Digital Animation - Getting Started - Help?

[Pea]

So far have been recommended Wacom tablets. Good, bad? I had one long, long, loooong ago and believe it's been discarded in one of many moves, but it was old and small and way behind the times anyway. Also looking at all different software but not sure where to start. In my limited experience so far I have preferred photoshop to corel (I had PS7 and Corel Painter X.) So wondering if it's cool to stick with PS, the expense is a turn off as this would be purely recreational but I don't want shit to be harder than it has to be either.

 

Also, anyone that has experience with sound programs for music, sound effects and maybe even voice altering so I could voice different characters without being too obvious... I would GREATLY appreciate a direction to turn.

 

I'll be consulting the Google God but I take personal recommendations to heart a lot more for obvious reasons, lol.

 

 

Basically the kind of things I am hoping to animate would be flash videos. They'd probably end up being Baman Piderman quality, with the goal of one day being homestarrunner quality. XP

 

Again, just looking for recreational use so not trying to break the bank, but don't want things overly complicated by cutting corners either. Just want the internet to experience my brain a bit and see how it likes it. ;)

[Kat]

I'm a huge fan of Wacom. I have had two different tablets. Most recently, I got one from the Intuos line. Stunning piece of equipment.

 

I do all my art work on Photoshop CS4. I do still pieces though, no animation. So I can't really say what to reccomend in that respect. I don't know much about the sound programs either.

 

Best thing I can tell you is to check out some online animated comics and ask the creator what they are using. Even though it might be more intense than what you are looking for they might be able to point you in the right direction.

 

 

I can't wait to see what you come up with. I know you will drop nuggets of awesome all over the place.

[Pea]

Thanks Kat, I will try doing that and see what comes up and update it here in case anyone else is interested. Lol, dropping nuggets of awesome sounds like poop. YAY POOP!

[Philip]

I wouldn't ever pay full price for photoshop if you know what I mean... Photoshop is an all around better graphics application, but corel painter is genuinely quite good for just painting (which doesn't sound the answer to what you want, so photoshop it is).

 

Wacom tablets are great. I have an a5 sized intuos 3 and I can write ok on it. I just had to get used to the speed. They're great even for the simple things like cutting out an image. Mice move awkwardly, and setting them to move slowly is annoying when switching to normal desktop use. I'm pretty sure you'll find more uses for a tablet once you get one. I've had my tablet years now, and it hasn't really outdated like every other bit of hardware. That's quite comforting, I think. There's nothing more annoying than buying something and a week later something 100 times better is out. My only complaint is that I bought my wacom before everything went widescreen. This means that I have to prevent the use of about an inch of the pad, otherwise when I draw a circle on the pad, it comes out an oval on screen. Try to get a wide screen tablet.

 

 

Jumping ahead a bit here, but if you're using windows 7, there's quite a few tweaks you can do to prevent some of the annoying issues with a tablet, for example there's a little ring that shows up around the cursor. So if and when you do get a tablet and you see these rings, don't worry about them!

Edited January 7, 2012 by Philip

[Pea]

Thanks! I will be using Win7 so that is good to know, I should add that to the first post. I have heard not to pay full price *cough* for PS but I don't know how to go about getting it not full price, lol. @_@

 

I think Deg used to mess around with some kind of digital synthesizer sorta thingy so I am gonna try asking him about that.

 

And definitely appreciate the widescreen tip, I wouldn't have thought of that. :icon_happy:

[Pic0o]

I forgot to mention Cool Edit Pro or Cool Edit 32 are big winners in the audio editing front via my musician buddy. Sadly, the older versions don't work in Windows 7 and I'm not sure if there is a newer build out. I think the biggest issue with audio software is features, blended with functionality and a good interface. Most other audio apps tend to be bloated and clunky to work with.

 

If I see a newer version or way to get the older one working in 7, I'll let you know.

[Pea]

Thanks Pic0o! I'll start looking those up when I get a chance and see what I find and will definitely appreciate any more info if you get any. :icon_laugh:

[Pea]

So I didn't use any real animation techniques but I did make my first video finally! :D I'll probably link it in the SWTOR thread too but yea... you should watch it and not judge too harshly. Using Windows Live Movie Maker was a walk through Hell.

 

Video Removed

[Philip]

I really like it. I've not played the game at all, so those dance animations are completely new to me, they're funny :P.

[Pea]

Thanks! I actually removed that video and cut it down about a minute shorter. It just seemed so lengthy and kind of boring in the middle. I got worried a lot of people wouldn't watch the whole thing, as that's something I do frequently if a video seems to drag on. And I felt like the end had some really good scenes. So cutting out the middle seemed to help, but most of the beginning is the exact same since I loved it as it was, lol.

 

So this is the not brokey link: