Hey people! I’ve done some searches for this, read some tutorials, seen some videos and such, but I can’t really figure this out. I recently got Toon Boom Studios 4, and basically want to make a short animated movie by importing hand-drawn images. I know how to import the images and vectorize them, but here is what I can’t figure out;
how can I “isolate” elements of the drawing, let’s say how can I make an arm on a drawing a separate element from the rest of the drawing that can be moved around?
Basically; how do I do the stuff shown in the tour of Toon Boom Studios video after 24 seconds;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1MOkOvPEMs
Stupid question, I know, but there’s so much stuff to read through, and this is basically where I want to start (seems so basic).
The key concept to breaking a character apart for animation is that each part of the character which you want to be able to animate individually needs to be a separate element. A single drawing image is contained on a single element so you will want to cut that image up into individual body parts and move each of those parts to its own unique element. Those body part elements can then be assembled into a composite of your character.
This article on PHOTO CUT-OUT ANIMATION should give you the general idea of how the single Pink Panther character was cut into parts and each part was moved to its own element and rigged to become part of the composite character. Whether you are using an imported drawing like I used in this example or you draw the character as a single picture inside TBS, the cut out and rigging of elements into a composite is the same approach. -JK
That is very, very helpful, sir, thank you loads! You are a star! 