Animation and Video Life

Importing my character into CA5 for the first time. In part three of my series where I document the process of creating my very first, complete G3-360, SVG vector based character for Cartoon Animator 5 using Inkscape I get to the moment of truth - importing the character into CA5 for the very first time. In previous posts I showed how I came up with the character design and created the base character image, and how I created the individual main sprites and created the joints ready for rigging. Moving on... Creating an Outfit and Additional Face Sprites I mentioned previously that I wasn't just creating a female character in a bikini for the eye catching attention. I always planned to give her an outfit that was smart business attire.  My reference image for the character's business outfit. Right on the very next page of my sketchbook I drew what could easily be the same character in a smart business orientated outfit. So I took this sketch, overlaid it onto my character desi

I'm not known for my super fast character design for Cartoon Animator. It's why I constantly look for short cuts in rigging characters because I get bored or distract... squirrel! In this second post on rigging my first, complete G3-SVG vector character I'll run you through how I take my initial, 'inked' using Inkscape design, from part 1 of this series , and break it up into the key sprite body parts. Marking the Joints The main image for this post at the top of the article is a little deceptive as it shows a composite of my, mostly, complete character divided in half so you can see the underlying vector lines - totally for effect to create an interesting image. Imagine this image is still just the half image I traced and colored from last time. The next step is to create a joint layer and mark where all my joints (i.e. bone points) will be with my semi-transparent circular crosshairs that you can see in the image. But only on one side, remember. All of this will b

D esigning original characters for Reallusion's Cartoon Animator is a relatively easy process because, for the most part, you only really need one final, front facing image of your character design in a T-pose. Using that pose as a base, you can build out a turn-able head (with perhaps a few additional sprites depending upon your needs), and a three quarter facing body, which is enough to allow the character to walk across the stage without looking weird. In what will be a series of posts, I thought you may find it interesting to go behind the scenes as I design and rig a character for Cartoon Animator from the very beginning stage to a fully rigged G3-SVG character. Choosing a Design The character I'm creating is a bikini clad, blonde haired, woman, not just for the sake of drawing a scantily clad woman. Cartoon Animator's new Color Management tools allows you to create clothing systems for your characters where items can be added or removed just by changing color opacity.

Level up you video edits and animations with AE Juice's motion graphics and templates. Some days you just don't have the time to create flashy motion graphics for your latest video or animation. For some of us it's more a question of our own artistic abilities being a little less than the awesome we'd like them to be. Whatever reason a resource like AE Juice's animation presets, motion graphics, templates, and transitions packs for After Effects , Premiere Pro , and other video applications can really make your work stand out very quickly. AE Juice gives you access to an instant library of free, premade content elements and sound effects, which you can add to with additional purchases of various themed packs from their store. There are three ways to manage their content, all of which can be used in commercial projects . The AE Juice Standalone Package Manager makes it easy to browse previews of all your pack contents and to download and find just the elements yo

Or you could just buy The Lazy Animator Beginner's Guide to Cartoon Animator . While Reallusion's Cartoon Animator is one of the easiest 2D animation studios to get up and running with quickly, learning it from all of the official, free, video tutorials can be more overwhelming than helpful. With more than 137 videos totaling more than 28 and a half hours of tutorials, spread across three generations of the software (Cartoon Animator 3 through 5) it's hard to know if what you're learning is a current or legacy feature that you either need to know or can be skipped. Many of the official tutorials only teach specific features of the software and don't relate at all to previous or later tutorials. As a result there are many features either not mentioned or are hard to find. To make your learning easier, on this page, I've collected together all of the essential, official, free video tutorials and sorted them into a learning order that makes sense. Simply start at