This tutorial series features a character from a series in development called Happy Bear. The main focus of the tutorial is demonstrating image layers and bone warping and also using Anime Studio to design and render character images with out the need for an image editor. The main character "Happy Bear" will be a combination of a vector layer for the face and an image layer for the main body demonstrating an image warping technique that uses sets of "duplicate" bones for better image warping. The character image layer is created initially in Anime Studio.
Parts 1 and 2 are approximately 60 mintues in length
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Several techniques and features of Anime Studio are covered in the tutorial including:
- Adobe Illustrator and EPS import and clean up
- using soft edge effects and masking for soft highlights and shading.
- Using layer "Shadows" for creating a stroke around a character.
- Using "Compound" or multiple duplicate bones and constraints for better warping of image layers
- Using my Rename Bones and Copy and Flip Bones scripts to duplicate and flip one side of a character skeleton to the other side.
- Using a custom "round" brush and an extra shape to create round "capped" ends to strokes.
- Setting up project settings for rendering out the image layers at different resolutions.
Part 1 introduces and briefly discusses the image layer and multiple or "compound" bone warping concept before moving on to Adobe Illustrator/EPS import and clean up of extra points, and using soft edge transparent shapes with masking for highlighting and shading.
Part 2 covers the saving of the rendered image from the "base" Anime Studio character file, loading that image into a new Anime Studio file and adding the bone rig. In the bone rig section I cover the use of my Rename Bones and Copy Flip Bones scripts to speed up and streamline the skeleton creation process. The scripts and custom brushes discussed will be online and available for free when part 2 is released. The scripts will have their own instruction videos so these videos will not be required to use them.
Items related to this tutorial
Copy/Flip Bones - Bone Renamer - button/menu scripts
Custom Brush Image
Right click and save the image below to your \Anime Studio\brushes\ folder to use this brush image for round capped ends of strokes as discussed in this tutorial (extra big for higher resolution).
