Question about limited animation

[brooklyn]

in the previous thread someone said that limied animation used in naruto
can you explain how? for example how to animate the chidori

which is very coplicated because of the lightnings.... is it effect or really drawing?

[Paul Fierlinger]

This is the first sample I've watched; not exactly my cup of coffee, but I'd hesitate to call this limited animation. There's quite a bit of skillful drawing involved and a lot of clever editing. There's years of experience showing through, that's for sure. The lightning flashes are computer generated effects and I believe these can be done with TVP, though I've never had a need to try it.

[idragosani]

Lightning is actually fairly easy to animate as a hand-drawn effect. At any rate, for this kind of animation with multiple elements, you'd have one animator doing the character and effects animators doing the lightning and smoke as separate elements, rather than one animator doing it all. I don't know the production details of this particular show or whether or not it's done digitally (probably, Retas animation software is very popular in Japan).

There are plenty of resources out there on the details of how animation is produced, such as the Tony White book mentioned in the previous thread.

[brooklyn]

ok thanks for the replies
can you try to do something like this on TVP? i tried to figure out how to do this on TVP but i couldn't find out... it's dont have to be perfect i just want to know if this effect of lightning can be done in TVP..

[Paul Fierlinger]

Which version of TVP do you have?

[brooklyn]

right now i have 9 pro

[idragosani]

Here's some lightning I did a few weeks ago with TVPaint 10... hand-drawn and colored, the only effect was some blur and glow. I used sidewalk cracks as reference, too, great way to draw lightning.

[brooklyn]

wow nice lightning where i can find this sidewalk cracks effect??
and by the way as you saw in the video when he does the chidori the lightning are moving
so do i have to draw some lightnings and then draw them again over and over? (and change them a bit)
or there is effect that i can use to do this???

[slowtiger]

where i can find this sidewalk cracks effect??

I'm sorry, but this is the wrong approach. Animation, whatever style, is not about "where is the button to create this result?". Animation is about lots of drawing, or lots of training in whatever you animate (CGI, clay, stop motion), and a good knowledge about the whole field. You should start with one of the books I've mentioned elsewhere, I'm sure you have a library around, or you could buy at amazon. Then you need to do it all by yourself, at least once: figure out how to do a lighting stroke, smoke, water, whatever. There's books about special animation as well, but they only show you examples - they don't come with a software which magically creates that stuff for you.

[idragosani]

wow nice lightning where i can find this sidewalk cracks effect??
and by the way as you saw in the video when he does the chidori the lightning are moving
so do i have to draw some lightnings and then draw them again over and over? (and change them a bit)
or there is effect that i can use to do this???

There's no special effect, I found pictures of sidewalk cracks via Google and used it as a reference. And then drew it frame by frame. There is one frame that is a "color card" that is just a frame filled with a single color followed by a blank frame to give the illusion of that blast of light. Nothing there that couldn't have been done 50 years ago using traditional animation techniques.

[brooklyn]

yes you right i just try to draw as less as possible because i dont have tablet so it's hard with the mouse draw it over again (although i have skill of drawing)
so i want to learn as much as i can which effects can i use in order to save time and hard work

[idragosani]

If you're interested in a more in-depth look at animated effects, this site offers a relatively inexpensive online course in the subject:

http://bitey.com/category/bca/fx-animation/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

While the author of the course uses Toon Boom in his instructional videos, a lot of people in the course are using TVPaint (like me!) and the techniques shown are all traditional techniques and don't rely on any automatic effects or CG.

[idragosani]

yes you right i just try to draw as less as possible because i dont have tablet so it's hard with the mouse draw it over again (although i have skill of drawing)
so i want to learn as much as i can which effects can i use in order to save time and hard work

Get yourself a tablet! Or go the really traditional route and draw with pencil and paper and scan the drawings in.

[Elodie]

I moved the thread : it has nothing to do in Technical questions about TVPaint

[artfx]

If you look closely at Sasuke's chidori technique, you will often see there are only 3 or 4 drawings of the lightning cycled over and over, depending on the camera angle and the motion he is doing. Lightning by itself doesn't need very many drawings. If you look at real lightning captured on film, the effect can be duplicated using one or two drawings.

The easiest way to do this effect in TVP is the draw your lighting as solid white with the pen tool, or, if very large, you can use the filled stroke tool. After that, the FX Stack can be used to apply glow, maybe even more than one, and blur effects. This technique works for many types of magic effects.