I am very new to using Animate 2. I have managed to figure out how to add both Highlight and Tone effects to a drawing. I like the look and the possibilities that these FX open up. But, it appears that these effects are not interpolated. Is it true that I will need to add all highlight and tone effects individually to every single frame in any animation using these effects? My searches of the forum did not yield any results regarding this question.
Hmmm… if you work frame by frame, then you might have to adjust the highlight/tone accordingly, either redraw, or keyframe the highlight/tone-drawing… creating new drawings as needed on the way…
If you work with cutout-animation, please have a look at the attached project-file:
(file has been removed)
If needed, create new drawings and manipulate those as well…
Regards
Nolan
Thanks for the very informative project file. I can see how the highlight/tone effects are well-suited and fairly easy to use with cut-out style animations.
I am trying to focus on using the frame-by-frame method. I knew it would be tedious. But essentially having to recreate all highlights and shadows with every frame (I already tried using keyframes with no luck) means I will have the opportunity to test just how much I really want to create my characters frame-by-frame.
Thanks again for your speedy and very helpful response.
because the highlights are wider more loose shapes you can definitly get away with not drawing all the frames and using morphing to fill in the missing frames and the default setting will be fine most probably.
it is tedious indeed, i have been doing it frame by frame. but never tried morphing maybe i will experiment with that next time. there are some points, however, to bear in mind before attempting to draw the mask layer for highlight/tone: not every scene requires tone/highlight. layout artists would tell you, you should add an effect because it’s needed, not because you can. second, not all body parts have to be included in these effects, if you look at tv productions, they tend to exclude the face. and only tone clothes in daylight scenes. there are other observations you could pick on if you watch tv productions. now feature films are different and more effects are applied but anyway my point is, you have to be smart about applying these effects.
Thanks to all for some great suggestions and encouragement, which I need as much as anything.
I will play with the morphing idea. I also like thinking that the highlights and tones do not need to appear on every single frame, making sure to hit only those frames where the effects will be most likely to be noticed.
My overall goal is to have characters and forms that are not always vector-squeaky clean and precise. Blurred highlights and tones help somewhat in accomplishing that look. I still need to experiment with texture brushes and fills too.