Quote from game smack productions

One of my first pivots.

Hello, I see you're new to Pivot and that's nice to see because it's good that somebody new is interested in this program.
It's a very simple program but you can go very far with it.
Well, if you compare your animation to the animations of people who're on this for a while now, you'll see that yours... can't keep up with those, but that's normal, you can't be born a master.
There are some keywords you'll hear all the time. One of them is smoothness. It means that the movements are smooth and look very realistic, without being choppy and looking totally unreal. To do this, you need to make a movement many frames long. You need to animate the frames between a foot on the ground and a foot in a face instead of both those two. To give you a hint, I used to make my kicks about 6-9 frames long when I still animated.
Yes this takes time, but there's no need to
rush your animations. If you're fed up for a moment, save the animation
and continue somewhen else. That's just normal, everybody works that
way.
Then, there's the stiffness. See, what you do is just move the limb that's used for the thing, like a leg for a kick or an arm for a punch. But that's not good, you
should look at yourself in front of a mirror, punching. The movement of
your arm affects other parts of your body, they move, too. Try to get this into an animation.
Then, easing is hard to explain. What you do is animate a movement and then just stop. It's like this:

|--|--|--|--|--|--|--|--|--|

But that's unrealistic. When animating, make the movements start slowly, then get faster and then calm down again, like this:

|-|--|---|----|---|--|-||


It's a bit hard to explain but I hope you get it.
Going into more detail;
1. Basics
Basics include easing, smoothness, basic
movements, stiffness, jerkiness, and physics. Practice these before
moving on to more difficult things like effects, storyline animations,
and other things that you won't be able to do at your current level.

I.
Easing: Easing in an animation is when an object or limb gradually move
faster, then slows down. This basic is hard to explain in words, so
I'll try to show you with text.
This is an uneased example. (|= Frame, -= Space)
|--|--|--|--|--|
See how the spacing stays ,the same throughtout the whole thing? That makes that particular movement unnatural.

This is an eased example.
|-|--|---|----|---|--|-|
Notice how the spacing gradually becomes bigger than smaller? That's what easing is.

II.
Smoothness: This is exactly what it sounds like. To make your animation
less choppy and make it more fluid. It really is easy to fix, simply by
adding more frames to movements. A 3 frame run will be really choppy,
but a 8 frame run will be less choppy if animated correctly. Which
brings me to my next point. Movements.

III. Basic Movements:
These include running, walking, jumping, punching, kicking, etc.
Practice animating these in simple tests with simple stks, then put
them together to make more complex animations like fight sequences. If
you're having trouble making you're movements realistically, find a
video with the particular movement you're trying to animate, and try to
imitate that. Or find a mirror and watch yourself.

IV.
Stiffness: Stiffness is when the stickman you animated looks stiff and
unrealistic. This may occur because you did not move the backbone that
much (probably because you're using the default) or you just neglected
to move one the limbs. To fix this, just try to move ALL the limbs in
every frame, no matter how small the movement. Make sure to ease the
movements though.

V. Jerkiness: Jerkiness occurs when you move a
limb suddenly for an amount that is noticable to the human eye.
Basically, you completely through easing out the window and just moved
a limb to a location with no frames in between.

VI. Physics:
This basic is probably the most lenient, because some animators ignore
this and make cartoony animations, which have pretty wacky physics. But
until you develop a style of animating, just stick with normal physics,
or else some animators may call you lazy.

i would honestly say around beginners, you have alot to learn and perfect before you move onto intermediates.

Quote from zawmbee

Hello, I see you're new to Pivot and that's nice to see because it's good that somebody new is interested in this program.
It's a very simple program but you can go very far with it.
Well, if you compare your animation to the animations of people who're on this for a while now, you'll see that yours... can't keep up with those, but that's normal, you can't be born a master.
There are some keywords you'll hear all the time. One of them is smoothness. It means that the movements are smooth and look very realistic, without being choppy and looking totally unreal. To do this, you need to make a movement many frames long. You need to animate the frames between a foot on the ground and a foot in a face instead of both those two. To give you a hint, I used to make my kicks about 6-9 frames long when I still animated.
Yes this takes time, but there's no need to
rush your animations. If you're fed up for a moment, save the animation
and continue somewhen else. That's just normal, everybody works that
way.
Then, there's the stiffness. See, what you do is just move the limb that's used for the thing, like a leg for a kick or an arm for a punch. But that's not good, you
should look at yourself in front of a mirror, punching. The movement of
your arm affects other parts of your body, they move, too. Try to get this into an animation.
Then, easing is hard to explain. What you do is animate a movement and then just stop. It's like this:

|--|--|--|--|--|--|--|--|--|

But that's unrealistic. When animating, make the movements start slowly, then get faster and then calm down again, like this:

|-|--|---|----|---|--|-||


It's a bit hard to explain but I hope you get it.
Going into more detail;
1. Basics
Basics include easing, smoothness, basic
movements, stiffness, jerkiness, and physics. Practice these before
moving on to more difficult things like effects, storyline animations,
and other things that you won't be able to do at your current level.

I.
Easing: Easing in an animation is when an object or limb gradually move
faster, then slows down. This basic is hard to explain in words, so
I'll try to show you with text.
This is an uneased example. (|= Frame, -= Space)
|--|--|--|--|--|
See how the spacing stays ,the same throughtout the whole thing? That makes that particular movement unnatural.

This is an eased example.
|-|--|---|----|---|--|-|
Notice how the spacing gradually becomes bigger than smaller? That's what easing is.

II.
Smoothness: This is exactly what it sounds like. To make your animation
less choppy and make it more fluid. It really is easy to fix, simply by
adding more frames to movements. A 3 frame run will be really choppy,
but a 8 frame run will be less choppy if animated correctly. Which
brings me to my next point. Movements.

III. Basic Movements:
These include running, walking, jumping, punching, kicking, etc.
Practice animating these in simple tests with simple stks, then put
them together to make more complex animations like fight sequences. If
you're having trouble making you're movements realistically, find a
video with the particular movement you're trying to animate, and try to
imitate that. Or find a mirror and watch yourself.

IV.
Stiffness: Stiffness is when the stickman you animated looks stiff and
unrealistic. This may occur because you did not move the backbone that
much (probably because you're using the default) or you just neglected
to move one the limbs. To fix this, just try to move ALL the limbs in
every frame, no matter how small the movement. Make sure to ease the
movements though.

V. Jerkiness: Jerkiness occurs when you move a
limb suddenly for an amount that is noticable to the human eye.
Basically, you completely through easing out the window and just moved
a limb to a location with no frames in between.

VI. Physics:
This basic is probably the most lenient, because some animators ignore
this and make cartoony animations, which have pretty wacky physics. But
until you develop a style of animating, just stick with normal physics,
or else some animators may call you lazy.

i would honestly say around beginners, you have alot to learn and perfect before you move onto intermediates.

Copy and pasted?
:3
Thanks anyways.

It's the traditional SPP welcome copy and pasta.

Seriously, must I post this EVERY page?

Once again, this was supposed to be fast, and it's also how it was supposed to be animated, but it turned out slow due to the gif format and the fact that I didn't use Pivot 3, which is why it is extremely choppy(though it seems like "easing" is the new "choppy" of SPP. >_>)

Quote from shackel11

Seriously, must I post this EVERY page?

Once again, this was supposed to be fast, and it's also how it was supposed to be animated, but it turned out slow due to the gif format and the fact that I didn't use Pivot 3, which is why it is extremely choppy(though it seems like "easing" is the new "choppy" of SPP. >_>)

Are you setting the frame delay to 6 when you save it?

Yep. Then I set it to 5, then 4, then 3, and so on.

Nothing changed. D:

notice that when he (the orange guy) turns around, all he's doing is rotating. >:P
Can any one help me make that a bit more realistic because i have no idea where to begin. :(

Quote from game smack productions

Are you setting the frame delay to 6 when you save it?

then uncheck everything except merge.plus since its slow,i know u havent eased
@izacque:u know what stiffness is,right?
try moving every joint in a frame, and ease all of them
or go to PA and request a backlip tut

Pa?? .

Pivot Animation(site)

Still technically my first day.

Quote from izacque

notice that when he (the orange guy) turns around, all he's doing is rotating. >:P
Can any one help me make that a bit more realistic because i have no idea where to begin. :(

the walk is bad, work on physics

Quote from goldcrazyman

Still technically my first day.

at the start it's weird because the step forward looks so, kick combo is quiet good, but a bit fast and stiff, fade is a bit strange(color change)

k,stiff, but pretty good for ur first day.and the fade needed to be worked on....im guessing u use flash.

here is my first one in a while hope u like it check it out and happy new year.





umm i know its a TAD bit slower i just couldnt raise the Frame rate just right..