Guys... I just cannot draw well at all in flash. Everything looks like it's drawn by a 4-year old. I don't want to have to buy a graphics tablet. Is there any way to use it with a touchpad or regular mouse?

Quote from poisonchocolate

Guys... I just cannot draw well at all in flash. Everything looks like it's drawn by a 4-year old. I don't want to have to buy a graphics tablet. Is there any way to use it with a touchpad or regular mouse?

Any way to use what?
Oh and there isnt anyway to make drawing easier unless you get the hang of it, just try to keep practicing and you'll get there

Any way to use flash with a touchpad, without a graphics tablet. I don't get how just time is going to make these terrible drawings look OK. Even with line tool it looks awful. I don't see any advantages over stykz right now.

Quote from poisonchocolate

Any way to use flash with a touchpad, without a graphics tablet. I don't get how just time is going to make these terrible drawings look OK. Even with line tool it looks awful. I don't see any advantages over stykz right now.

Well time can work, but practicing in making your hand still and stuff will and might work too..
But i dont get, are you on a PC ? Or what?
Cause i have a laptop so it automatically has a touchpad/trackpad

Quote from poisonchocolate

Yeah, I'm on a laptop, so I do have a touchpad. But I don't have a tablet, so I can't use a stylus or anything. A tablet is more like actual drawing, which I'm pretty good at. A touchpad is based on motion, and a tablet actually knows where on your screen you place your stylus.

I just can't draw a line even remotely close to straight/smooth.

EDIT:

So I've kind of been able to do a bit better stick construction. But Ipman, how the hell can you possible make yours look so good with a touchpad?

Hahaha well, I used to animate on a small computer before, it ws my sister's but then it got destroyed, so I carried the skill of animating on a touchpad on the other laptop of my brother... I got used to animating using a touchpad fast xD
And Plus, since I'm good at my hand, the closest thing to a tablet is a touchpad
But nice work on that stick construction there bro!

http://sta.sh/015sc339srxh

Feedback?

Quote from MaskedJester

http://sta.sh/015sc339srxh

Feedback?

its pretty nice, good job on the run!
you should work on how he looked down, like... move the body even a little..
but not much to CnC since it was just a run
Keep it up!

Okay, so I was trying to figure out how to handle a side-kick before I went to bed. (I stopped at the leg being fully extended.)

http://sta.sh/0tvbjcwr78v

So a couple of things:

1: Yes, I know the arms are a little weird. I kinda just threw them together without taking time to think about it.

2: Something that's bothering me is I can't seem to get sufficient force behind this. I want it to be a pretty strong kick. Like, if you get hit by this you're going to be knocked several feet back, flat on your back, gasping for air. I tried playing with the angle on the leg and the positioning of the body to make sure his momentum is carrying through, but it still feels really weak. How can I remedy this? I'm currently watching vids on YT to try to get an idea, but any help would be nice.

Quote from Unbounded

Okay, so I was trying to figure out how to handle a side-kick before I went to bed. (I stopped at the leg being fully extended.)

http://sta.sh/0tvbjcwr78v

So a couple of things:

1: Yes, I know the arms are a little weird. I kinda just threw them together without taking time to think about it.

2: Something that's bothering me is I can't seem to get sufficient force behind this. I want it to be a pretty strong kick. Like, if you get hit by this you're going to be knocked several feet back, flat on your back, gasping for air. I tried playing with the angle on the leg and the positioning of the body to make sure his momentum is carrying through, but it still feels really weak. How can I remedy this? I'm currently watching vids on YT to try to get an idea, but any help would be nice.

nice work, the head is quished though, it just botheres me.. anyway CnC time: (Zero Style hehe)

1.) The Leg looks like it goes back down right before the side kick, he should go straight to side-kicking, no need for stepping down the ground (unless you're doing a kick like a round-house kick)

2.) You should do spacing in order to make it look like it had more force, spacing is how far the leg was before it hit the guy.. (the previous frame before the hit) the bigger the spacing is, the harder the impact looks.. (but dont make the spacing too far, it will not look right.)

help me improve senpai
http://www.fastswf.com/msr5T8s

Quote from Holotor

help me improve senpai
http://www.fastswf.com/msr5T8s

The first punch looked like he just pushed him by a little... add some spaceing and force bro, make the guy act like he really got punched in the face hard!
and the last kick of the white guy needs work because he had no gravity when he jumped.. remember, the heavier he is the faster he falls.. they blue guy also needs gravity work on how he fell at the ending... its also wobbly at the parts he was running, try keeping the foot in the same place and just move the body.. try walking in real life and you;ll see the difference... also, he had an unbalanced pose at the start, try running like that in real life... and you'll fall.. just work on balance poses, gravity, force and spacing then you'll be fine

Quote from Unbounded

http://sta.sh/0r0xxdxpbt7

I know there's some issues with it like the wobbly torso and the slightly off legs (when he's facing the screen, and between the two sides it's not wholly consistent), and if you look at it too long the brain can get all messed up and see it reversing direction and such, but I'm still really proud of putting this together. It took a crapton of brain-busting for me to actually "get" how to do it.

So go for it! Cnc that thang.

1.) Okay, you don't make something look 3-D and then keep a 2-D line that isn't even moving with the perspective of the figure. If you can't animate the BG, then try to. If it's impossible, don't put a BG.

2.) Also, it doesn't look like he's rotating. It looks like he's moving from side to side. Rotating involves a lot of things to make it look like it actually is rotating. Shading, lighting, perspective, and others in which a stick figure doesn't have unless you make it. Unfortunately, it would take time and that, unless you're skilled enough and have knowledge on shading/lighting, it would be pretty hard. Your best bet is to let the BG show the viewers that the guy is rotating, in which, you didn't do.

3.) Why does he stop whenever he reaches the side? That makes it worse as rotating something as a loop shouldn't stop and go but flow all throughout.

Personal Note: Keep experimenting. It's good for you. Keep it up!

Quote from poisonchocolate

Yeah, I'm on a laptop, so I do have a touchpad. But I don't have a tablet, so I can't use a stylus or anything. A tablet is more like actual drawing, which I'm pretty good at. A touchpad is based on motion, and a tablet actually knows where on your screen you place your stylus.

I just can't draw a line even remotely close to straight/smooth.

EDIT:

So I've kind of been able to do a bit better stick construction. But Ipman, how the hell can you possible make yours look so good with a touchpad?

Buy a mouse and animate with that.

It will still be hard but at least it's easier. Also, I replied on your "Smooth lines" thread.

Quote from MaskedJester

http://sta.sh/015sc339srxh

Feedback?

Please refrain from making the intro long then showing only a run. It's a pain in the ass to rewatch the whole thing just to criticize that one run.

1.) Head movements. At the beginning, if he's going to look down, his body should at least move a bit. It doesn't have to be a lot but don't just make the head move.

2.) Stiff. Generally, the run is stiff. The back is not stretching, the arms are not striding, and the legs are not straightening themselves. Try running and see if you can run while bending your front leg.

3.) Resize. When he was somewhat standing at the beginning, he was tall. When he started running, he became so short. Keep the lengths consistent.

Personal note: No more crappy and unnecessary intro's. Especially on short animations like these. Go directly to the action you want to portray and practice so we don't get a headache watching it over and over again.

Quote from Unbounded

Okay, so I was trying to figure out how to handle a side-kick before I went to bed. (I stopped at the leg being fully extended.)

http://sta.sh/0tvbjcwr78v

So a couple of things:

1: Yes, I know the arms are a little weird. I kinda just threw them together without taking time to think about it.

2: Something that's bothering me is I can't seem to get sufficient force behind this. I want it to be a pretty strong kick. Like, if you get hit by this you're going to be knocked several feet back, flat on your back, gasping for air. I tried playing with the angle on the leg and the positioning of the body to make sure his momentum is carrying through, but it still feels really weak. How can I remedy this? I'm currently watching vids on YT to try to get an idea, but any help would be nice.

You can't get sufficient force on this because you're not spacing the frames right. Force generally includes the mass and the acceleration(F=ma). As you can see, it has a direct relationship, meaning increasing the mass or the acceleration, increases the force. If you want a strong force, then either increase the mass or speed up the acceleration.

For your case, you have to increase the speed. This means that the leg should have a big gap in the next frame compared to the previous to give an illusion that it's "Moving fast".

Here:
http://sta.sh/08hg9r2vl2c

Quote from Holotor

help me improve senpai
http://www.fastswf.com/msr5T8s

It's not loading for me.

Try:
1.) Fileize.com
2.) sta.sh
3.) megaswf.com

@Zero, Ipman thanks for the cnc! I noticed some of the stuff with the rotation afterwards. I guess I was just staring at it for so long it tricked me into thinking it was actually rotating. I'll work on it more later. As for the side kick, I guess I 'get' it, but I always feel too reluctant to not try to cover every frame for a motion. Guess I'll have to try getting over that.

Anyway, a new thing!

I generally have the most trouble when animating arms. I was trying to do a quick punch combo but I couldn't figure out how to 'follow through' with the motion properly so that it looked like it would be passing behind the figure, so I made this:

http://sta.sh/09lpygrr0jf

I tried to animate a bunch of frames so as to understand the general motion.
So, how is it? Is this generally what I want to do? Does it look weird? Throw that cnc my way.

Quote from Ipman

The first punch looked like he just pushed him by a little... add some spaceing and force bro, make the guy act like he really got punched in the face hard!
and the last kick of the white guy needs work because he had no gravity when he jumped.. remember, the heavier he is the faster he falls.. they blue guy also needs gravity work on how he fell at the ending... its also wobbly at the parts he was running, try keeping the foot in the same place and just move the body.. try walking in real life and you;ll see the difference... also, he had an unbalanced pose at the start, try running like that in real life... and you'll fall.. just work on balance poses, gravity, force and spacing then you'll be fine

the first punch was ment to be a weak punch ;-; did it on purpose
and about the jump, if you pause or play on slower speed if possible, u will see that he jumped with front leg
you can see it even on normal speed but it needs alittle more focus

i know i suck at running, i will practice on that
and i agree with the blue guys fall too, it was really bad
i just rushed the end

thanks for the CC doe <3 love u