As a newcomer to Anime Studio Debut 7 I’m trying to make a camera movement within my project. How do I get the camera to move at a point part way through the film? At present any movement is applied from frame 0, which is not what I want.  – Rod W.

Anime Studio Camera Tutorial

Good question, Rod.  Let’s say you wanted to start zooming in on a character’s face 10 seconds into your cartoon.  If you go to frame 240 (10 seconds X 24 frames per second), and you zoom the camera to where you want it, you’ll have a problem.  Since you never set a keyframe before frame 240, the program thinks you want to evenly zoom in between frames 1 and 240. 

How to make Anime Studio’s camera track properly:

1. Ensure there are no camera changes throughout the file.  You must remove them by highlighting the camera keyframes and deleting them.  DON’T click on the camera tools and try to use the feature Remove animation from layer!  It will remove the animation from the layer you have selected in your layer tree, not your camera!
2. When there is no camera movement in your file, go to the frame just prior to where you want the camera zoom to start.  In our example, you’d go to frame 239. 
3. Click on frame 239 to highlight it with the red line.
4. Click the Zoom Camera tool on the left side of your screen.
5. Click inside the scene, without moving anything as you click.  In other words, click quickly, and click in one spot.  Don’t move the camera at all.  When you click, you set a keyframe in your cartoon’s timeline.  Think of that keyframe as a marker to tell Anime Studio where to start or stop an action.
6. Highlight frame 240, and click inside the scene without moving around (setting another keyframe).
7. Advance your timeline to the frame where you want your camera zoom to finish.  We’ll use frame 270 for our example.
8. Click the Zoom Cameratool and zoom in to where you want it to end up.  You should now have a keyframe for your Zoom Camera tool on frames 239, 240, and 270.  Your camera will stay put between frames zero and 239, and then it will zoom between frames 240 and 270. 

Just so you know, the click on frame 239 isn’t necessary.  I do it because it makes it really easy to keep track of actions for editing purposes, just in case I make a mistake somewhere or don’t like the way something looks and want to make a quick change.  I can identify very fast what I want to highlight and delete.  Everyone has there own style of doing it, and you’ll find your own groove eventually.

I’m having problems with the Auto-stroke Tool:

HI Eric, Ive got a problem with my AS 7 PRO. Everytime i make a character i have this issue with the strokes.
Im doing my characters without the strokes for a more cleaner lkooking character. But now after a few days i cannot get rid of the stroke. (the stroke color is black when i remove them) then in my preview render the strokes becomes orange. any idéas on how i remove them? (tryed hide edge but still the same). thanks

 

Using the right tool for strokes:

Additional stroke problems:

I hope one of these solutions solved your Auto-stroke Tool problem:

New use of Anime Studio 7 Pro Physics Engine

I thought everyone might want to check this out:

Battle of the Sexes Game

The video test on this site (easy to find) used AS7 to make the animation portion of the video.  Even cooler is the use of the new physics engine and the rotate on origin feature that moves the clocks’ hands in real time!

If there’s enough interest (shown in your comments below), I’ll post a tutorial on exactly how to do it.

What is the best mouth switch layer setup in Anime Studio?

In my opinion, the best way to do a cartoon character’s mouth is by using GROUP LAYERS (or BONE LAYERS for Anime Studio Debut users) that contain the phoneme mouth shapes. By using GROUP LAYERS, I can separate my mouth’s teeth from the rest of the mouth, and this becomes an easy way to edit it and turn it into a mouth with bunny teeth, no teeth, no top or bottom teeth, etc.

I create a switch layer for happy mouths, sad mouths, angry mouths, and so on, and then I lipsync the appropriate mouth to the audio I’ve imported. This gives my cartoon characters more emotion and makes the scene funnier than it would be with one style of mouth.

Anime Studio Happy Mouth

Anime Studio Worried Mouth

Anime Studio Mouth Switch Layers Jaw Dropped

How do I import a mouth switch layer for my cartoon character in Anime Studio?

Importing stuff is easy.  There’s actually a lot of animation content that comes with Anime Studio.  The video tutorial above will show you how to import one of the mouths, complete with audio sync phoneme switch layers, into your animation and put it on your cartoon character.

Anime Studio 6 users:  You’ll find this mouth under FILE>Import>Mouths>Mouth 1

Anime Studio 7 users: FILE>Import>Props>Head-Mouth Sets> Mouth 1

To import your own .anme files, click: FILE>Import>Anime Studio Object  

This will let you insert anything into your scene that you’ve already created with Anime Studio and saved as a .anme file extension.  You can also import .moho files.

Anime Studio Import Mouth Switch Layers

How to make a cartoon nose in Anime Studio:

This brief video tutorial shows how to make one type of nose for your cartoon character.  Be sure to place the nose between the correct layers of the character.  You want your mouth switch layers to go behind your nose (under it in the layers tree) and in front of your face.  Other than that, there’s nothing to it. 

How to make a cartoon nose

What does the DUPLICATE LAYER TOOL in Anime Studio Pro or Debut do?

As you may have guessed, the DUPLICATE LAYER TOOL will copy the layer you currently have selected in your layers tree.

How do I use the DUPLICATE LAYER TOOL in Anime Studio Debut or Pro?

Highlight the layer you want to duplicate by clicking on it, then click the button above it that looks like a sticky-pad note with a plus sign.  The layer will duplicate.  If you select a layer that has other layers inside of it, like a bone layer with arms and legs, the layers inside of it will also duplicate.

This is a good way to create head turns for your cartoon character.  Make a head group layer containing all pieces of your head, put it inside of a switch layer folder, duplicate the head group layer, then make slight changes in your cartoon character’s head until you’ve got enough switch layers that you can do a smooth head turn.

How to use the DUPLICATE LAYER TOOL in Anime Studio

Anime Studio scale bones tool and translate bones tool

What does the SCALE BONES TOOL do?

The SCALE BONES TOOL allows you to resize your bone and the corresponding parts attached to it, but it only works in an animation.  If you’re on frame zero, it’s inactive.  Notice how I’m on frame zero in the above picture and it’s gray in color, but once I switch to a different frame, as seen in the picture below, it becomes available.

Anime Studio SCALE BONES TOOL is now active

How do I scale a bone in my animation?

To scale a bone in your animation, you need to highlight the frame (not frame zero) where you want to make the change, and left-click and drag the bone you want to change; dragging to the left makes it smaller, and dragging it to the right makes it bigger.

How do I scale a bone on frame zero?

If you made a bone the incorrect size, it can be resized on frame zero with the TRANSLATE BONE TOOL, highlighted in green in the top picture.  This won’t change the size of the stuff attached to it.  On frame zero, the TRANSLATE BONE TOOL will move a bone, if you grab the short end of the bone, or it will lengthen or shorten a bone if you grab the longer end of it.  (See picture below.  Click to enlarge.)

Translate bones in Anime Studio without moving vector layer

What are styles in Anime Studio Pro?

Styles are a way to edit your animation content very fast.  For example, let’s say you created a cartoon character that 100 different body parts that were skin colored.  His hand switch layers, face, nose, eyelids, etc. for all different angles of your character.  Let’s say you want to use the same character form, but change him from caucasian to some other ethnicity.  If you had created a “SKIN STYLE,” you could simply click on the style and change its color, changing every single animation layer that’s painted (or created) with the skin style, all with the click of your mouse.  This saves you from having to repaint every single layer.  Sorry Anime Studio Debut users, but you don’t have this option.

How do I use styles with Anime Studio Pro?

I’ll show you in the video, but the most important thing to remember about styles is that you change an already created style by clicking in the red windows shown here:

Anime Studio Pro Styles Windows

If you want to create something in a style, you select an already created style in the blue highlighted window, and you just use it as if you would normally select the colors for the paintbucket or the freehand tool.