Moving stickman need help!

[riprider]

Im trying to animate a moving stick man im a complete newbie to this all so cood u please bare wid me and try teach me how to use it... You've obviously learnt from someone so plz pass that knowledge on

[cyber reaper]

CYBER REAPER ANIMATION SCHOOL ,WELCOME !
-----------------------------------------

first of all you must learn how to use 3dfa painter and only then you will be able to animate

WHAT ARE ANIMATIONS ?
----------------------

an animation is realy just a bounch of pictures that are being shown one after another ,keep that in mind !
the more frames your animation will have the more smoth it will run
however i found out that even with a small number of frames you will be able to creat a good animation (your brain will make the movement smoth)

HOW TO CREAT AN ANIMATION
--------------------------
first make sure you know what want to do ,then click on "add element"
and select add animation
then just look at the new opened window :
the first thing you will see is a wierd looking gray and white long bar that is devided to meny little prats ,this is your frams bar
here you will be able to quickly select and go to a frame
just above that you will see "add frame" and "edit frame"
use them ! the best way to animate is to creat a frame and then copy is over and over with a small change at each frame
below all that you will see "add element" and "edit element"
remember that animations are also being build by element !
even below all this you will see "add action" and "edit action"
this place is relating to the speciphic frame ! and not the whole animation ,you can add sounds and other stuff you want to happened when the animation will reach to that frame (if you want to add an action wich be related to the animation itself remember to use this instead of element ("animation")...

BEFORE YOU START !
-------------------
remember that 3DFA is not a good animation tool of a one main cause :
after a while when you will creat a realy big animation it will might crush when you will try to exit the animation
I SUGGEST THAT YOU WILL SAVE EVERY TIME BEFORE EXITING THE ANIMATION WINDOW !

have fun (and remember there is more then this way to creat an animation)

[zoranvedek]

A few useful things to think about.

Make your figure using different paint elements(try on a layer)

move your pivot points(centers) to the actual place the joint will bend

pay close attention to timing and placement(sometimes btter to use 2 positions than one even though you're just going from point a to b)

read up on animation in general, especially getting the walk cycle straight(again think about using middle points)...........

Hopefully this helps some.

-J