preston blair: how to animate
Posted by dermot on February 4, 2009 at 4:25 pmEvery animation student should have a copy of “How to Animate” by Preston Blair - a book that’s trained countless animators over the decades. Here’s a sample page to give you a taste:
Go to the ASIFA website to download both volumes, for free:
Volume 1
Volume 2
Click on the different images at the linked site for larger [...]
animation tutorial-4: flash walk cycle
Posted by dermot on November 4, 2008 at 1:35 amHere’s part 1 of 4 part video tutorial that I made a few months ago. It shows you how to animate a walk cycle in Flash, using shape tweening and motion tweening:
animation tutorial-3 : dialog
Posted by dermot on November 1, 2008 at 1:26 am The principles explained in this tutorial can be applied to 3D or Flash animation. For the purposes of this tutorial, I’ll deal with six basic static shapes. Using these shapes, you’ll be able to animate any line of dialog.NOTE: The AF system of dialog animation was developed by companies like Hanna [...]
animation tutorial-2 : walk cycle
Posted by dermot on November 1, 2008 at 12:07 amMost sane people have a fear of animating walk cycles. Many events are happening at the same time, and it can seem overwhelming. A single mistake on your first drawing can wreck the rest of the scene. However, the process can be broken down into a series of steps which can [...]
animation tutorial-1 : bouncing ball
Posted by dermot on October 31, 2008 at 4:30 amNOTE: I wrote this tutorial in 2000, and intended it for students learning traditional, hand-drawn animation. Nevertheless, the principles can be adapted to Flash or 3D animation. The main tutorial page is here (there’s a walk cycle tuturial, and I’ll be adding Flash lessons soon).
This exercise will teach you the most [...]