Animation and Video Life

3D CC3 TET Character, based on my Oppa Doll Avatar, used as the base for a 2D CA4 character. One of my favorite things to do is to create characters with any type of Avatar/Character creator app. In fact the first test I usually try with these tools is, can I make an avatar of me (or at least my The Extraordinary Tourist persona). Previously I've used 2D character creators like Oppa Doll as a source of artwork for some characters I've made for Reallusion's Cartoon Animator 4 animation studio but 2D character creators are limited to... well 2D. 3D Character Creators While you may think 3D character creators have no place in creating characters for 2D animation there are quite a number of advantages including: No drawing skills required. Render characters in any style. Use an art filter or even hand trace into line art. Need to animate the character in a specific pose or angle? Render out an image of the character in the required angle and animate it in 2D. Quicker to crea

Reallusion's Cartoon Animator 4 used to support vector images in a big way back when it was launched as CrazyTalk Animator 2 . So much so that they built into the application a Render Styles system that made it simple to recolor vector images if you took the extra few steps to create vector color groupings for your G2 vector characters and props. Unfortunately G2 Vector characters proved to be too difficult for the average user to make, and it also required access to Adobe Flash (now Animate CC) for which many users weren't willing to invest in a subscription. Things haven't been helped by Flash being phased out as a web standard format in December 2020 either. While CrazyTalk Animator 3 , and now Cartoon Animator 4 , have surged ahead focusing more on high resolution bitmaps to create quality characters and props, the Render Styles system and support for vector images still remains. Except the only vector file supported is Adobe's SWF format. Reallusion's Ignores

BlueStacks Android Emulator for PC or Mac. There are many free and low cost mobile animation productivity apps for Android in the Google Play Store that would fit right into your workflow if you could access them directly from your PC/Mac  desktop (or laptop) computer. Even if those apps can save their output to the same cloud storage you use with your PC or Mac, just the divide of using a separate device makes them inconvenient and disruptive. Worse yet, what if your Android device is underpowered for the apps you want to use, or worse still you don't own any Android devices because someone convinced you Apple Mac's, iphones, and ipads are 'cool' (they are, but you pay for 'cool'). BlueStacks is a free, open source Android emulator for Windows or Mac (currently only BlueStacks 4 can be installed on a Mac but BlueStacks 5 for Mac is coming soon). If you're not aware of what an emulator is, it's basically a piece of software that mimics another devices

I will create an animated cartoon caricature from your photo that says your message. View Gig on Fiverr . Creating a side hustle business from your animation skills does not have to be as complicated or time consuming as you may think. Which is ideal if you just want to earn a little money to pay your bills while you create your epic, animated, independent, feature film with the rest of your time. Fiverr Makes Side Hustles Easy Fiverr , the online marketplace for paid 'gigs', makes it easy to create a side hustle without the need for a built in audience or social media community. People specifically go to the site to search for low cost services that solve a need. All you have to do is stand out when people search for your specific skills. Joining Fiverr is free as both a buyer or seller. Becoming a seller is a little more involved as it's a little like filling out a job application with information from your resume. Nothing too difficult though, and don't worry if you

Bat Storm, Day Job by TET. This month Reallusion launched its iClone Lip-Sync Animation Contest in which animators are asked to make a 30 second iClone animation created using one or more of iClone's lip-syncing and facial animation tools or plugins. This includes; AccuLips , ExPlus , Facial Mocap , and even the new iClone plugin for Replica's AI TSS voice system . If you'd like to enter you still have plenty of time as submissions close on September 30, 2021. The total prize pool is valued at over USD$40,000 with first prize being $3000 in cash. If you don't have iClone , but are interested in giving 3D animation a try, you can download free 30 day trials of iClone 7 , Character Creator 3 , 3DXChange 7 , and Unreal Live Link , which can all be accessed from the competition site . There's also 50% discount for perpetual licenses if you do decide to purchase any (and I do highly recommend - and use - iClone 7 and Character Creator 3 as two of the easiest 3D animatio

SVGator is capable of very advanced  vector images and animations. Vector graphics are becoming increasingly more popular as more and more artists and designers become aware of their resolution independence. That is, you can scale a vector image to any size and it will retain its sharpness, never pixelate, and retain its file size. SVG (scalable vector graphic) is a cross platform, standard vector file format that most modern web browsers are capable of displaying. If you want to get started in SVG graphics the free vector drawing app, Inkscape , saves images in this format natively (i.e. by default). However, if you've wanted to create animated vector graphics with user interactivity (or even just animated only) for the web, the go to tool was Adobe Flash (which is now Animate CC), and not much else. SVGator is changing all that with their cloud based, vector animation studio. Initially launched in 2017, SVGator evolved to version 2.0 in 2019 with a complete overhaul that is very