Toon Boom Studio is a powerful and flexible professional animation packages that should make your creations come to life.
The other big advantage that Toon Boom Studio offers is that you don't need to learn how to animate in Flash to use it. Export formats are fairly flexible too including Flash (SWF), QuickTime, DV Stream and AVI. There are also zoom in and out features, the ability to create 3D spaces and to scale and rotate your creations until they're exactly right.
To make things look more realistic, there's a lip sync analyzer to make sure your characters lip-sync in time. You can bring life to your animations with sound (in WAV, AIFF, MP3 format).
The aim of the studio is to make animation on your PC as natural as drawing with pen and paper. Positioning the pivot between the feet is often a good option.Toon Boom Studio allows you to import media such as templates, movies and photos in SWF, AI, PSD, JPEG, TGA and GIF format. This is generally located at the centre of the drawing.ĭo not forget to do this for your master peg.
Do not forget to set a pivot for the eyes and mouth. In the Camera view, rotate the part to see if the point is well positioned. In the Camera view, click the green pivot point and drag it to a new position. Scale: The pivot point applies to scaling only.īoth: The pivot point applies to both rotation and scaling. Rotation: The pivot point applies to rotation only. In the Properties, decide how you want to apply the pivot: In the Properties view, select the Properties tab. In the Timeline or Camera view, select the first layer on which to set the pivot. In the Animation Tools toolbar, select the Rotate tool. For example, if you are animating a spider, study a real spider or a film of a spider moving to determine where you should place the pivot points correctly in your animation. You can apply this technique to anything you want to animate that contains a joint or pivot. The pivot point for the forearm will be the elbow, etc. So, the pivot point for the puppet's arm must be located at the shoulder. If you are moving an arm, notice that your own arm rotates from the shoulder. To know where to position a pivot point, think of your own body. The pivot is the point from which the body part will rotate they generally correspond to an articulation. In order for your pieces to rotate properly, it is important to set the pivots at the right location. Toon Boom Studio isn’t a use-out-of-the-box application you have to delve into the documentation (in addition to the docs that ship with the program, the Toon Boom Animation website is loaded with helpful tutorials and user forums). In the Timeline view, select all your puppet's layers.Īll the layers are connected to the peg and moved slightly to the right. Version 4 also includes feathered edges and the ability to import Illustrator files with layers intact. In the Timeline view, click the Add Parent Peg button.ĭouble-click the new Peg and name it m圜haracterName-Peg. For example, you could animate your puppet walking on the spot then use the Master Peg to get it to move from left to right. t is also used when you want to scale the entire character up or down without doing it on each individual piece. This is a trajectory on which you attach your puppet to make it travel through your scene. You can also use the key to send the drawing backward.Ī good element to add to your puppet is a Master Peg. If you press on the key several times, the drawing will move forward even more. Doing so moves the drawing very slightly forward. Hold down the key and press the key to nudge the drawing forward. In the Camera view, select the part to bring in front. In the Animation Tools toolbar, select the Transform tool. If the piece you connected is supposed to be in front of the layer it is attached to, you can push it in front using a keyboard shortcut, which is explained below. Repeat this process until every piece is connected. Once the layer is attached to another one, it is pushed to the right. For example, select the forearm layer to attach it to the upper arm.ĭrag the selected layer ONTO the one you want to attach it to. In the Timeline view, select the layer you want to attach to another one. To attach a layer to another one, drag the layers one onto the other in the Timeline view. To do this, you must attach the forearm to the upper arm and the hand to the forearm.
When you animate, you will often want the forearm and hand to follow the upper arm when you select and move it. To reorder parented layers, see Ordering Parented Layers.