Animation Tips in Photoshop

As I was working on my “tweening” this week I found a neat trick to help my Photoshop animations. Hopefully you can use it to help your animating too!

Using video group layers I started adding some inbetweens on my keys of this bird flapping its wings *1. When turned on the onion skinning it wasn’t obvious which layer was which *2.

In order to clear up the confusion I thought about coloring the inbetweens in different colors, but then I would have to redraw each frame. So, instead I used a hue saturation adjustment layer to only affect the layer before the one I was drawing *3.

Adding the Hue/Saturation turned the before frame red as seen above *3 . This helped me distinguish where to put my inbetweens.

The finished product 

One more cool thing I’ve been using is the Animator’s Toolbar extension. I found it from this website http://www.photoshopanimation.com . It’s been a big help in simplifying my workflow, mainly by allowing me to quickly edit frame length.

 

Be sure to check out the other stuff at http://www.photoshopanimation.com . There are a lot of cool tutorials and resources.

The Whole is Greater Than the Sum of the Parts

Take a look at the pieces that comprise my animation!

The gif’s are made by hand and then key framed within After Effects to build the previously posted video. In order to create it, I spent a lot of time working the characters and animation cycles which you can see below. Some portions are just placeholders and still need in-between frames added, but what I have is a good representation of the final project.

Enjoy These little bits and see how they work together to create the short animation.

You can see Here my use of color. It’s more difficult than I expected. Particularly adding in the animation, because I have to select and color each frame in order to keep it consistent. A bit of a pain, but worth it for the final product.

The Hippo will also have legs animate out along with the head, but for now the moving of the head illustrates my point about adding more in-between frames to make it smoother.

I am very proud of my bird wing fly cycle. The one above is complete and looks really smooth. The one below, however, needs a few more frames in order to become more believable. I really love the flame of this rocket, I also want to make the dog howl. Just something to add a little bit of life to it.

Soon enough I’ll have the completed project. I hope you enjoy it.

Draft 1! Here We Go!

I’ve been busy, sticking stuff together and animating a lot of birds flapping and other stuff. Check out this video to see what I’ve been up too.

Be on the lookout within the next few days for an depth behind the scenes information.

Pressing On

An overwhelming amount of drawing is happening. I’m pretty stressed and not sure if all these pieces are going to come together for the final, but I continue to press on! I must stand firm and grow steady as a tree.

Playing with color a bit. I need to beef this tree up a little, but the scenes are coming along.

These guys are going to sit in the background. Some color will take them a long way.

Adding some movement to the backgrounds is bringing out an interesting feeling as well.

I’ve been pulling together a lot of resources to bring this animation to life. Enjoy some of the doodles of where I’ve been and where I’m going.

Side view of Sparrow

Overhead Sparrow

With a little Style

Realistic rendering

Bela Fleck and the Flecktones home world. The Cosmic Hippo

Another space creature that orbits the cosmic hippo.

Animated background for the Hippo and Horse to Live in.

Keep on the lookout for some inspiration and see where these are going.

“When eating an elephant take one bite at a time.” – Creighton Abrams

Like a Reed Blowing in the Wind

Using some standard animation techniques (numbering frames and drawing an ease diagram). I got some interesting motion by simply drawng one reed reversing and staggering it to create the other two reeds.

I would like to get a little more snap out of the reed. By moving the bend in the stem towards the top I believe it will give it a little more realistic effect.

Soon I’ll have some more ellements to post, but until then enjoy this one.

Contrived Little Monsters

I’ve been doodling some quick sketches. Finding out the best ways to use Photoshop to animate. It’s a little clunky, but without having to pay for new software I think Photoshop is my best bet, not to mention direct integration with After Effects, great brushes, and texture options. At least for this project Photoshop is the way to go.

I’ve been following the work of Alex Grigg. He has some excellent hand drawn animation AND he uses Photoshop to draw it! He even got his hand on a project for Cartoon Network. I love his simple style and great use of texture and color. I found an incredibly in depth tutorial Alex made on Photoshop and animation. Watch the tutorial here.

Alex also animated a short called “Phantom Limb”  The whole thing is amazing and even more amazing after reading how he made it. (He even lets you download some of his PSD’s to see how he made it)

Another site I have been hounding is PhotoshopAnimation.com. This site is completely dedicated to animating using photoshop. And the author Patrick Deen even built a photoshop tool bar just for animating in photoshop.

All that to come to these little doodles.

And finally a look at what the opening of my short might look like.

There will be more to come and hopefully more organic looking than these contrived little monsters.

Worked All Day with Nothing to Show For It

So I spent all day Monday sketching, learning animation, and refining some old projects and after 6 hours of doodling I thought, “All this time and I don’t really have anything to show for it…” Feeling pretty depressed and angry I got in my car for a long drive home.

I’m always working hard and trying to improve my skill set, so I get down on myself when I feel like I haven’t accomplished enough in a day.

“What am I worth? I didn’t even get anything done today.”

“Blessed are the poor in spirit,
    for theirs is the kingdom of heaven
Blessed are those who mourn,
    for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek,
    for they will inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
    for they will be filled.
Blessed are the merciful,
    for they will be shown mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart,
    for they will see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers,
    for they will be called children of God.
Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,
    for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Matthew 5:3-10

This was my reminder that I am worth more than what I can accomplish, more than what I plan to do, and more than living up to the expectations of those around me.

I had to give up my pride and was just be glad to be alive. As I drove I realized I had accomplished something. I had put in my time, I had figured out some new techniques, and it was worth it because I was practicing my discipline.

Since then I have some more simple animations that I will post, but I am thankful for the opportunity to be doing what I love even if when “I haven’t accomplished anything”

Intro To Animation

I knew that hand drawn animations are an incredible undertaking, but I didn’t realize the huge scale that even a 5 second animation would take. I’ve been spending a lot of time with The Animator’s Survival Kit, written by Richard Williams the same man who animated Who Framed Roger Rabbit?. Not only has he done some great animation, but he has also dedicated his life to furthering the art of animation.

As I sketch, I am constantly reminded of the poses and expressions that any Loony Toon character would take. It’s amazing how iconic their expressions can be, I don’t think this is because I grew up on loony-tunes, but because the animators got it right the first time.

Of course the first thing I worked on was a ball bounce cycle. I used a tutorial by Benjamin Ariel Markus. He uses Photoshop and After Effects together with an interesting expressions for exporting your animation on two’s to give it a more cartoony feel.

Bouncing Ball Animation Sequence Test from Joey Wright on Vimeo.

After Effects is a quick and efficient way to combine traditional animation and current technology, but ends up feeling a little too smooth. By adding an expression to cut out every other frame we can make it feel a little more organic, but it comes off a bit choppy. I’m going to need to experiment a lot more with the expression and my work flow. Especially considering that Photoshop also has a means of exporting frame by frame animations.

This walk cycle was frame by frame exported from Photoshop.

Annimation Walk Cycle Test 1 from Joey Wright on Vimeo.

I took directly from Richard Williams’ work flow, but the animation is very rough and lacks a lot of technical proficiency. The different colors represent the different stages of the drawing process.

Black – Extreme’s and Contact
Blue – Down Step
Green – The Inbetweens

If I had added more inbetweens it could be a lot smoother. But mostly the problem is the proportions aren’t consistent throughout. Finally, I need to work on the flow of the foot steps. Just getting something to move across a screen is amazing and I’ve have great expectations for my future animations.

Ode to Béla Fleck

Béla Fleck. a personal hero of mine.

This is not only because of his great status as a banjoist, but also for his dedication in pushing his art to the cutting edge while holding true to the roots of the art form. He has brought the most modern progressive jazz musicians to play with the bluegrass and country icons from the past where they create something totally new and yet still familiar.

Both in music and visual art the past collides with the future and I believe the best art is that which pushes ahead, but tips its hat to the past. The following projects may not be breaking new ground, but it is my future and I’m learning from the past. If it were not for the man who has inspired me (musically and philosophically) to create art that pushes its boundaries while still referencing the past I would not be the artist I am today. May these pieces capture in some way the great privilege it is to push into the future while being rooted in the past.

A Well Meaning Attempt

So…

Starting a blog for my MFA in graphic design seems really simple compared to all the projects that I face. I am both exhilarated and terrified to begin.

Well… here we go… No turning back…

God speed,

Joey Wright