Quick 2d animation on a 3d system-Combustion

[Bruce Morgan]

Hello
I hope I am posting under the right topic
I recieved a computer
mac power book with g4 2 gigs ram and 10 gig available hard drive .
I am running mac os x tiger -final cut 5, photo shop cs and combustion 3
I would like to do short animations in 2d with combustion 3.

I aim to do the key frames in photoshop cs and import them into combustion3 .

there i hope to render the inbetween frames for the short animation .

Can anyone comment on this intended workflow and direct
me to any tutorials .
I appreciate any help on this .
Cheers
Bruce

[Anhar Miah]

when you say short animation (2d) do you mean hand drawn (cell) style? if so there is a much better way of doing this, toon boom studio's comes to mind

http://www.toonboom.com/

Check that site, the other option is to learn Flash animation...

Anhar

[Bruce Morgan]

Thanks So much for the response .
The answer to your question -
These are photos
they are changed morphed and adjusted in photo shop
so I will look at the web site
but i was hoping to use something on the lap top like
combustion 3 premier or final cut plug ins
looking for a quick way to do shot 5 to 10 second animated "still photos"
Thanks again for any advice .
Cheers
Bruce

[Matt Grunau]

It sounds pretty straightforward. Make sure your imported photoshop pics have their pivot point changed to where you want them to rotate, and then parent them accordingly.

For instance, you wanted to animate an arm on somsones body. The hand would be its own layer, the forearm would be its own layer, the upper arm would be its own layer, and the main body would be its own layer. then you would parent the hand to the forearm, forearm to arm, arm to body. By moving the picot point to where they would be for the layer in use, when you roate that layer it will rotate properly: ie . . . Wrist, Elbow, Shoulder.

[Bruce Morgan]

Thanks or the advice !

This is even better than I expected .
I imagined that every keyframe of any gross movement would be done in photo shop as a Key Frame and all layers merged before import or export .
Then leave in between frame generation to Combustion 3 (which I am admittedly still getting used to )
Now I have to study up on photoshops ability to keep all layers open ,

For instance
In photo shop cs
-when your are going into image >distortort > morph
you have to merge layers (from my understanding )
so
now I will keep a whole file of keyframes
with layers open for further animation mobility.
And do the hierarchal parent link assembly of layers in combustion .
Thanks for the help
Cheers
Bruce