Hi, I just started using Animate Pro 2 few weeks ago…
I would like to ask about a tool equivalent to the bone tool in flash.
Any tool or way that could make the same kind of deformation to an object…
Thank you!!!
Morphing is your best option in Animate.
Studio actually has bones, but not Animate yet.
I wish there will be the bone tool that we will setup on Animate and pro . and a tool like a puppet tool in AE and import obj file (3D) .
We ask toon boom for these so badly .
Thanks .
I see a lot of people requesting or wishing for a bone feature in Animate II like the one in Toon Boom Studio. I’m guessing that bones is the faster way to get a character rigged for animation as it can actually morph the artwork underneath with or without the preparation required to create a cutout hierarchy? Does anyone who’s used both methods have an opinion about the quality of the animation when you compare the two?
I know that with the hierarchy system in Animate II you can still take advantage of an IK rigging system; easily swap out drawing substitutions when the character changes angles or creates movement beyond the IK joint set up and eliminate deformations to the joints during movement by careful clean up, line work and tonal painting. Besides the speed of creating the rig are there any other advantages to the bone tool over a hierarchy / pivot point system?
If the only difference is the speed of bones I’ rather use the hierarchy system in Animate II and put it a bit of extra work to get a superior look. In fact, I think that’s the point. Toon Boom Studio is being marketed to home enthusiasts who may be more concerned with production speed and less with the animation quality, especially in the case of cut-out or limited animation. I wish they would post some actual examples of bone animation in the Toon Boom Studio forum as opposed to a very brief overview so I could look for myself without having to ask some of these questions.
Morphing artwork with bones might look good on simple artwork but how does it look on a more complex character with multiple tones and a more dynamic range of motion being used in the animation? How much control do you have over joint deformation?
I actually think it could be really useful for effects.
I look at it as a kind of weighted morphing tool.
With bones, I guess, something simple like this would be possible in a few minutes…
http://img194.imageshack.us/i/28a.mp4/
Regards
Nolan
In my humble opinion, for most scenarios, I still prefer a traditional cut-out puppet scenario. There are only a couple of instances where a Puppet/Bone tool might be useful:
1) When doing subtle animations on a bitmap image (think the cats in the Meow-Meow commercials)
2) When you want to work with a character that it wearing clothes that have textures on them, like a plaid shirt for example. In a traditional cutout puppet approach, you will get seams when you rotate the body parts if there is a texture applied.
3) When deforming some spaghetti-like limbs, like a tail.
There will be development of such a tool in the next version of Animate Pro, however I have no information as to when the release of that version might occur.
For the moment, I would recommend planning your characters so that you don’t run into issues like textures on the character’s limbs. Plan textures so that they only occur on parts that won’t deform (like a vest would be fine).
To deal with the issue of a tail, at the moment the best way to animate it is simply to do frame by frame animation, or to morph drawings together, or lastly you can play with using the Glue module.
Hope this helps.
~Lilly