Animation Director/ Producer
Male
Animator
Queensland College of Art
Australia
Joined on 7/1/03
Posted by JamesLee - November 1st, 2011
Tarboy 2 is almost 50 percent complete, and I'm still on track for getting it released this year. I've made a new blog post where I outline some details on my rigging process.
http://www.tarboy.com/2011/11/tarboy-2 -rigging-nash/
Getting it done soon is top priority right now as we're leaving for New York in Febuary. All of the hardest work is now complete, I'm glad that I planned it so that each sequence would be easier than the last.
are the pieces in groups i wonder? or do you have a symbol for each of those teeny pieces?
Those are all symbols. I like to have it set up so that if I make a change in one it will change over in all of them :)
Glad to hear there's going to be another Tarboy! Very much lookin' forward to it~
I'm so excited for this :)
Could you give us a premise for Tarboy 2? I'm assuming he's some kind of business bot or something.
If I say anything about the story I'll give it away ;)
loljk
actually... i dont have a joke :(
lolnojk4u :)
I bet it all ends with Tarboy becoming Concreteboy.
I seriosuly have no idea how you can keep track of all those parts.
Rigging hurts my brain
Hah, it's funny because I watch traditional animation like yours and I wonder how you keep a mental track of everything!
With rigs like this you only end up working on one thing at a time, starting with the posing, then the basic movement and then coming back through for secondary action. Keeping things within symbols is a good way to isolate certain elements like the face or hair. If the hierarchy isn't tidy though, it can be easy to mess it up!
I've never used the rigging system in Flash before. Does it allow you to swap symbols and such mid animation?
I should elaborate that I don't use bones to create my 'rigs'. They're all just symbols on the timeline so they do fly apart, but it's still simpler to go through and fix it than to use the bones.
For symbols that I do need to swap out a lot like hands and mouths, I was the classic method of swapping out the first frame on the symbol properties.
I tried the rigging system for like a second, and didnt like it.
though I did like the rigging system in toonboom when I tried that many years ago,
but that was because you were actually able to bend the symbol. so if you descided to make a ponytail. in toonboom you would need only one symbol for that ponytail and add 3 or 4 bones to bend it.
Is that possible yet with flash? if all your symbols are on separate layers, I wanna assume no.
Yeah, the rigging system in Toon Boom is far superior to Flash. If you want to use bones in Flash, they all must be in the same layer, so that means no minor tweeking on smaller sections unless you want hundreds of messy keyframes that no longer relate to anything.
I just use classic tweens, and go back through the animation and re-align everything manually when it falls apart. It's the most awkward system ever.
Half way there? Oh my god, I'm so looking forward to this.
Is it still referred to as "rigging" even though it's not a 3d model? I always understood it to be a 3d term. It usually isn't so bad until you gotta introduce eased tweens. Those are a pain in the ass to sync properly, especially when you're changing a symbol amid-tween.
Anyways, I'm quite excited for this. Kinda confused as to how this will relate to the first movie, but there will be an answer in due time I suppose. Keep up the good work!
I don't think there's any standard term for it, but I have heard it referred to as 'rigging' a few times.
Yeah it gets complicated when easing comes into it, especially if you don't want all the pieces to move at the same time. Flash CS5/CS5.5 has a weird glitch which makes the process unsuable.
Can we have a sneak peek from Tarboy 2? Like 20 seconds??!
cool! looking forward to seeing it!
Awesome thank you for keeping your fans up to date. I really enjoyed reviewing the first one. Can't wait to see how the sequel holds up.
Read the article on your site. Very Informative. Can't wait until Tarboy 2 comes out. The first one was amazing!
So you've worked for more than 2 years on the first half and plan to finish the second in 3 months? Either you're a lazy bum or part 2 is going to be terrible.
Thundaboom
Style looks VERY professional. Keep it up