Just finished watching the tutorial for using pegs to make cut out animations.
My question is, Is it possible to attach an image (jpg, tiff, png) file to a peg to use in a cut-out animation? I was wanting to do a “JibJab” type of short and was having trouble getting a png. file to attach to the peg.
Thanks.
We don’t do this style of animation in our studio but it is certainly possible using TBS. The characters have to be constructed in a raster graphic editing program like Photoshop and PNGs are what most people use because they support having an alpha channel. The character is segmented into parts and each part is a separate PNG file which only has the part visible and the alpha channel is used to make the rest of the PNG transparent. This is to support overlaying in TBS. Without the transparency you can’t layer raster images like cells.
As to production techniques, the first step after creating your characters in Photoshop is to import the image PNGs of your character’s body parts into individual image elements in TBS. Each type of body part should be placed in a separate image element based on what kind of part ( Heads, mouths, upper arm, lower arm, hands etc. ) Once you have the PNGs imported into individual image elements. You can begin the compositing process in Camera view using the same techniques as are used to do a cut out character like Der Der. So watch the video tutorial about Der Der and work through the Workout Series cutout tutorials to get acquainted with those techniques. - JK