before using any programs.. huh... Try this 
techniques d'animation
just an advice^^
Sounds like a really cool idea 
I've been toying with a similar idea - though nothing quite as ambitious as fully animated story, just the odd short clip, or mini SG promo.
There are a lot of different programs out there, but your choices will depend on how much, if any, money you want to spend and just as importantly - how steep a learning curve you're prepared to climb.
What sort of images will you use for your animation?
Cheapest and possibly least time consuming route would be to use the game engine itself - there are lots of demo-edited movies out there that have been produced to really high standard, and all that you would require in addition would be 'Windows Movie Maker' (built-in Windows freebie), and a sound editor of which there are plenty on the internet (all it has to do is be able to record voices/music into wav or mp3 format) and then you stitch it all together in Movie maker. 
If you are planning to free-hand draw any of your elements yourself, then you could look to something like this which can produce pretty reasonable results - seems to have quite some potential too, although I haven't tried it myself.
I won't go into CGI - that's a whole subject in itself, unless its of interest to you.
Going back to the 'stitching together the images and audio' side of things, if Movie Maker doesn't quite offer the functionality you need, then consider something like Adobe Premiere Elements - don't know what version they're on now, but I got a cut down version free with my mobile phone last year. Once you get used to it, it can do some really cool things 
Hope that helps a little 
EDIT: Oooh, just saw SoulsAsylum's post - that sounds like a really good book - nice recomendation! English Lang Link for "The Animator's Survival Kit"
thanks muchly for the help guys, unfortunatly until next year my budget is set to.....well...0, frankly im stuck with trial versions of programs and anything i managed to nab from my college for free a few years back, including flash.
as for theanimation style, CGI did cross my mind but i dont think it would meet the high quality im after, after watching different cartoons for style ideas, spider-man the cgi series threw me away from it, while justice league unlimited pulled me in.
if u google justice league unlimited int he images section, im after the same sort of look for characters if not a little more lifelike with a faster-paced fight-scene
EDIT: Oh and btw, the planning wise? ive already panned out 3 whole series if it captures peoples interests.....if not bugger them and ill do it for myself :P
also with a "coming up this season" trailer for each 1 between seasons
@Infurnus
@Infurnus Mech
My honoured bretheren. We come together, to unite as one, against those that are damned, we show no mercy, for we have none, our enemies shall fall, as we uprise, to claim our fate, now and forever, we'll be together, in love and hate - Jason "Shyboy" Arnold
Awesome!
I would love to see a JLA style CoX animation! I really loved that series, especially considering I'm generally more Marvel oriented (although storywise I kind of preferred the first 2 seasons before it went Unlimited)
Reading between the lines, I'd agree that something done Flash related might be a good bet.
Resouce-wise there are some templates available for drawing your own Bruce Timm - style characters, I can post a link if its any use for you.
ToonBoom studio is supposedly pretty good - may be worth going for a trial of that, unless you already have it.
Whatever tools you end up using for the compositing side of things (putting the animation together with the audio) will be well down the list I'd guess.
What you have got planned - full stories etc, is gonna take a lot (a hell of a lot) of time to produce. Its a lot of images to cover how ever many minutes you have in mind, at minimum 25 frames per second.
Just a thought, but maybe try out a trailer or short promo in whatever packages you think you might wanna use, just to get a feel for whether you think they're going to be easy enough/productive enough for you.
Man, I hope none of that sounds like I'm trying to put you off - really not the case
As I mentioned already I'm currently dabbling in some animation of my own so I can definitely say I'd be interested to see anything you're working on
Thumbs up from the Ranger
lol cheers for the tips ranger, it doesnt matter if it takes 25 years, i WILL get this done
ye the link would be awesome, just hope my work hasnt banned the website so i can view it while bored tomorrow
and yes while im gona give it a go of drawing and animating the chaacters (despite my lack of art skills) another hurdle i need to cross is voice acting, ive already got a faint outline of how i want themt o sound its just finding the talent, god forbid i use my dull voice
@Infurnus
@Infurnus Mech
My honoured bretheren. We come together, to unite as one, against those that are damned, we show no mercy, for we have none, our enemies shall fall, as we uprise, to claim our fate, now and forever, we'll be together, in love and hate - Jason "Shyboy" Arnold
I'm a student animator (no, I don't animate students, though I've had to once or twice) and I work with Flash alot. I can tell you that the most important part of using Flash, and animating in general, is storyboarding. If you're of that comic book style mindset then that won't be too much of a problem. Storyboarding is important because it determines what sets, props and characters you'll need to draw. Animating requires a helluva lot of drawing. Flash lets you skip some, but it's still a hefty load of work. Another thing you may find tiresome is the animating itself. It is very time consuming and lip syncing is a right bugger for that. Then theres pacing. You really have to be careful with the pacing of the animation, too slow and it becomes boring, too fast and it zips by without the viewer seeing everything.
Suffice to say you have a mammoth task ahead of you if you intend to proceed with you plans. However I am willing to help in whatever way I can, as I'm sure others will.
At the moment I'm working on an animation using Adobe After Effects based on my CoX characters. It should be done within the next couple of weeks.
My advice to you at the moment is is learn your software. Make some quick animations to see what stuff does and how you can use it. Developing techniques can save you time in the long run.
Good luck, and like I said, if you need help or advice just hit me up.
----- Union's finest underachiever -----
Farewell CITY of HEROES
The First, the Last, the One.
Union: @ominousvoice2059
I concur with EternalKnights' advice.
Add to that getting to grips with basic animation techniques like Squash & Stretch, secondary action, timing of scenes:
*timing charts are recommended.
*More frames: smoother/slower - less frames: faster.
*Lipsincing is a bugger. tip: have the audio one or two frames ahead of the mouth animation.
Then there's composition which is defined in your storyboard. Foreground, background, lighting, camera angle & movement (pan & zoom).
The aforementioned book The Animator's Survival Kit is a bible of animation. Definitely recommended.
I was thinking of making a short hand animated intro-like sequence myself and dusting off my old animation board, so I'm likely to share the same headaches as you. Don't hesitate to send me a pm if I can help.
thnx alot guys, thats really given some incite to whats to come, the main reason i considered CGI was because u dont have to re-draw alot of scenes, u can just import objects and the such, though the modeling isnt easy.
ill wait to see your work knight b4 i make a start of the actual project, though i will get some storyboards done b4 aswell
@Infurnus
@Infurnus Mech
My honoured bretheren. We come together, to unite as one, against those that are damned, we show no mercy, for we have none, our enemies shall fall, as we uprise, to claim our fate, now and forever, we'll be together, in love and hate - Jason "Shyboy" Arnold
[ QUOTE ]
As alot of people on Union know by now, ive been talking about making an animated series based about my characters, heroes and villains which has been planned for well over a year now with little headway been made (mainly due to RL issues and addictive gaming).
does any1 know any good programs available for sound editors and creators and any other bits i may need?
also does any1 know of any guides online for animating programs, was considering creating it in Flash, if anyone has any thoughts on it feel free to reply
most appreciative of any help i can get
[/ QUOTE ]
Dude there better be atleast a cameo (if not a main part) for gohan661 and Only!! :P
cant wait to see what you pull together
Infurnus4president
(post 400 woot:P)
Yup - definitely agree with the guys above, stoyboard is your visual skeleton of whats to come. Even if its done in stick-figure format its essential because it gives you a clear idea of how much (and what) imagery will be needed to cover the sequences you have in mind. In animation if you change your mind about something you end up throwing away scores, even hundreds of drawings at a time - solution: Storyboard first and stick to it.
I'm not that familiar with Flash so I don't know what the number frames per second of animation you can get away with to maintain the look you want but whatever that number is, multiply that by 60, and then multiply that by how many minutes of animation you want in your piece; the end figure is roughly how many individual images that will need to be produced.
There will be sub sequences in there that whatever software you use will be able to handle by itself to some degree thus speeding up the process - having a storyboard helps to plan for those areas.
But the vast majority of the animation will most likely be down to careful, careful, careful, planning and manual drawing of your moving elements.
There are many tips the guys have mentioned and certain things you can do to make the most of the work done, like clever re-use of background images, careful camera use to simplify certain compositions etc.
Again, hoping this isn't coming across as patronising at all - its good that you have your stories in place already, but the animation stage is going to be a considerable wedge of effort, particularly for a one-man band.
Definitely urge you to go down the short intro route first, maybe a 30-second "Coming Soon" clip or something, it will give a you a huge insight into what can be done and what to realisticly expect. And you'll have fun doing it
These have been around for a while, see what you make of them...
BruceTimm style templates
and here's an interesting tutorial showing how some people have used them
More tips just remembered.
-24 frames per second is the base for animation.
24 is great because when you break down your animation via your time chart, you can keep on dividing the time by 2 and plan your slow-ins/slow-outs or Fast-ins/slow-outs etc...
-This is where the headache begins (for me anyway): The audio must be done before the final animation begins. All your lip-syncing (speech) and character movement (music) should be based on the audio.So trying to plan the length of the audio and implementing it in the time chart and the animation becomes a little hectic IMO. Requires patience.
Link: Found this: DonBluth Academy
Yes it's classical animation but read through it if you have the time, there are many concepts, numbers and mindsets you can use.
Also: Storyboarding tips
EDIT:
slow motion-frame rate
thats awesome
well if i get a look ina t the computer tonight ill look at the sites (at work atm and most sites are blocked!)
if i dont ill get a basic 'skeleton storyboard' on paper ready to transfer to PC, of the 'coming soon' trailer atleast
EDIT: oh and gohan, you know ull have a part in it at points, also as and when i get to episodes requiring outside characters (already got some planned specifically) ill post on the forums for 'auditions'
@Infurnus
@Infurnus Mech
My honoured bretheren. We come together, to unite as one, against those that are damned, we show no mercy, for we have none, our enemies shall fall, as we uprise, to claim our fate, now and forever, we'll be together, in love and hate - Jason "Shyboy" Arnold
[ QUOTE ]
thats awesome
well if i get a look ina t the computer tonight ill look at the sites (at work atm and most sites are blocked!)
if i dont ill get a basic 'skeleton storyboard' on paper ready to transfer to PC, of the 'coming soon' trailer atleast
EDIT: oh and gohan, you know ull have a part in it at points, also as and when i get to episodes requiring outside characters (already got some planned specifically) ill post on the forums for 'auditions'
[/ QUOTE ]
i was thinking about doing one with demorecord and editing it. its quiet easy i just aint got the patience
Sounds alright, but i want mine properly animated. theres too much detail i want to add into it like lip synch, facial expressions, fight scenes that are more realistic than a fire sword circle then a 2 second gap before an incinerate
@Infurnus
@Infurnus Mech
My honoured bretheren. We come together, to unite as one, against those that are damned, we show no mercy, for we have none, our enemies shall fall, as we uprise, to claim our fate, now and forever, we'll be together, in love and hate - Jason "Shyboy" Arnold
[ QUOTE ]
Sounds alright, but i want mine properly animated. theres too much detail i want to add into it like lip synch, facial expressions, fight scenes that are more realistic than a fire sword circle then a 2 second gap before an incinerate
[/ QUOTE ]
yea but nothing can beat spawning your favorite hero and 1000 agony mages and one shotting them all :P
lol not tried demo record at all, didnt know you could do that....cause i know gohan661 cant 1shot a boss
@Infurnus
@Infurnus Mech
My honoured bretheren. We come together, to unite as one, against those that are damned, we show no mercy, for we have none, our enemies shall fall, as we uprise, to claim our fate, now and forever, we'll be together, in love and hate - Jason "Shyboy" Arnold
[ QUOTE ]
lol not tried demo record at all, didnt know you could do that....cause i know gohan661 cant 1shot a boss
[/ QUOTE ]
This is what can be done with demorecord and editing
As alot of people on Union know by now, ive been talking about making an animated series based about my characters, heroes and villains which has been planned for well over a year now with little headway been made (mainly due to RL issues and addictive gaming).
does any1 know any good programs available for sound editors and creators and any other bits i may need?
also does any1 know of any guides online for animating programs, was considering creating it in Flash, if anyone has any thoughts on it feel free to reply
most appreciative of any help i can get
@Infurnus
@Infurnus Mech
My honoured bretheren. We come together, to unite as one, against those that are damned, we show no mercy, for we have none, our enemies shall fall, as we uprise, to claim our fate, now and forever, we'll be together, in love and hate - Jason "Shyboy" Arnold