Classic animation involves the drawing of frames that are each a little different from the previous to give the illusion of movlment. since the eye can only really effectivly pick out 24 frames per second, animation is generally shown to us at this frame rate. this means that there are 24 drawing fully painted per second. this is an arduous task as it takes several animation artists many many hours to compile a working scene. it is not all as simple though. sometimes the producers and directors may change their minds on a scene and it needs to be drawn again.

shooting an animated picture is in many ways similar to making a movie. you have producers and directors that plan the story boards for the film. ontop of that they have to work with the animators to produce a dope sheet that acts like a script for timing. animation is riddled with far more timeing concerns than film. in the case of film, your actors are already programed to say there thing, do their action and the camera picks it up. for animation this is far far more intensive as this is all up to the animators to accomplish. for this task, the dialoge and sound effects are prerecorded to give the animators an idea of the timeing for events or changes in a figure. a well animated picture will have many subtle movments that you may not notice that will bring it to life more. this is done useing the dope sheet and story board. with the timing for actions figured out down to the 24th of a second, keyframes can be drawn and then the spaces filled with support frames. the keyframes, just like in 3d animation are indications of extreme''s in the movement. when these key frames are filled in with secondary frames between them, we get the illusion of movement. now this all occurs with a pencil, no painting has been done and very rarely does it ever untill the whole movie is seen in pencil. this is where the repairs can be done. if it all works, the frames are traced to cellaphane and painted. they are then shot of a rhotoscope camera oine frame at a time. this camera uses the same film as the movies but it only opens the apature one frame at a time instead of a constant rate. that constant rate is what makes the individual frames in movies to look all blured and distorted. since the camera is not filming an actuall moving object, there is no blur in animation but sadly, that link to realism is also lost. there are other ways of doing this though. in the "empire strikes back" they used model animation to make the battle at hoth. by incrimentally moving pieces of the models and then shooting the scene like any animation, it looked very real. but they also used a techniqe called go motion. this makes the camera jolt a little when the apature is open. this makes the frame a little blury. this is why the translation between frames in some movies is so good. with the advent of digital imaging and more and more movies, hand drawn and otherwise being made on this platform, other inovations are made available. on a computer, the frame rate is not set in stone. you can speed them up to make the animation smoother and more organic. with camera''s this was not possible as broadcast tape media was not able to display anymore than 30 frames per second. in the theater the projector can go much faster, up to 60, but this would not be possible in a home setting. in any event, with computer technology, we can capture more frames and show it at a faster frame rate. with this, we can write to display media at that speed and since the media will only go so high, we get motion blur as frames start to merge with others.so, for smooth organic animation, 48 frames per second is prefered as it will condense later and it will look all spiffy. nowadays most people paint and actully animate on the pc as it is faster and cheaper than classic photogrophy but the quality in my mind is not as high. colors are just not as vibrant on a monitor as they would be with classic paint and the hands on portion of the craft is sort of dead. disney animators use a combination of classic drawing and digital compositing now as im many of there recent movies ie: "tarzan" and the more recent "the emperors new groove"
have mealded hand drawn and painted characters over 3d rendered backgrounds. the latest visual master "dinosaur" combined 3d modeled characters over real life backings. there is lots of room for expansion. as much as the 3d art is starting to sweep in, classic animation productions are still taking people''s breaths away.

I am not text, I am not organized pixels, I am not killed by turning off your monitor, I am not isolated by turning off your computer. I just am.

Conshape Electronic Arts

Animation is fricking hard! Look at the credits of a disney movie such as Mulan or something like that. There''s around 20 animators, color coordintors, background artist..etc etc. More than 50 ppl having to do with the art aspect and movies such as Mulan takes around 2-3 years in the making. I think you caN understand how tough it is now.
Fantasy Edge, 24 fps? For a beginner like me, I trying to make an animation of my own and so far I''ve got 102 pages of drawin of him doing some slashes. It''s about 15 seconds. (I repeat some frames, heheh, just like dbz to make it last longer) About halfway I got sick of him and went to sleep. It''s a boring and hardass task. But, it''ll really help you out if you have a small animation in your portfolio. Most artist have still pictures but with an animation that''s smooth, you can kick ass! I will call anyone a GOD if someone on gamedev can make a smooth 2D animation that lasts longer than 15 secs.
Vbisme, no tips from me. I got the same problem as you do. All my art doesn''t have consistency and they all look different.

the frame rate is up to you really. this will very in difficulty depending on the project.

I am not text, I am not organized pixels, I am not killed by turning off your monitor, I am not isolated by turning off your computer. I just am.

Conshape Electronic Arts

Hey, don''t worry. Sorry for making it look tougher than what it seems. I thought you were asking how tough was it on animation (as in cut scenes). But regarding sprites, it isn''t that hard. (depending on the level of detail you want it to be) Remember, they have teams of ppl to work on a game, you''re alone. Don''t compare yourself to their standards. (Unless, that is, if you have a professional studio, light tables, state of the art equipment with Silicon Gfx pcs and a team of highly talented animators THEN YOU CAN COMPARE YOURSELF TO THEM)

i think ill take that challange man. an animation over 15 seconds... your on. although it will take some time... well, sprites arent that tough i guess. my sig has a sprite that i drew but to animate it would be tough assed all right. that is why i always draw the base figure before detail is even considered. everyone has a different techniqe.

I am not text, I am not organized pixels, I am not killed by turning off your monitor, I am not isolated by turning off your computer. I just am.

Conshape Electronic Arts

What kind of Sprites are you doing >>>??


what kind of game are you working on ??


Some animation are easier than the others.. for example: RPG games [Breath of Fire 1-3] some of the character stance animation are really easy to do.. do they do is move the parts[arm,leg,shoulder] frame by frame.. and creates a "breathing" animation...

Other animations are harder.. such as [Mark of the Wolves]

it is a fighting game,, and the sprites are much bigger..
and animation are smoother...

I''m working on a fighting game called [Duel From Beyond]

If you ''re working on a fighting game. why not work together...

http://everything.at/bs

charlie3000@mail.com
AIM:c3ooo I''m on AIM rightnow !!

yes well i always saw it that the larger the sprites the easier they were to draw. it is all in your techniqe.

I am not text, I am not organized pixels, I am not killed by turning off your monitor, I am not isolated by turning off your computer. I just am.

Conshape Electronic Arts

Gota agree with Fantasy Edge, the larger it is the easier. I can''t make sprites like in Breath of Fire, or any of the Final Fantasies on the SNES. I''m not a pixel artist, but I can however draw sprites such as the ones in Streetfighter and those in kind.

C''mon Edge. Let us see what you can do. While you''re working on your animation, I''ll work on mines. Heh, I needed some motivation and what better than a friendly little rivalry?