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Learning to animate - rhett and link at the farmer's market [message #321510] Thu, 14 July 2016 13:16 Go to next message
Brian is currently offline  Brian
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From Newsgroup: rec.arts.anime.misc

A while back, I talked about learning to animate. Since then I have
experimented with various things such as how to fade things in and out,
use skeletons, use video editors like openshot, etc.

I have animated successfully a magical girl transformation. It is not
as "flashy" a transformation as like in Sailor Moon or Pretty Cure, but
I think it is pretty good.

I have also been trying to think of a "plot" to animate once I learn all
these techniques, and decided to animate Rhett and Link's adventures at
the farmer's market (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtURBEKJ5XQ)

Right now I am working on what I think will be the hardest part to
animate, Link's "harp dance."

I am also discovering that my computer is just barely powerful enough to
do computer animation.

If I feel overly ambitious, find a freeware voice changing
application, and find some freely downloadable harp music I might even
put in sound.

I don't think I will try to set up my closet as a recording booth, but I
do have a computer mike that I think works, if it doesn't, I can record
stuff on my phone, then manipulate it.

To try and make this post semi-anime-related, I am sure that most
animation studios use computers (though much more powerful than what I
got on my desk), and software like inkscape, synfig studio, and blender,
though of course professional versions of those programs (as opposed to
freeware like I use).

Brian Christiansen
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Re: Learning to animate - rhett and link at the farmer's market [message #321512 is a reply to message #321510] Fri, 15 July 2016 13:21 Go to previous messageGo to next message
E. Liddell is currently offline  E. Liddell
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From Newsgroup: rec.arts.anime.misc

On Thu, 14 Jul 2016 16:16:07 +0000, Brian wrote:

> A while back, I talked about learning to animate. Since then I have
> experimented with various things such as how to fade things in and out,
> use skeletons, use video editors like openshot, etc.
>
[...]
>
> I am also discovering that my computer is just barely powerful enough to
> do computer animation.

Rendering (especially 3D) does require a lot of computer power. The pro
outfits tend to run server farms and/or clusters rather than doing
everything on a single desktop PC.

> If I feel overly ambitious, find a freeware voice changing application,
> and find some freely downloadable harp music I might even put in sound.

Audacity, while it's a general audio editor and not specialized as
a voice-changing application, may be able to do some of what you need.
There's also Ardour, which is a full-featured Digital Audio Workstation
for recording, editing, mixing, etc., but it's strictly Mac/Linux,
and it's probably overkill for what you want anyway. There may also be
Windows-specific closed-source freeware that I wot not of.

For pre-recorded clips with known sources and licenses, check
freesound.org and possibly archive.org.

> I don't think I will try to set up my closet as a recording booth, but I
> do have a computer mike that I think works, if it doesn't, I can record
> stuff on my phone, then manipulate it.
>
> To try and make this post semi-anime-related, I am sure that most
> animation studios use computers (though much more powerful than what I
> got on my desk), and software like inkscape, synfig studio, and blender,
> though of course professional versions of those programs (as opposed to
> freeware like I use).

Blender actually started out as some (European, IIRC) studio's
in-house software. Which is no doubt why it has such a lousy
user interface.

Anime actually continued being done "by hand" on cels rather later than
Western animation (again, IIRC). I was re-watching "The Slayers"
recently, and you could really tell that it had been done that way, and
on something of a budget (accidental shaky-cam, a couple of scenes where
a background element wasn't uniformly shaded from one cel to the
next . . .)

E. Liddell, information packrat.
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Re: Learning to animate - rhett and link at the farmer's market [message #321514 is a reply to message #321512] Fri, 15 July 2016 16:20 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Brian is currently offline  Brian
Messages: 441
Registered: February 2012
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Senior Member
From Newsgroup: rec.arts.anime.misc

E. Liddell wrote:

> Rendering (especially 3D) does require a lot of computer power. The pro
> outfits tend to run server farms and/or clusters rather than doing
> everything on a single desktop PC.
>
I was working on the "harp dance" last night, and just linking bones to
a drawing, my compter had to process for probably 5 to 10 minutes.
>
> Audacity, while it's a general audio editor and not specialized as
> a voice-changing application, may be able to do some of what you need.
> There's also Ardour, which is a full-featured Digital Audio Workstation
> for recording, editing, mixing, etc., but it's strictly Mac/Linux,
> and it's probably overkill for what you want anyway. There may also be
> Windows-specific closed-source freeware that I wot not of.
>
I am working on Linux, so Linux only is just fine. In fact Windows-only
would be the problem.

> For pre-recorded clips with known sources and licenses, check
> freesound.org and possibly archive.org.
>
I will take a look at those
>
> Blender actually started out as some (European, IIRC) studio's
> in-house software. Which is no doubt why it has such a lousy
> user interface.
>
My understanding is that so was synfig studio, and then the studio
dropped it, and the maintenance was taken over by some open source
programmers, which is what I am using.

On the crunchyroll site, when I go there to watch RWBY, an ad for some
thing like "Anime Studio Professional" software comes up, which is what
I assume Rooster Teeth uses to animate RWBY.

If indeed it is, then it kinda has to be like Blender in what it can
produce, but perhaps it is "better" in some way.

> Anime actually continued being done "by hand" on cels rather later than
> Western animation (again, IIRC). I was re-watching "The Slayers"
> recently, and you could really tell that it had been done that way, and
> on something of a budget (accidental shaky-cam, a couple of scenes where
> a background element wasn't uniformly shaded from one cel to the
> next . . .)
>
My understanding, that was that in both anime and western animation, the
switch from hand-drawn to digital was made around 2000, with shows of
that era, such as Cowboy Bebop, being the last shows to be done by hand.

Brian Christiansen
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Re: Learning to animate - rhett and link at the farmer's market [message #321515 is a reply to message #321512] Fri, 15 July 2016 20:45 Go to previous messageGo to next message
E. Liddell is currently offline  E. Liddell
Messages: 44
Registered: August 2012
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Member
From Newsgroup: rec.arts.anime.misc

On Fri, 15 Jul 2016 19:20:32 +0000, Brian wrote:

> E. Liddell wrote:
>
>> Rendering (especially 3D) does require a lot of computer power. The
>> pro outfits tend to run server farms and/or clusters rather than doing
>> everything on a single desktop PC.
>>
> I was working on the "harp dance" last night, and just linking bones to
> a drawing, my compter had to process for probably 5 to 10 minutes.

Well, that's certainly not fast. What's your hardware like?

>> Audacity, while it's a general audio editor and not specialized as a
>> voice-changing application, may be able to do some of what you need.
>> There's also Ardour, which is a full-featured Digital Audio Workstation
>> for recording, editing, mixing, etc., but it's strictly Mac/Linux,
>> and it's probably overkill for what you want anyway. There may also be
>> Windows-specific closed-source freeware that I wot not of.
>>
> I am working on Linux, so Linux only is just fine. In fact Windows-only
> would be the problem.

I'm also on Linux, which is why I don't keep track of Windows software
anymore.

>> For pre-recorded clips with known sources and licenses, check
>> freesound.org and possibly archive.org.
>>
> I will take a look at those

archive.org is a bit of a crapshoot, I should note. They've got some
massive audio collections, but they tend to be oddly specific in scope.

>> Blender actually started out as some (European, IIRC) studio's in-house
>> software. Which is no doubt why it has such a lousy user interface.
>>
> My understanding is that so was synfig studio, and then the studio
> dropped it, and the maintenance was taken over by some open source
> programmers, which is what I am using.

It's funny how art-related software seems to be more likely to "escape"
into the open-source world. I can only think of one example of
proprietary software gone open-source that isn't art-related.

> On the crunchyroll site, when I go there to watch RWBY, an ad for some
> thing like "Anime Studio Professional" software comes up, which is what
> I assume Rooster Teeth uses to animate RWBY.
>
> If indeed it is, then it kinda has to be like Blender in what it can
> produce, but perhaps it is "better" in some way.

A quick check of Wikipedia shows that Anime Studio is 2D and vector-based,
so it's in the same category as Synfig Studio rather than Blender. It
has built-in support for some fancy tools and effects like auto-
lipsyncing that weren't in Synfig's repertoire the last time I was
playing with it (admittedly, a good eight years ago).

Blender's closest commercial cousins are things like Maya, which cost
thousands of dollars. For that, you get a better interface than Blender,
commercial support, and (probably) some fancy tools and sample models.

The only other viable open-source 3D modelling packages that I'm
aware of are Wings3D and possibly Art of Illusion. Well, and the
venerable POVRay, but I wouldn't want to try to use that for animation.
There aren't a lot of other 2D packages (Tupi, maybe? Man, I haven't
looked into this stuff in years . . .)

>> Anime actually continued being done "by hand" on cels rather later than
>> Western animation (again, IIRC). I was re-watching "The Slayers"
>> recently, and you could really tell that it had been done that way, and
>> on something of a budget (accidental shaky-cam, a couple of scenes
>> where a background element wasn't uniformly shaded from one cel to the
>> next . . .)
>>
> My understanding, that was that in both anime and western animation, the
> switch from hand-drawn to digital was made around 2000, with shows of
> that era, such as Cowboy Bebop, being the last shows to be done by hand.

The switchover was definitely around that era (Jin-Roh was one of the
last major movies done on cels, I think), but I seem to recall that
the Japanese studios were more reluctant to move away from the old way
of doing things.

E. Liddell
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Re: Learning to animate - rhett and link at the farmer's market [message #321517 is a reply to message #321515] Fri, 15 July 2016 22:57 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Brian is currently offline  Brian
Messages: 441
Registered: February 2012
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Senior Member
From Newsgroup: rec.arts.anime.misc

E. Liddell wrote:

> On Fri, 15 Jul 2016 19:20:32 +0000, Brian wrote:
>
>> E. Liddell wrote:
>>
>>> Rendering (especially 3D) does require a lot of computer power. The
>>> pro outfits tend to run server farms and/or clusters rather than doing
>>> everything on a single desktop PC.
>>>
>> I was working on the "harp dance" last night, and just linking bones to
>> a drawing, my compter had to process for probably 5 to 10 minutes.
>
> Well, that's certainly not fast. What's your hardware like?
>

It is a dual-core processor, and I think a "lower end" dual core
processor, 8G of RAM, and integrated graphics.

As far as I can find, the minimum recommended is a quad-core processor,
at least 16G of RAM, and perhaps most important, a kick-buttowski
graphics card that has .5 to 1G of menory.

I think I can put as high as a 6-core processor in my computer, but 8G
is the maximum it can hold, and I can put a graphics card into it as
well.

I am not sure if I would need a new power source if I put in a graphics
card, though.

Basically, if I wanted to have a computer that really is powerful enough
for computer animation that does not take 5-10 minutes to do something
as simple as linking a bone to a drawing, I would have to basically
build an entirely new computer, but that just isn't in my budget right
now.

I have some money in the form of Amazon gift cards, so I could perhaps
put at least a semi-kick-buttowski card into my computer, which as far
as I can tell from the reading I have done, is the single most important
thing I can do.

Brian Christiansen
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Re: Learning to animate - rhett and link at the farmer's market [message #321631 is a reply to message #321512] Sat, 16 July 2016 10:20 Go to previous messageGo to next message
E. Liddell is currently offline  E. Liddell
Messages: 44
Registered: August 2012
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Member
From Newsgroup: rec.arts.anime.misc

On Sat, 16 Jul 2016 01:57:58 +0000, Brian wrote:

> E. Liddell wrote:
>
>> On Fri, 15 Jul 2016 19:20:32 +0000, Brian wrote:
>>
>>> E. Liddell wrote:
>>>
>>>> Rendering (especially 3D) does require a lot of computer power. The
>>>> pro outfits tend to run server farms and/or clusters rather than
>>>> doing everything on a single desktop PC.
>>>>
>>> I was working on the "harp dance" last night, and just linking bones
>>> to a drawing, my compter had to process for probably 5 to 10 minutes.
>>
>> Well, that's certainly not fast. What's your hardware like?
>>
>>
> It is a dual-core processor, and I think a "lower end" dual core
> processor, 8G of RAM, and integrated graphics.
>
> As far as I can find, the minimum recommended is a quad-core processor,
> at least 16G of RAM, and perhaps most important, a kick-buttowski
> graphics card that has .5 to 1G of menory.

Yeah, integrated graphics is not a good choice. If you're willing to
try to install it yourself, you can get a refurbished older 512MB card
from Newegg or the like for around $30. 512MB memory is actually
low-end for a modern video card--the high-end ones these days have 8GB.

> I think I can put as high as a 6-core processor in my computer, but 8G
> is the maximum it can hold, and I can put a graphics card into it as
> well.

You'd need to know what kind of processor socket is on the motherboard
to know how many cores it can take. In general, it isn't even worth
trying to upgrade something that takes Intel processors, since they
hardly ever seem to use the same socket type for two years running.
AMD's a bit more flexible, but has other disadvantages.

> I am not sure if I would need a new power source if I put in a graphics
> card, though.

They are among the more power-hungry things in a system. Budget a bit
more than 100W for a low-end card, much more for a high-end gaming-type
card.

Of course, that assumes you know the output of your power supply.
I know mine because my system was built from parts, but if you bought
yours pre-assembled from a large company, they may not have made it
clear.

E. Liddell
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Re: Learning to animate - rhett and link at the farmer's market [message #321632 is a reply to message #321631] Sat, 16 July 2016 16:48 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Brian is currently offline  Brian
Messages: 441
Registered: February 2012
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Senior Member
From Newsgroup: rec.arts.anime.misc

E. Liddell wrote:

>
> Yeah, integrated graphics is not a good choice. If you're willing to
> try to install it yourself, you can get a refurbished older 512MB card
> from Newegg or the like for around $30. 512MB memory is actually
> low-end for a modern video card--the high-end ones these days have 8GB.
>
I suppose I a bit behind the curve on what a powerful graphics card is,
but I think I have an idea for a work-around for the graphics.

I won't try to explain it, but it involves simplifying how the
representation that synfig studio uses to represent my drawings, or at
least I think what I'm going to do will simplify it. I suppose I am
also assuming this simplification will speed up how fast synfig studio
can deal with the files.

> They are among the more power-hungry things in a system. Budget a bit
> more than 100W for a low-end card, much more for a high-end gaming-type
> card.
>
> Of course, that assumes you know the output of your power supply.
> I know mine because my system was built from parts, but if you bought
> yours pre-assembled from a large company, they may not have made it
> clear.
>
I built my computer, and have the box it came in and the manual for it
on my bookshelf and have looked it up on the ASrock site, and therefore
know what kind of expansion card it will take, how much memory it will
take, and what processors it can use.

Unfortunately, I have not actually looked to see if any of the
processors that fit it are actually available for sale at newegg or
the local computer store.

When I originally built my computer I compared the price of using
online sources with the local computer, and since I, and the difference
wasn't that much, so I decided to support a local business.

I also can't remember how big a power supply I have. I would have to
actually take the cover off the computer and take a look to see.

I think it was pretty powerful, at least for what I built, and not an
absolutly minimal power supply, like I have heard that many prefab
companies (like Dell) use but whether it was 450W, 500W, etc., I just
don't remember.

Brian Christiansen
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Re: Learning to animate - rhett and link at the farmer's market [message #324257 is a reply to message #321514] Sun, 31 July 2016 08:56 Go to previous message
Manbow Papa is currently offline  Manbow Papa
Messages: 113
Registered: March 2012
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Senior Member
From Newsgroup: rec.arts.anime.misc

On 2016/07/16 4:20, Brian wrote:
> E. Liddell wrote:
<snip>
>> Anime actually continued being done "by hand" on cels rather later than
>> Western animation (again, IIRC). I was re-watching "The Slayers"
>> recently, and you could really tell that it had been done that way, and
>> on something of a budget (accidental shaky-cam, a couple of scenes where
>> a background element wasn't uniformly shaded from one cel to the
>> next . . .)
>>
> My understanding, that was that in both anime and western animation, the
> switch from hand-drawn to digital was made around 2000, with shows of
> that era, such as Cowboy Bebop, being the last shows to be done by hand.
>
> Brian Christiansen
>

Try "SHIROBAKO" anime which tells you all about how an anime TV
show is produced nowadays.

--
/ Ishikawa Kazuo /
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