Quote from Arch-Angel

I dind't read yours. I wasn't about to read the entire thread when it was mostly Nish trolling. My post was more aimed at Exilement and the like. I don't mean to point you out like such, Exile, but you're currently the only familiar name that comes to mind <3
After skimming through your post, Smile, I see where you were going and I don't feel that statement applies to you as much, However, I don't think you gave as specific of an answer as Hewbear was looking for.

I didn't go too specific because in my personal experience of interacting with stickfigure animators and watching stickfigure animations, there are those people who have focused on different things but I'd consider to be in the same "level" with each other. Like, your post focuses mainly on animating 2D-perspective stickfigures. There are others who might be in the same level but focused on other things like their effects, or their backgrounds, or their music synchronization, etc. I can argue that a low-inter can do angles and flashy effects (e.g. C3WhiteRose). Or pro doesn't particularly have choreography in their priority list (e.g. sj8).

My favorite RHG battle made by this generation of rising animators has a great example of animators being at the same level but focused on different aspects (or "zones" as I called it in my post).

The reason my sub categories didn't necessarily focus on things such as effects, angles, or backgrounds is because all of that becomes easier once the basic principle's are understood and executed better. I judge an animation by how good the movements are, not because there was an angle in one animation and not the other. Just because you drew a birds eye view scene for 50 frames, or an angled run or some shit, it does not mean you did it better than the 2-D aspects of the animation. This is precisely why I always advise people to not focus on angles, effects, or backgrounds until they have the fundamentals down better, which ultimately is around what would be considered med-inter in my opinion. It makes it a lot easier, and in the long run it hurts your animation if you do them poorly. Having said that, that doesn't mean you can't experiment around with it, because no one is going to be jesus at anything their first time.

i'm pretty sure i'm a high beginner at Flash 8 ô_o

Quote from EclairCat

i'm pretty sure i'm a high beginner at Flash 8 ô_o

Exhibit A!

Hewitt, I'm still confused when you said "Concrete Evidence" for the "Rankings". What kind of evidence are you looking for because this problem is really qualitative rather than quantitative.

Also, I'll just bring this up again, as you might have missed it:

Quote from Hewitt

2) Is there a step-by-step progression to take the tuts?

Do you mean tutorials, say "How to draw a stick", and the person follows it step-by-step then he progresses and gets better by following the steps without learning the concept?

I'm quite confused with this one. Can you expound this further?

Quote from EclairCat

i'm pretty sure i'm a high beginner at Flash 8 ô_o

yeah you don't really get to pick or guess what you think you are. Back in the day when we used to do the whole ranking thing you would have to make a thread asking to be ranked and the community would vote to decide. I doubt you've done that.

Quote from Arch-Angel

The reason my sub categories didn't necessarily focus on things such as effects, angles, or backgrounds is because all of that becomes easier once the basic principle's are understood and executed better. I judge an animation by how good the movements are, not because there was an angle in one animation and not the other. Just because you drew a birds eye view scene for 50 frames, or an angled run or some shit, it does not mean you did it better than the 2-D aspects of the animation. This is precisely why I always advise people to not focus on angles, effects, or backgrounds until they have the fundamentals down better, which ultimately is around what would be considered med-inter in my opinion. It makes it a lot easier, and in the long run it hurts your animation if you do them poorly. Having said that, that doesn't mean you can't experiment around with it, because no one is going to be jesus at anything their first time.

But is that really a way of classifying which "level" people fall under, animation skill-wise? What if someone else decided that they find animating smokes and trails and such to be more fun to animate, thus that person focused more on those instead of the movements of the stickfigures themselves? Would you still consider him low-beg even though his effects are spectacular just because the movements aren't up to par with how you think the higher level movements should look like?

Can I be corporal squad division 4?

Quote from Smile

But is that really a way of classifying which "level" people fall under, animation skill-wise? What if someone else decided that they find animating smokes and trails and such to be more fun to animate, thus that person focused more on those instead of the movements of the stickfigures themselves? Would you still consider him low-beg even though his effects are spectacular just because the movements aren't up to par with how you think the higher level movements should look like?

No because there's only so much that you can do with effects. I mean sure, if you feel like only animating effects, then that's fine whatever. But let's say you make a thirty second long animation and you ace the background and effects, but your figures look like they're on crack, you're still going to be ranked according to the worst bit in your animation. That's why I always tell noobs to forget effects and backgrounds until they're got movements and such down since they are more important. Plus, if you have the mental capacity you have some really nice looking effects, then you should have the same mental capacity to be able to recognize a movement when it looks jacked as fuck. I feel like they go hand in hand.

Quote from poppetje3D

Can I be corporal squad division 4?

No, you're only about a corporal squad division 2.

Quote from Arch-Angel

No because there's only so much that you can do with effects. I mean sure, if you feel like only animating effects, then that's fine whatever. But let's say you make a thirty second long animation and you ace the background and effects, but your figures look like they're on crack, you're still going to be ranked according to the worst bit in your animation. That's why I always tell noobs to forget effects and backgrounds until they're got movements and such down since they are more important. Plus, if you have the mental capacity you have some really nice looking effects, then you should have the same mental capacity to be able to recognize a movement when it looks jacked as fuck. I feel like they go hand in hand.

I mean DanicK or DK or whoever that guy was that rotoscoped Naruto had some nice looking effects (like the ones he didn't rotoscope were still pretty to look at), but the movements of his stickfigures weren't really that great but he was considered by a lot to be a pro. There are also some guys who have great movements but their effects aren't great or there aren't much effects on their animations, but they're held in the same amount of praise as DK was.

Quote from Arch-Angel

No because there's only so much that you can do with effects. I mean sure, if you feel like only animating effects, then that's fine whatever. But let's say you make a thirty second long animation and you ace the background and effects, but your figures look like they're on crack, you're still going to be ranked according to the worst bit in your animation. That's why I always tell noobs to forget effects and backgrounds until they're got movements and such down since they are more important. Plus, if you have the mental capacity you have some really nice looking effects, then you should have the same mental capacity to be able to recognize a movement when it looks jacked as fuck. I feel like they go hand in hand.

You can do a lot with effects. It’s just that on this forum movement of figures are more heavily emphasized.

Take these two Persona trailers for example (ignore the characters for a moment):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPqSkzNNPIg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7H5pYCw4ET4
Now I have no solid proof of this, but it feels as though the guy doing the background effects and text may not even be the one animating the dances. I am willing to argue that you do not need to understand the complexities of human movement and physics in order to accomplish what was done there.

You can either be the jack of all trades or master of one. While this is not a hard set law there is some truth behind it. Why not level up one skill tree all the way up first and then begin building up the other ones up later considering they may be mutually exclusive? If this were the case, you assess the animator not on all of his skills collectively, but that one area he is specialising in. You wouldn’t call a sushi chef a noob chef because he can’t cook a steak.

I mentioned the idea about being collaborative. If someone was purely dedicated to effects, they can help other animators with their animations who are more experienced with movement. That way rather then burdening their well polished effects with their shitty figures, you can enhance someone else's work.

What is considered important is relative. It is dependent on your goals. Of course I agree that it is stupid if you expect to get good at animating stickfigures when you purely animate smoke. But if you want to get good at smoke. REALLY GOOD. You would animate smoke.

As for assessing the product as a whole, you can see it from two angles. You can either see the shitty figures as detracting from the fx and thus having a worse product; which you seemed to follow. Or you can see that the smoke adds to the shitty figures; or at the very least it doesn't hurt it. In fact I would argue that shitty effects takes away from a well animated figure since obviously the point of interest is the character. Take for example those Chinese martial arts movie with excellent choreography and then flop out some shitty SHITTY 3rd world last minute jarring effects.