For a long time people asked for the tutorial explaining how to use Stickman Template and finally I have come up with something that might be called a tutorial. In fact those videos were recorded in different time (you might notice the differences in interface elements), but watching everything in sequence should give you the whole picture. Big thanks to Anna Orlova for translation and subtitling.
Part 1 – Setting up
In this part I will explain the purpose of using stickman and show how to prepare everything for tracing.
Part 2 – Tracing
The main tracing procedure is explained here. Notice that the version of Synfig Studio used in this screencast is very old – you can see different icons and even Russian interface elements. I hope that will not distract you. ^_^
Part 3 – Compositing tricks
Here I will show some composition tricks that will help you in the tracing process.
Part 4 – Shadows
Final part of the series is about tracing shadows.
That’s it. I hope you haven’t tired of my mumbling. Enjoy! ^__^
13 Responses
nice and thanks for sharing. I’m downloading these ogv now. can’t wait!
In case you dont check your youtube email/comments Ill leave the same comment here:
Im learning a lot from just watching you work (not only the stickmen, but for example the clever ways of using blend types, clever ways to attach the different parts of the limbs to allow for flexibility when moving them etc) It would be great, if its not too much trouble, if you could make screen casts of when ur working on interesting parts of projects. (no need to comment on it, we could just watch how you are doing it). Its a pleasure to watch.
Thank you!
I was thinking that such screencasts will look boring, but if you requesting them – there will be no trouble to do such videos. I think I will be able to post them on youtube regularly. ^_^
that would be great Konstantin.
I know time is very precious for all animators… you dont need to take extra time to do these, just maybe when your coming to an interesting part of an animation you could turn on the screen grabber and work as you would normally and then it wouldnt take any of your time away.
Also I have a question about the stickman.
Im practicing with it and it would be very useful to “lock certain joints”
eg you want to move the hip and everything that the hip moves *except* the whole left arm.
Is there a way to lock the left arm so it is not modfied by the hip rotation , or do you just always place it back to its original location after you move the hip?
thanks.
I guess the thing that you are talking about is called “Inverse Kinematics”. Stickman is (currently) not supports that type of bones relationships. But I considering to adding this in the future (if that even possible).
To get really smooth joint movements (without having to always adjust the flesh around the joint) simply add 2 circles.
For example in the arm, the elbow joint…
Add a circle (with outline) behind both upperarm and lower arm.
then Add a circle (with no outline) above both upperarm and lower arm.
Thanks for the tutorials! One question… When it comes to side pose and 3/4 pose how could we use this method??
Hello, Vimal! For side and 3/4 pose you can use exactly the same method – just change the order of the groups to keep them in proper order. ^__^
Thanks for the tutorials! I Love Synfig to make my projects