and whats wrong with being realistic? :-/

Well I stand corrected. I didn't know it was possible to animate fast at a low fps.

Quote from fitzy

and whats wrong with being realistic? :-/

Monotony. If you don't at least try to apply some sort of style instead of concenctrate on how realistically you can get your character to throw a punch, people will be seeing the same thing over and over again. This applies to both the art of the animation as well as the movements.

Quote from Kitsune

I <3 smart people who know what they're talking about.

And last I heard, JC is a 16 fps person. That must be old though. Does anyone know his current fps?

I just finished my first 24 fps film for Rather Cheesy's Collaboration. I found it actually a lot more fulfilling to finish something like that. I normally animate at 16 fps. That means I animated a short that was 1.5 times the usual frames I make. It wasn't painful or anything, I didn't feel a difference in difficulty. It just took a bit longer because I felt ready to adjust with a slower motion path of things. So in my opinion, your mindset and patience really determines what fps suits you.

However, in the long run, I think that it may affect (or effect. idk) your skill if you animate more in a higher fps. It doesn't make you a better animator to just make a fps go up, but you draw a lot more frames (if its FBF) overall, thus, giving you more practice. My coach, however, tells me that practice doesn't make perfect, perfect practice makes perfect. So with that in my mind I'm not sure how well that part of the higher fps argument would stand.

Continue the discuss?

Noooooo way. He's at least a 22 fps animator. I believe he specified and said so in a comp or collab on SL.

Quote from fitzy

and whats wrong with being realistic? :-/

Well this may just be my personal taste, but realism, in animations, is lame.

Trying to imitate realistic physics, realistic weapons, realistic buildings and settings and all that wankery is just boring. I'd much rather watch a flash with some style and flair to it. Something with exagerrated movements, abstract art and backgrounds, things like that.

It gives a lot more room to be creative than just trying to mimic real life movements.

Well, what if someone is learning animation? Should they base what they're learning off of something familiar (like realism) before getting into the creative field?

Because now I feel bad for telling people who are still learning to emulate real life while making their physics and such. I am guilty.

*Gets Pendulum*

Quote from Kitsune

Well, what if someone is learning animation? Should they base what they're learning off of something familiar (like realism) before getting into the creative field?

Because now I feel bad for telling people who are still learning to emulate real life while making their physics and such. I am guilty.

*Gets Pendulum*

No, actually, your advice is very valid.

It's the same concept as how people wanting to draw caricatures or exaggerated facial features, will usually start by learning how to draw a realistic face. Or someone wanting to make an abstract art piece still should learn basic ideas of composition like balance and contrast instead of diving right in.

I mean, I don't have a problem with beginners animating stick figure fights, because they are a simple and common way to start out with animation. Animating basic fighting moves like punching and jumping serve as simple animating exercises that will help you gain some basic skills.

What bothers me is people who have been animating for years who still haven't moved on from doing stick fights, because a lot of them have amazing animating talents that are going to waste on uninspired, unmemorable animations. It's like learning every scale, every chord, and every bit of music theory imaginable on an instrument, but never using them to write a song. You may be respected as a player, but the musicians that are really remembered are those who took a chance and did something creative.

This is kind of off topic, but following Pirate's other post about stick figure animations, I thought I'd add something.

The thing I hate most about a lot of stick figure animators is that they try to make their animations look as anime as possible. You know, with the big squashed poligonal eyes, and even worse, they sometimes give them hair. And long flowing scarf things, too (no offense Tention). And then they add some cliched story about the main character who's shunned from society, but has some special hidden powers and his parents were murdered or captured or anything along those lines, so he goes and tries to take revenge on those who did it. It's really starting to become prominant in the stick figure animation society. Honestly, added an anime-like or angst-ridden feel to a stick figure animation is just really lame and uncreative. And it's starting to be taken up by all the uninspired stick figure animators out their obsessed with real worl physics and movements. So I guess this rant sort of ties in to the topic, then.

Quote from The Pirate

No, actually, your advice is very valid.

It's the same concept as how people wanting to draw caricatures or exaggerated facial features, will usually start by learning how to draw a realistic face. Or someone wanting to make an abstract art piece still should learn basic ideas of composition like balance and contrast instead of diving right in.

I mean, I don't have a problem with beginners animating stick figure fights, because they are a simple and common way to start out with animation. Animating basic fighting moves like punching and jumping serve as simple animating exercises that will help you gain some basic skills.

What bothers me is people who have been animating for years who still haven't moved on from doing stick fights, because a lot of them have amazing animating talents that are going to waste on uninspired, unmemorable animations. It's like learning every scale, every chord, and every bit of music theory imaginable on an instrument, but never using them to write a song. You may be respected as a player, but the musicians that are really remembered are those who took a chance and did something creative.

Hooray!!

*Escapes pendulum in time*

Makes sense Pirate.

Quote from Spazz

This is kind of off topic, but following Pirate's other post about stick figure animations, I thought I'd add something.

The thing I hate most about a lot of stick figure animators is that they try to make their animations look as anime as possible. You know, with the big squashed poligonal eyes, and even worse, they sometimes give them hair. And long flowing scarf things, too (no offense Tention). And then they add some cliched story about the main character who's shunned from society, but has some special hidden powers and his parents were murdered or captured or anything along those lines, so he goes and tries to take revenge on those who did it. It's really starting to become prominant in the stick figure animation society. Honestly, added an anime-like or angst-ridden feel to a stick figure animation is just really lame and uncreative. And it's starting to be taken up by all the uninspired stick figure animators out their obsessed with real worl physics and movements. So I guess this rant sort of ties in to the topic, then.

I feel you, my Brutha. :P

But I've noticed that too. I think I've seen 5 pivoters with scarf-flowing-in-the-unusually-strong-wind-with-anime-eyes-with-a-"cool"-look stickfigures

...

Actually any flash movie with a storyline that takes itself too seriously is just embarrassingly stupid. The same thing goes with including heavy metal songs, or linkin park songs or something like that to make the fight scene more "hardcore" I suppose. Honestly it just makes me laugh, like the kind of embarrassed laugh you get when you see a painfully campy b-movie.

The only people who can pull off a serious storyline in a stick figure flash are people like Oscar Johansson, who are good enough at creating atmosphere and cinematic effects to make a flash animation dramatic and serious without being cheesy. The castle series actually feels "epic" when you watch it, and unless you are good enough at flash to recreate that sense of tension, it's best to either omit storylines altogether, or have a rough storyline that isn't the main focus of the animation.

Quote from The Pirate

it's best to either omit storylines altogether, or have a rough storyline that isn't the main focus of the animation.

My new words to animate by.

:3

I'm a go animate now. All this talk of stories being useless in flash gets me in the mood to make a pointless Monochrome for my collab.

L8r. :P

Quote from The Pirate

Actually any flash movie with a storyline that takes itself too seriously is just embarrassingly stupid. The same thing goes with including heavy metal songs, or linkin park songs or something like that to make the fight scene more "hardcore" I suppose. Honestly it just makes me laugh, like the kind of embarrassed laugh you get when you see a painfully campy b-movie.

The only people who can pull off a serious storyline in a stick figure flash are people like Oscar Johansson, who are good enough at creating atmosphere and cinematic effects to make a flash animation dramatic and serious without being cheesy. The castle series actually feels "epic" when you watch it, and unless you are good enough at flash to recreate that sense of tension, it's best to either omit storylines altogether, or have a rough storyline that isn't the main focus of the animation.

well wat about if theres like this guy, and hes in a lab were maen scientists do expreriments on him and he escapes? thats a col one

Quote from Spazz

What does that have to do with being the best animator? Fluidity and physics mean nothing if you don't have the creativity to go with it. And that's just the thing, animators on this site today are too focused with how well someone can make a stick figure punch another stick figure or something. Anyone who can utilize what they have should be recognized, not those who crank it up to 60 and make a stick figure walk.

And for the record, just because someone uses a high frame rate it doesn't mean they won't resort to the blur filter in all their animations. Case in point: Jcamelo.

this thread isn't about the creativity portion of animating, because then FPS would have nothing to do with it. This thread is about how able the animators are a conveying the creativity in a skillful and fluid way. JCamelo isn't a prime example of an average high fps animator, and I'm not being a fanboy or anything, but you really put effort into insulting him in a lot of your posts where he isn't relevant. he's gone, people don't put James Moer in their posts for no reason, despite him being a total asshole.

back on topic: high frame rate makes it so you don't HAVE to put blurrs everywhere, because the veiwers eyes do it for you. having a faster animation makes it so you can put more details into the movements and not have to have people fill in the blanks for you. you can take people in the direction you want them to go, and have more control over what they see. problem is, at a high fps, you have to be better at filling in the blanks than the viewer's eyes, or else it wouldn't be worth it.

Quote from drocksta

this thread isn't about the creativity portion of animating, because then FPS would have nothing to do with it. This thread is about how able the animators are a conveying the creativity in a skillful and fluid way. JCamelo isn't a prime example of an average high fps animator, and I'm not being a fanboy or anything, but you really put effort into insulting him in a lot of your posts where he isn't relevant. he's gone, people don't put James Moer in their posts for no reason, despite him being a total asshole.

back on topic: high frame rate makes it so you don't HAVE to put blurrs everywhere, because the veiwers eyes do it for you. having a faster animation makes it so you can put more details into the movements and not have to have people fill in the blanks for you. you can take people in the direction you want them to go, and have more control over what they see. problem is, at a high fps, you have to be better at filling in the blanks than the viewer's eyes, or else it wouldn't be worth it.

You're obviously not seeing the connectiong in what I'm saying. And if you're not going to see it, then you might as well not post a rebuttal. The point is, many of the people who are in the mindstate that "the smoother the animation, the better" are the same people who are popping out cliched stick animations left and right. That's all fine and dandy if you're a beginning animator trying to learn the ropes, but if you've been at it for quite a while and you're still under that mentality, then that's not good. Creativity is the main part of animation, even if you're not the one behind the story itself. And in that second sentence, you pretty much just contradicted yourself.

"this thread isn't about the creativity portion of animating..."

"This thread is about how able the animators are a conveying the creativity in a skillful and fluid way."

Please tell me the difference between those two thoughts.

And exactly how many posts of mine have you read for you to say that I'm always cutting down on Jcamelo? Yes I know that JC isn't the only uninspired animator who uses a higher frame rate, but that who most people on this site are familiar with, so I used him as an example. Don't try to be a smartass. And what does his absense have to do with anything? Honestly...

And a smoother animation doesn't necessarily mean it's better. It depends on the style of the animation. A more sketchy looking style of animation wouldn't look best with smoother movements while a more solid style probably wouldn't look best at a higher frame rate. Adding in-between frames doesn't take that much skill, just a lot of patience. You can simply add in as many frames as possible to get the movements down and when you're finished, delete the necessary frames. With a lower frame rate, you need to know which frames to ommit to make it look good.

Quote from The Pirate

Yeah I agree with adrenaline in that stick figure animations generally suck.

People see "getting better" at flash as meaning they can animate a punch more realistically, or make blood particles better. And sure, you develop some animating skills by doing so, but stick fights are so lame and uninspired. People can't seem to grasp the idea that you can animate something besides characters fighting eachother. Or even if you want to make a fighting animation at least make something original and stylish, not a fight with real world guns and swords, drawn realistically, with realistic movements and physics, set to some heavy metal song.

Animation should be about creativity, and stick fights reduce everything to a formulaic process.

Or at least try to exaggerate something realistic. Hell, if you can make capoeira fighters realistically drawn beat each other up, and have the strength to pick up cars and other real-life objects, as well as stomp cracks into the ground, that would be pretty cool.

And although real-world weapons are always in these animations, so are generic coloured blobs used to represent different elements and whatnot.

I think once you can animate a decent stick video/fight, you should just move on to fullbody, because stick animation seems so..barren... to me.

Still, I would like to see more than just stick fights and deaths. The thing is, those kind of things are the ones that require the least amount of creativity to make.

Quote from The Pirate

Yeah I agree with adrenaline in that stick figure animations generally suck.

People see "getting better" at flash as meaning they can animate a punch more realistically, or make blood particles better. And sure, you develop some animating skills by doing so, but stick fights are so lame and uninspired. People can't seem to grasp the idea that you can animate something besides characters fighting eachother. Or even if you want to make a fighting animation at least make something original and stylish, not a fight with real world guns and swords, drawn realistically, with realistic movements and physics, set to some heavy metal song.

Animation should be about creativity, and stick fights reduce everything to a formulaic process.

Quote from Spazz

The thing I hate most about a lot of stick figure animators is that they try to make their animations look as anime as possible. You know, with the big squashed poligonal eyes, and even worse, they sometimes give them hair. And long flowing scarf things, too (no offense Tention). And then they add some cliched story about the main character who's shunned from society, but has some special hidden powers and his parents were murdered or captured or anything along those lines, so he goes and tries to take revenge on those who did it. It's really starting to become prominant in the stick figure animation society. Honestly, added an anime-like or angst-ridden feel to a stick figure animation is just really lame and uncreative. And it's starting to be taken up by all the uninspired stick figure animators out their obsessed with real worl physics and movements. So I guess this rant sort of ties in to the topic, then.

OH GOD YES.

Quote from The Pirate

Actually any flash movie with a storyline that takes itself too seriously is just embarrassingly stupid. The same thing goes with including heavy metal songs, or linkin park songs or something like that to make the fight scene more "hardcore" I suppose. Honestly it just makes me laugh, like the kind of embarrassed laugh you get when you see a painfully campy b-movie.

The only people who can pull off a serious storyline in a stick figure flash are people like Oscar Johansson, who are good enough at creating atmosphere and cinematic effects to make a flash animation dramatic and serious without being cheesy. The castle series actually feels "epic" when you watch it, and unless you are good enough at flash to recreate that sense of tension, it's best to either omit storylines altogether, or have a rough storyline that isn't the main focus of the animation.

Well, let's separate flash animation from stick animation, simply because stick animation is only a part of flash animation, but also applies to other methods of animating sticks.

But yes, a stick animation with a serious storyline tends to really get on my nerves, because it is just poorly accomplished.

However, animations with funny storylines, or playful ones like Counter-Stick or Stix, actually turn out decent because they feel playful and fun. Even I have considered making a stick video with a playful storyline, but all I have is ideas, and no skill. If anyone wants to collab with me on this (I give story and ideas, and they animate and whatnot.) they can PM me..


PS: Uber quote power.