ANIME STUDIO
How do I make a smooth head turn in Anime Studio Debut?
How do I scale bones in Anime Studio Debut or Pro?
How do I use the duplicate layer tool?
How do I import a .anme file I’ve already made in Anime Studio?
What is the best mouth setup for my cartoon character?
How do I start a camera movement part way into my animation?
How do I give my character a cartoon mouth?
How do I use styles?
How do I use blend morphs in Pro versions of Anime Studio?
How do I use switch layers?
How do I use the 3D features of Anime Studio Pro 7?
How do I use physics in Anime Studio Pro 7?
How do I layer my character properly?
How do I upload my animation straight to YouTube or import to imovie?
How do I make a cartoon walk cycle?
How do I make multiple scenes in Anime Studio?
I lost my tools in Anime Studio
BONES:
My character gets warped when I move his bones. How do I add bones correctly or fix this?
How do I scale bones? What does the scale bones tool do?
How do I rig my cartoon character with bones? What’s a good setup for my character’s body?
How do I bind a body part or layer to a bone so my character doesn’t get warped?
Ask your questions below.
how did you make the charcacter in your video tutorial Anime Studio Debut Head Turn. im trying to make those charcaters for my cartoons but im wandering how to apply the bones correctly. please help!? please respond.
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i did it, but im wandering how to lip sync audio with my charcater. and does this website cost money if i use it?
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How can you make different scenes for a cartoon in anime studio debut 7.
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How do you also make the charcater walk, and do actions like kick and flip and use differnt objects in anime studio debut 7
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Hi Eric,
I built my character with your tutorial videos and all is like i wanted but i have a problem with my bones everytime i want to move my arm the lower body moves, too. How can i prevent this?
Thank you for your Videos from Germany, your Camillo
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admin Reply:
August 23rd, 2010 at 1:58 am
Did you follow this tutorial on adding bones?
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yes but i have the problem now i forgot to bind the lower body to the bone, ok alright thank you for all
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admin Reply:
August 23rd, 2010 at 9:38 am
@Camillo. So you didn’t follow my tutorial. Haha.
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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.
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admin Reply:
September 7th, 2010 at 11:24 am
@ Rod: http://www.cartoonlearning.com/?p=932
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is there a way to save pdf photoshop files as anime files?
I thought i saw a script for that but i can’t find it
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admin Reply:
September 17th, 2010 at 2:13 pm
@khris: Sorry, but I don’t even know what a pdf Photoshop file is. You need to talk to someone who writes Anime Studio scripts for that answer.
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Is it possible – using switch layers with different number of bones in each switched layers, when that bones rigged to parent bone in parent layer?
I create body, head, legs, etc., and two shapes of each hands “working” (left and right) and “idle”(left and right too), hands bones rigged to shoulder bones, whos rigged to body bone. in some keyframes i need to switch between “working” and “idle” shapes of hands. Character bones do not linking throught few layers, e.g. i cant take, as parent, shoulder bones from body layer to each of hands layers.
How to use bones ierarchy throught some different layers, with few switched layers?
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admin Reply:
September 17th, 2010 at 2:11 pm
@AlexAndroID: I’m not sure what your question is. Can you say it another way? Also, please tell me if you have Debut or Pro version.
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Quick question for you…how do I make a character of myself? I’m really wanting to do this so I can have a lot of fun with the anime studio software. I’d also like to be able to make characters out of pictures. Do you have any tutorials covering this? Thank you in advance.
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admin Reply:
October 11th, 2010 at 10:12 am
@Willy: That may be a quick question, but that’s a loooong answer. Check out http://www.cartoonlearning.com/videos/how-to-make-a-cartoon-character-in-anime-studio/
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Hi Eric
I just found your site after 6 hours of working with Anime Debut 7. I was able to import a jpg character that I had drawn and scanned into the computer. Do I need to redraw the parts of this character within the Anime program in order to add bones to it or is there a way to do this automatically? Thanks so much for any assistant you can offer.
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admin Reply:
November 1st, 2010 at 9:18 pm
@Cindy: A jpeg character probably isn’t going to work, but you can import it as a transparent background png and add bones, as is. However, if you’re looking to do something really pro looking, you’ll want to use your jpeg as a tracing image and create a character in vector layers. Check out this tutorial on how to make an Anime Studio Character. It’s a lot different than what you’ll be used to, probably, but it’s so worth taking a couple days to learn.
-Eric
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I’m confused or doing something wrong or the program is not capable of doing this.
Using switch layers and group layers, can I have the animation interpolate sublayers and create the tween between the groups? Like in your example of the head in different positions.
I can successfully have only layers interpolate but when I put them in group folders, it doesn’t work.
Thanks.
Michael
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admin Reply:
November 6th, 2010 at 3:21 pm
@Michael: Can you explain in greater detail what you’re trying to do? Is this in response to something you saw on another page? If so, which one?
-Eric
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Eric,
Thanks for the response. Nothing I saw on another page.
I’m trying to create a character, working on the head first. I want to create each view of the head, store them in group layers, then use a switch layer to interpolate to create smooth head turning. I’ve been looking at various tutorials on youtube and it seem like you can do that or people are doing that. I can get single layers that are copies of each other to switch and interpolate but when I put them in group layers, they don’t work, just hard switch to the next layer. Maybe I’m missing something or the program is not capable. Not sure, but I’m really confused and stuck as I actually have a project that needs to be completed sometime soon.
Hope this makes sense and is clearer.
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admin Reply:
November 7th, 2010 at 11:56 pm
Michael: I wanted to get this to you tonight since you’re under the gun to get your project done. What you’re trying to accomplish is definitely possible. That’s what my 15 part tutorial is all about. See my: Anime Studio head turn.
If everything for each stage of your head turn is going into your group layers (multiple, right???), then you just put your group layers into your single switch layer folder. You haven’t complicated things with bones in your group layers, have you? If not, it should be simple.
I hope this helps,
-Eric
P.S. If you haven’t figured it out, and you’re getting close to your deadline, I can either fix it for you (possibly), or we can Skype.
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re Creatoon
I tried various approaches to ‘edit cameras’ in Creatoon 3.0 and searched web but I failed to take any control over ‘edit cameras’. Official help-file was not helpful…
Probably, I do not realize the nature of this type of cameras. What I really need is to be able to edit scene from various prospects while ‘main’ camera is not envolved in the process…
Thanx.
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admin Reply:
November 8th, 2010 at 8:45 am
@Oleksiy: Sorry, but I got rid of Creatoon after my computer crashed (not from Creatoon). Once I bought Anime Studio there was no point in reloading Creatoon. It just wasn’t worth it. I can only answer Creatoon questions from memory, and I don’t remember enough to be able to help you out. Sorry about that. You might want to try my Creatoon Forum.
-Eric
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Eric,
Thanx for the response.
Link to teh forum will be of use. Why not to put it somewhere on the homepage? I wasn’t able to figure it out until you published it in your reply.
Thanks again.
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admin Reply:
November 8th, 2010 at 11:30 am
@Oleskiy: I’ve seriously considered getting rid of the forum. It may be a good user experience for my visitors, but it basically makes me no money, takes way too much effort, and it sucks visitors away from the pages that do make money. Since I do this full time, I can’t afford to lose anything. A blog where I teach people how to use software they’ve already purchased isn’t the most profitable niche to be in.
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Hi Eric,
Tried to import a layered photoshop file into Anime 7 Debut. Didn’t work. I can import a .png but that format does not support layers. What am I missing? I have read in reviews that .psd files could be imported.
Thanks!!!
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admin Reply:
November 15th, 2010 at 5:39 pm
@Nicholaus: Go to the official Anime Studio forum and search for a PSD script. I have no use for PSD in Anime Studio. The program’s own vector layers do everything I need quite nicely and make a very professional looking animation, so I don’t use Photoshop.
If you can’t find anything, talk to Vern (HeyVern). He can probably help you since he’s a script guru, but there should be a prominent thread with a sticky next to it that displays all the scripts.
-Eric
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How do I upload my animation straight to YouTube? or import to imovie?
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admin Reply:
November 19th, 2010 at 1:11 pm
@Alyssa: Export to YouTube
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I’ve been working on animating a character. I would love to get some feedback. Is there a way to send you the file and you can take a look. Any advice would be great!
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admin Reply:
November 23rd, 2010 at 6:57 pm
@Michael: I no longer accept files. Every time I open someones file I take a chance at getting a virus. I’ll Skype with you if you’re one of my http://www.animationtrainer.com students, though.
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Just signed up. Would be great to Skype. How do we set that up.
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admin Reply:
November 29th, 2010 at 11:24 am
@Michael: I never heard back from you. Did you get my emails?
-Eric
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Alright, I’ve got two questions…
1. I’m very interested in learning how to animate with anime studio debut 6, but I can’t seem to figure out the bone system without it looking wonky, I can’t have that because I want to accomplish realism in my animations. Any tips?
2. How do you get mouths and eyes to move fluidly?
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admin Reply:
November 29th, 2010 at 11:29 am
@Reiketsuittou: TIP: Watch the videos I made that cover these issues. Look under the BONES section above for the bones tutorials. I don’t think there’s anything I haven’t covered for bones or lip synching.
-Eric
P.S. If you get any specific questions along the way, please ask.
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Your tutorials are great. Would you happen to have them on dvd that can be purchased?
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admin Reply:
November 29th, 2010 at 11:26 am
@travis: Sorry. No DVD’s, yet. A lot of people have asked, though. If anyone’s interested, why don’t you give travis’s comment a thumbs up. I’ll see if it’s worth my time to do the DVD tutorials.
-Eric
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You are asking for replies but I want to ask a question and don’t know where to place it.I’ve downloaded Creatoon many times for my computers and for my friends. It works on their computers but not on any of mine and I don’t understand why.Can you help me?
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admin Reply:
December 7th, 2010 at 4:04 pm
@sonia: I no longer do anything with Creatoon. There aren’t enough users, so I never bothered to put it on my new computer. Sorry, but I can only hel with problems I remember the answers to.
-Eric
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Studio 7 Pro has a library which includes props, such as mouth sets.
I would like to use one of those for a character, but I would like to change some of the colors. Is there any way to import the set and change some colors, or do I have to draw the entire set myself in order to change any colors?
Thanks — I could not find this on any tutorials.
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admin Reply:
January 3rd, 2011 at 2:10 am
If you’re asking if you can legally make the changes you want, I can’t answer that. To physically change the colors, though, you just have to click your paint bucket tool, select a color, and click the parts you want to paint.
If you watch my tutorial series on making a character in Anime Studio, I cover using the paint bucket tool, as well as the create shape tool, which you may also need, depending on the complexity of the shape you’re trying to change.
-Eric
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kait Reply:
January 3rd, 2011 at 8:55 am
Thanks. I guess I thought the paint bucket was only for Debut, duh. Anyhow, that works for the painting, layer by layer, not too hard using styles. Now off to learn how to create/save the new version as a prop.
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admin Reply:
January 3rd, 2011 at 1:01 pm
Just click save as, and save it as a .anme file. Name it something like “girl mouth,” and then you can use File>Import>Anime Studio Object when you want to add it to a character in the future.
I highly recommend not saving in the library, but rather creating a folder on your desktop (if you plan on doing a lot of cartoons or being in Anime Studio for any amount of time). That way, you can backup your files easily to an external hard drive or thumb drive regularly. Animation is so time consuming, you REALLY don’t want to lose what you’ve already done if you get a virus or something.
-Eric
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Kait Reply:
January 4th, 2011 at 11:33 am
Backups to cloud 2x/day. Still getting the hang of drawing and fill tools. Used to photoshop and drawplus, and lots of experience with audacity.
Will try first test lipsync today.
One tip — your vids are hard to watch because menus and tabs too small and far away. especially the dark gray bkgrnd is why I almost never use Elements anymore. Also they’re a little fuzzy.
Will also be trying to cut some b/w old video stuff to put snips into my prodn. Will probably have more questions soon.
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I have two questions (or requests you might say).
1. How do you save your own created character in the library?
2. Is it easy to make a waving flag on Anime Studio Pro 7?
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admin Reply:
February 7th, 2011 at 2:37 pm
@Joseph:
I already covered the library question somewhere. Use the search bar to find the answer.
As for the flag, the easiest way is to make it and use bones to warp it. Unlike in my tutorials on how to make a character, where I suggest you turn the bone’s influence all the way down, for a flag I recommend you use the influence.
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Hey
..
When i click the switch layer my characters body go from each other. But when i click manipulate bones it’s going back. Is there a way to fix that? It’s pretty annoying to make a talking character with that :S.
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admin Reply:
January 11th, 2011 at 11:07 am
I tried to answer your question here: Anime Studio Tutorial
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Eric,
I created a character based on your tutorials with a Head Turn switch layer inside a bone layer. I’m having trouble binding the bones inside the Head Default group layer. I was able to bind the Head Turn layer to the main bone in the head. However the character has antennas. They each have 3 bones which are children of the main head bone. How do I bind the antenna bones to the shapes? The video I attached is how they moved before I created the groups. (I forgot to do that first) I was able to bind the antenna bones to the antennas and turn on the bone dynamics so they wiggle. But now that I created the group layer, I can’t do it.
Thanks,
Dorothy
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admin Reply:
January 17th, 2011 at 12:04 pm
Dorothy,
There’s too much going on here and not enough detail for me to answer this. I created a post specifically to answer this question, and I embedded your YouTube video, but I need more info. Can you email me a picture(s) of your layers tree, and can I have your permission to publish it in the post to teach everyone?
-Eric
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Dorothy Reply:
January 17th, 2011 at 3:41 pm
yes. You have my permission. I will email it now.
Dorothy
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admin Reply:
January 17th, 2011 at 5:13 pm
Dorothy,
Here’s the link to the post: Anime Studio Pro 7 Tutorial
-Eric
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Hi Eric,
Great website, thank you! I just purchased AS Pro 6 and as I was about to buy a tablet/pen combo I saw that you recommend that AS users do not use a tablet. What do you use for your drawings, the mouse?
Thanks, a.
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admin Reply:
February 1st, 2011 at 10:40 am
Yes. If you use a graphics tablet, you’ll create way more points than you want. When you want to manipulate them later, you’ll have 10 times the work to do. It’s best to learn how to use the curvature tool and add points tool to create shapes exactly how you want them the first time.
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Alain Reply:
February 5th, 2011 at 12:55 pm
Thank you. If I am going to make simple animations for fun (with AS pro 6), do you see any reason for me to have a tablet? Thanks, alain
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admin Reply:
February 7th, 2011 at 1:04 pm
@Alain: I guess you haven’t come across any of my graphics tablet reviews, yet.
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Hi Eric
I was wondering is there any programs/sites/links that i can use to create anime look alike backgrounds. If you look at my link: [link] and just pretend the persons aren’t there you can see the background; Rocks, cliffs, grass, trees. Is there anyway to make something look like that?
-Jeppe
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admin Reply:
February 7th, 2011 at 2:33 pm
@Jeppe: This could all be done in Anime Studio or Toon Boom, (see my 2D animation software reviews), but it could probably be done easier in Inkscape, which is completely free. You may also want to try GIMP, which can also create backgrounds like this.
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Hi, thanks for the answer
)
I checked the programs, and am i right if inkscape can make real pictures look like toon? I’ve used gimp before and now i watched it and i think im gonna try it out and learn it again. But.. do you know the name of this type picture i wanna draw? Maybe a suggestion on what i can search to find look a like pictures?
-Jappe (Once again thank
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admin Reply:
February 7th, 2011 at 3:44 pm
I don’t remember Inkscape being able to convert regular pictures into toon style. The real benefit of Inkscape is that you don’t have to be a great artist because it uses vector points, which you can easily manipulate. GIMP would be your better bet to make pictures like you want. I don’t know what you mean about the name of the picture. They’re cartoon backgrounds. I’m not sure what else you’re getting at, but that’s probably all the help I can give you on this.
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I’ve recently purchased your contents pack which represents fantastic value for money when compared with other similar products. Any chance of a selection of female characters?
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admin Reply:
February 24th, 2011 at 10:49 am
Thanks, Peter. Yeah. I should probably get on that, huh? I’m not sure when I’ll get a chance to put that out. I’m working on something much bigger right now. I’m completely redoing http://www.animationtrainer.com to be a one stop shop to help people get a whole series out, but working through the details is taking up a bunch of my time.
I’ll be sure to update everyone by email when everything is done (animationtrainer and the female pack), so make sure you’re on the list.
Thanks for taking the time to post about the character pack.
-Eric
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followed your tutorials but im having trouble with the bone ringing how can I send you my character so you can see what im talking about.
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admin Reply:
February 28th, 2011 at 1:21 pm
@coolguy: Sorry, but I don’t accept files from just anybody.
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Hi Eric, a quick question:
Can I animate layer blending modes? Say switching from Multiply to Normal to create that silhouette to normal fade (Which is what I’m after).
Thanks,
Max.
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admin Reply:
February 28th, 2011 at 1:19 pm
@Max: No. It’s all or nothing. You can’t even set a keyframe for the layer blending modes. There are other ways to get what you’re looking for. I never actually even use the layer blending modes. I find them pretty worthless.
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hi eric
ive recorded a song with auto tune and im making the music video in anime studio
is there anyway i can import the song
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admin Reply:
June 3rd, 2011 at 11:59 am
You can. Just follow my tutorials to learn how. Your best bet would be to overlay the music track in your final video editing program, though.
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I need to know how to take a character that is already made and make a silhouette of it. PLEASE help fast. I am using anime studio debut 7.
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admin Reply:
June 18th, 2011 at 11:06 am
@Lola: Double-click the uppermost layer of your character. Under “layer blending mode” select “color”. You won’t notice anything until you render your project, but when you do, you’ll see that your character has been stripped of all color.
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Is it possible to weld a vector to another vector? I created my whole head by making vectors, like: Head Shape, Hair, Eyes, Mouth, Ear, Nose. By using vector i get full control, of the whole head. But then the problem comes, i don’t wanna make bones to them, i already know how to weld bones together, but i think there is another way. Sorry if my English is confusing, i’m not coming from an English speaking country. And is there a way to store all the different mouths i’ve created? So i just can click it, and it’s there?
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admin Reply:
August 6th, 2011 at 8:46 am
You can cut and paste one vector layer into a single vector layer where you’re combining all your other layers. Then you could weld the points, but you’ll mess up your style. I don’t know why anyone would want to do that, though. Keeping those body parts separate is the way to go, IMHO. Attaching each layer to a single bone should only take about 4 seconds with the layers you mentioned. You don’t need a separate bone for each of them. Try searching this site for “bone” or “bones”, and follow those tutorials. Try also watching the series on creating a character (15 parts).
P.S. You can’t weld bones together. It’s impossible.
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Hello, groovy videos… very informative. I have a bit of a problem that I was wondering if you could help me with. I have Anime Studio Pro 8 and have a character all setup, bones, etc… the layers of body parts are Adobe Illustrator vector files and everything is working just lovely… until I try to put on a patch layer and it doesn’t work. It’s there but it’s covering up nothing. Of course the group the layers are in are a bone group. Any ideas why this isn’t working?
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Nevermind… solved it… thanks!
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HELP!!! I know this is a simple question but i honestly have not seen ONE tutorial on how to scale MULTIPLE LAYERS in Anime Studio. I have made my character of several different layers only to realize that i want it to be alot smaller to fit into the environment. When i select all layers and try to scale it down, it only scales down one of the layers for some reason. What am i doing wrong?? Please help! I don’t want to have to re draw the character EVERY time i want him to be a different size lol
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admin Reply:
November 28th, 2011 at 7:23 pm
You need to put all the layers into one top level layer. If you’re on Anime Studio Debut, put them in a bone layer. If you’re on Anime Studio Pro you can put them in either a bone layer or a group folder. Then, select that top layer (bone or group) and scale that. All child layers within a layer will scale accordingly when you scale the parent layer.
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I just created two characters for a scene that I am trying to create. One of the characters is my main character, which is the character that I will be using the most. I wanted to know if there was a way that I could copy my character from one file and paste it into another window of anime studio debut. I tried grouping all the layers by bone rigging similar to the way the woman did it in the introduction DVD, but it DIDN’T WORK. Also I tried to put tried to put the character in a group layer after reading the comment you posted for someone elses question….and well…needless to say, if that’s what I would have to do. I can tell you now that I don’t know how to do that.
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admin Reply:
November 29th, 2011 at 11:28 pm
It sounds like you’re really lost. Try going back and watching my character creation tutorials. Since I’ve already covered this stuff many times, I’m not going to reinvent the wheel. All the information you need is right here on this site.
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I am having a serious problem with bone rigging. I have recently purchased Anime Studio 8 Debut. On the CD-Rom there was a beginner guide tutorial and in it the woman briefly showed how to do bone rigging on a star. As I watched the video I tried to practice bone rigging in a separate window. When I tried her method I did NOT get the same results. I even rewinded the tutorial over and over again trying to figure out what I missed. I kept saying to myself “Am I pressing the up key at the wrong time?” (smh).
I decided to look for the answer somewhere else. After I had created my characters I decided to go online and get to the bottom of this problem. I came across your tutorials on youtube. I watched your first video about bone rigging, which you did upon request. I tried it, but I still had lousy results partially because you never said whether to press the up key or not while putting the bones in. Also when binding the bones I kept getting confused as to press the bind button before or after the bone was selected. My characters body parts kept moving all over the place.
Finally I came across another video you did where you took someone elses character and tried to fix them. That video did not work for me. Can you please explain to me step by step how to do this bone rigging.
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admin Reply:
December 4th, 2011 at 4:28 pm
Since I’ve already covered bone rigging several times, I’m not going to make another post. My animationtrainer.com course covers bone rigging in step by step detail. If you find yourself needing help, please consider checking it out.
That being said…
Question #1: What are you hitting the up arrow for? The up arrow has nothing to do with bone rigging.
Question #2: What does “smh” stand for? I’ve haven’t heard this expression before.
As far as I know, the videos are all done properly with nothing missing. I think you may be mistaking the up arrow for the space bar or something. Try going through the videos again and see if that’s what’s wrong. I’d love to hear back from you.
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I am importing my own drawing by PSD to Anime Pro . I am able to open and assemble the characters BUT I am unable to put apply bones. There seems to be nothing in the program to do this. any help would be great
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admin Reply:
January 4th, 2012 at 9:21 am
Have you created a bone layer to put your images in?
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HEY,
First i wanted to say thank you for all of the helpful tutorials, they have really helped me get my foot in the door with some of these programs. (when did they stop sending instruction manuals with software!?)
I know its the old version but i recently have been working with Anime Studio Pro 7 and was wondering, if i were to use a program like poser or a picture to toon converter is there anyway to add layers or points to the imported one piece file?
And i suppose even more importantly, is there any type of file conversion i will have to do since the images/files were not generated in Anime Studio?
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admin Reply:
January 22nd, 2012 at 1:48 pm
Jarrod,Thank you for the nice comment. You software does come with a manual. Check the Help tab.No, you cannot add layers or points to imported Poser files. The Poser files are imported as one layer, a .pz3 (Poser) file. Once the Poser file is imported you have the ability to set keyframes the same way you would use blend morphs. You select the body part and adjust the slider to control the action associated with that body part.As far as importing other files, check your manual to see the list of files that are compatible with Anime Studio Pro 7. In the back of the manual there’s an import list.
-Eric
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