Preface
Have you ever watched a cartoon on television or the Internet and wondered, "How do they do that?". Perhaps you have a story you've written that you want to tell visually? Or maybe you just have some crazy ideas in your head and you want to spit it out onto a digital canvas and see what happens? Whatever the case, Learning Anime Studio will teach you the fundamentals of using Anime Studio Pro as well as animation in general.
Learning animation software requires hands-on training. While reading the step-by-step exercises will help, the real deal comes with the work files that accompany your book purchase. If you're not comfortable with drawing on a computer, don't worry; you can use the book's assets while going through the lessons!
When you are done with this book, you will have gone from a blank canvas to having an animated sequence on screen. Let this book be your guide while your imagination takes you to new heights!
What this book covers
Chapter 1, Stepping into the World of Animation, covers how to install Anime Studio along with configuring default settings for your documents. We will begin our journey with an overview of planning and scripting your cartoon.
Chapter 2, Drawing in Anime Studio, introduces us to Anime Studio's drawing tools. This chapter breaks each tool down, creating a guide you can refer to at any time in the course of the book.
Chapter 3, Exploring Layers and Timelines, teaches us which layer is right for certain situations with easy-to-understand exercises. The three timelines are also explored in this chapter.
Chapter 4, Enhancing Your Art with the Layer Settings Panel and Style Palette, demonstrates the main functions of each feature in the Layer Settings panel and Style palette that will help you add an extra "pop" to your work.
Chapter 5, Bringing a Cartoon Character to Life, introduces three different bone animation techniques so you know which options are available when it's time to animate. Smart Bones are also explored!
Chapter 6, Developing Your Cartoon's Scenery, covers how to draw a scene from scratch, preparing your character for his/her big premiere.
Chapter 7, Creating a Library of Actions and Assets, covers how to make organization easy with the Library and Actions panels.
Chapter 8, Animating Your Characters, covers different ways to animate the character. Along with multiple exercises for various character movements, you will learn how to create a short conversation between two characters. The new Bone Constraint functions are discussed as well.
Chapter 9, Exporting, Editing, and Publishing, discusses exporting your cartoon, using video editing software, and how to get you work in front of an audience.
What you need for this book
You will need the following:
Anime Studio Pro 10 (while you can follow along with previous versions, some exercises were written for Version 10)
iMovie or Windows Live Movie Maker for editing
Who this book is for
Learning Anime Studio is for newcomers to Anime Studio or animation in general. Hobbyists and newcomers with ambitions of being an animator will get the most out of this book. However, intermediate and long-time users of Anime Studio will be able to use various chapters as a reference to some of Anime Studio's tools and features. The book also serves as a guide for the new enhancements introduced in Anime Studio Pro 10.
Conventions
In this book, you will find a number of styles of text that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles, and an explanation of their meaning.
Code words in text, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, and user input are shown as follows: "Enter 25 into the stroke width field."
New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, in menus or dialog boxes for example, appear in the text like this: "Click on the Apply button in your Layer Settings panel."
Note
Warnings or important notes appear in a box like this.
Tip
Tips and tricks appear like this.
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