2D cartoon Animation in Motion?

Hi, Bill--

I'm not sure why you've decided on Motion OR Final Cut to create 2D animation. I've been doing animation for a couple of years (I'm an illustrator) and, while I'm now using Motion for some compositing for my current animation project, I mostly use either Toon Boom Studio or Macromedia Flash. If you want to do 2D animation, I'd highly recommend getting one of these programs. You can either draw your images in a traditional manner, scan 'em and bring them into the programs or draw directly into the program with a Wacom stylus/tablet. They are designed specifically for vector 2D animation.

Hope this helps. If you have any other questions, I'll answer them if I can.

Best Wishes,
-Elwood

Here are some links to check out the 2D software:

Toon Boom Studio:

http://www.toonboom.com/

Though they are dated, you might want to check out Steve Ryan's helpful and clear Toon Boom tutorials to get an idea of how it works:

http://www.steveryan.net/Toonboom.htm

Here's an animation I created (on the Toon Boom site) to test the Mac Version 3. I did it quite quickly, so don't expect complexity. I did it directly into Toon Boom using the Wacom Tablet & Stylus. I did the music using GarageBand.

http://www.toonboom.com/showcase/index.php?type=swf&id=elwood&Cartoon_Animations =&

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Link to the Macromedia Flash site:

http://www.macromedia.com/

Some artists who use Flash:

http://www.joemurraystudio.com/

(Joe Murray is one of my favorites and may use Flash and mixed media, I'm not sure how he does his animations. Great stuff, though.)

http://www.sandrocorsaro.com/reel.html

http://www.mudbubble.com/mad2005/main/mad_2005.htm

Yeah, what he said. 🙂

I've done some limited stuff in Motion using AE to automatically sync the mouths to the VO, but if you want to do "real cartoons", I'd recommend Toon Boom too.

Here is something I did in Flash:
http://www.swproductions.com/clients/KLA-Tencor/prolith81mx2004.swf

I really hate Flash, though. Ha!

Also, you might want to check out Mojo -

http://www.lostmarble.com

One big advantage is (limited) 3d capabilities - but still pretty strong ones. You can do multiplane animation and move the camera around and so forth...

Also, it's $99.

Good luck
Andrew

Hi, Bill-

I'm not much of a tech guy, so others may have better ways of doing this (particularly if you want to maintain the vector lines), but I just output a QuickTime movie of my Toon Boom animation as Animation (usually) with MIllions or Millions+ (if I want the alpha channel to float my image) settings. I then import it into Motion and begin assembling all the pieces. I don't care about keeping the vector line, in fact I purposely want to lose it, since I like the look of the softer (bitmap) images in this particular case.

I'm new to Motion and I'm sure I'll learn lots as I move through this first one. The experts in this Motion Discussion forum have helped me tremendouslyl as I'm fumbling my way through the learning curve.

-Elwood

Wow, that Moho looks very cool! I've never heard of it.

Thanks!