if you distribute your anim as avi or mpeg).

But Flash's drawing tools are, uh, peculiar, so you might want a real vector drawing program to go with it.

Saffron / Sunflower

mantis · Posted: Sun Aug 13, 2000 2:59 pm

well saffron you could import vector into flash through any other vector program. I think that's what you meant, but I was confused. After seeing that small movie my jaw dropped, that was so greaaaaat. It reminded me of "The tick" the cartoon, if anyone knows what I am talking about.

Any other ways you could make it these days. Any programs? I don't know any in particular.

The movie really inspired me. It can't get it out. Uh-oh, I think you guys should be ready for a "komatose production" pretty soon.

------------------
Arpan . B
[email protected]
www.liquid2k.com/koma
Highroller Studios

assa · Posted: Sun Aug 13, 2000 3:57 pm

Flash internal paint tools and ui are not
that groovy. And playback performance is
getting worse with e.g bitmaps en blending
effects, but it is the main web anim format.

I like aura (old tvpaint) for quick 2d cell
animations, it's pretty fast and all options
i need are included. Pretty good support for
genlocks, artpads etc..

Too bad Autodesk never did a decent anim pro
windows program, cuz a.a.p for dos rocked.

Even macromedia director has more then basic
anim functions, not really easy but.. it's
an option

assa
------
pro artist.designer

Flexible Elf · Posted: Sun Aug 13, 2000 4:29 pm

Is there some obscure Illustrator-to-Flash plugin/converter out there or am I just hoping?...

I can compose images a lot easier in Illustrator than Flash.. Flash is clumsy and the imported images aren't real great. (like has been said) heh..

-Flexible Elf

mantis · Posted: Sun Aug 13, 2000 4:38 pm

Damn it! You are are right, I though it would be easy but I now I realize flash doesn't have an illustrator input. The closest article I found on the web was this. http://www.computerarts.co.uk/tutorials/type/tutorial.asp?id=21561 .

If anyone has any idea on how cartoon animation could be done these days with a pc please explain.

[edit]

I found another helpful site. http://www.bergen.org/AAST/ComputerAnimation/CompAn_Tools.html

[edit]

This is the answer! http://www.2danimation.com/

------------------
Arpan . B
[email protected]
www.liquid2k.com/koma
Highroller Studios

[This message has been edited by mantis (edited August 13, 2000).]

[This message has been edited by mantis (edited August 13, 2000).]

Kenzo Tanaka · Posted: Sun Aug 13, 2000 5:36 pm

Keep an eye on DigiCel Flipbook http://www.digicelinc.com/

Should be out the end of August. Inexpensive but looks to be good quality. Done by folks who worked on Animation Stand.

Kiyoakisama · junior member Member # Joined: 12 Aug 2000 Posts: 7

I do not really care about it being on the web.

Oh and Illustrator is designed to give out put to LIVE MOTION...

Freehand is good for FLASH...

Kiyoakisama · junior member Member # Joined: 12 Aug 2000 Posts: 7

Ok I downloaded the big version of Ninja 2 yesterday and I am starting to get into animations and CGing. I was wondering what program they used for that? How was it done(the CGing and Cells) I really want to make somthing similar...

assa · Posted: Mon Aug 14, 2000 2:35 am

Illustrator 7 or 8 users can download a FREE
shockwave flash exporter from the macromedia
site, enabling illustrator to export .swf
files.

The latest version of illustrator 9 has
native support for .swf and .svg webformats,
so no reall worries about compatibility.

You can allways export your shapes and colors
to a plain .ai format and import it in flash
(make sure you use an rgb palette, and don't
use any strange strokes or eps special
commands).

Another 2d animation program that supports
a sh*tload of formats is Toonboom, i've never
worked with the program myself, but it looked
really advanced. (www.toonboom.com for info).

C'est tout..

assa
-----
pro artist.designer

egerie · Posted: Tue Aug 15, 2000 2:51 pm

Hey Mantis,
Retas Pro is a really cool tool. I work with the CORE part of the program (Traceman, Paintman and Core). It's does really neato things when you get the time to read the 3 bricks that come with it.
Traceman kicks ass.. cleanup made easy

)

I haven't worked with ToonBoom but everyone I hear from sais it's great. Dunno where to find that one tho.

ege
Et c'est l� l'innamoramento

Joachim · Posted: Wed Aug 16, 2000 6:51 am

Kiyoakisama, I have no clue how to animate 2d on pc with a good program with ghosting and good interface to flip between frames, the way it was on amiga.
When we did it, it was painfully much work they way we had to do it, but ironicly, I guess it's almost impossible to do it with a pc...
So, either do the animation by hand and scan it in. Another way, lots of work but with nice result, is do do all character animation and modeling in 3d with either shaded models or cartoon renderer.

We did actually start on Ninja 3 quite some time ago, but never bothered to finish it. Then it was all supposed to be 3d:

If you find a easy and fun way to make 2d animation on pc with a high frame count, let me know !

------------------
Joachim
web:
http://home.online.no/~j-barrum/

tsunami124 · junior member Member # Joined: 29 May 2000 Posts: 25

thats an awesome model! did you use box modeling/meshsmooth?

[This message has been edited by tsunami124 (edited August 16, 2000).]

Golongria · Posted: Wed Aug 16, 2000 3:38 pm

Hey everyone...I was browsing around to try and find a download for DPaint or something at www.download.com and found another program that claims it is very similar to DPaint, but I wouldn't know...the prog is called Pro Motion 4.0...if somebody downloads it and figure out how it work, let me know!!! I have it, but it looks pretty cryptic, or maybe Im just a shmuck.

Joachim · Posted: Thu Aug 17, 2000 4:03 am

tsunami124, no that is just regular mesh modeling, about 2-3000 polys, and tesselate on top. But, the drapes, that is not on this model is about 20 000 polys each, since they are supposed to be and move more soft.

Maybe we will improve and finish the character some day, just for the fun of animating it. I tried putting cartoon renderer on it, and that worked rather well.

Golongoria, I've got Pro Motion, it's very similar to Dpaint. I haven't tried the animation part of it, maybe I will. But, still, if I personally would want to animate a cartoon today, it would be more fun to be able to have a resolution big enough to watch on a tv screen. Don't you agree ?

------------------
Joachim
web:
http://home.online.no/~j-barrum/

[This message has been edited by Joachim (edited August 17, 2000).]

Chapel · member Member # Joined: 18 Mar 2000 Posts: 1930

Hehe.. looks like the guy from that old Madonna video. As Wayne and Garth would said on Saturday Night Live, "Look at the unit on that guy!"

balistic · Posted: Thu Aug 17, 2000 11:25 pm

We used Pro Motion for a lot of the Rampage art we did . . . I never used it myself, but the guy who was animating the peeps seemed to like it.

Sometimes I get all misty-eyed thinking about Autodesk Animator

------------------

Brian "balistic" Prince
3D Artist
Eggington Productions

Digital Genesis · Posted: Fri Aug 18, 2000 2:05 am

If it's not important what format the animation is made in, how about checking out Retas Pro 5.1?
www.retaspro.com

Enjoy

Jeezus · Posted: Fri Aug 18, 2000 11:05 pm

retas!pro. i posted about that program on synj's animation forum months ago but it never got a response. it looks like a really professional tool..

Kiyoakisama · junior member Member # Joined: 12 Aug 2000 Posts: 7

ok...well I will just go with frame by frame and scanning I guess!

um....I know a great program for making 3d look 2d. It was used by studio ghibli when they made Mononoke Hime. Softimage. My old 3d teacher(when I was 13, so last year) used that to learn so I checked it out and they have this other filter or somthing called Softimage TOONZ it makes the shading less smooth so it looks more like a hadndrawn 2D program. LET me scan a Pic of how it works!

Nomadik · Posted: Sun Aug 27, 2000 8:41 am

I just downloaded VidEdit, which seems to be pretty promising.. Youd have to do your frames in like Photoshop or something, but then you can import them along with wavs for sound and such and create a dandy peice of work...

ftp://ftp.sumrallworks.com/pub/downloads/multi-media/videdit.zip

My girlfriend and I made a stop motion film and I used it...
http://www.ayun.net/nomadik/videos/Starwars.avi

-Jesse