Night Sky's Basics Tutorial

Night Sky's Basics Tutorial

A Quick Thing About Pivot, Flash, EZToon, Any Animation Program:
-- I just wanna point out that some people that animate have their stk in one position, and snap it to another. In other words, Choppy.
A good thing to know is that Pivot will NOT animate for you. You have to make it do what you wanna do! Take the time to smooth the movements out. Not just snap it.
Hope this helped.


Lesson 1 -- Easing
Easing is the number one concept that Rookies seem to have trouble with, and believe me, it isn't that hard to fix! It
s simple to fix, but takes practice and patience to master.

Definition of Easing:
(there's alot of definitions of Easing, but I like this one the best)
[-verb] Easing
to move, shift, or be moved with great care.

What this means in terms of animating, is that your movements are handled with great care. You don't rush the movements making it look choppy and stiff, but you should handle it with great care so that the movement flows together into a big movement. In other words, the animation doesn't stop moving. [unless it's a stop-go style]
Example 1

This would be a GOOD easing animation test. See how the ball starts slowly off the first position, and picks up speed as it goes on? And then when it hits about the middle of the screen, it gradually gets slower, and slower, until it stops. This is just a practice example, others can be much more complicated, I.E - More than one easing point(s). {a punch}
There you have it, EASING.

Lesson 2 -- Stiffness
Stiffness, is an easy fault when it comes to animating. If you were trying to make a stiff video (dont do that) it would be EXTREAMLY EASY to do.

Definition of Stiffness:
(again, alot of definitions)
But i found a good one, lol.
[-adjective] Stiffness
-lacking ease and grace; awkward.

I like that one, because it goes almost along with easing. The movements just snap, and they have no physics, a good example to fix stiffness is a simple single-limbed animation. Like an Arm.
Exampe 2:

I got lazy here, but it's a good base. See how I eased more than once, and moved EVERY JOINT I COULD POSSIBLY MOVE IN ONE FRAME? It's not easy, but it's not hard with a bit of practice. There's not much to say about stiffness, for it may be the most complicated basic of them all.

Well, those are the two main basics that you should know. I will be updating this tutorial when I find more problems.
Hope I helped.

“Practice is the best of all instructors” - Publilius Syrus

Updating soon