A few random animations you might enjoy:

AnimatorsForum.com

It's been a while since I've posted -- been *extremely* busy at AnimatorsForum.com (at least in terms of providing some custom scripting tools for Anime Studio) so I thought I'd post here and remind anyone interested in animation, and using Anime Studio in particular, to come visit us there and to ask and answer all sorts of questions on our favorite topic.

You'll also find some very cool free scripts there, custom tools that make animating a pleasure, as well as meet up with some of the best animators around.  I take no credit for the great place that it is -- that's all due to the members -- but I am proud to be a part of it.

Our latest shows

Our last two episodes (in HD!) are now available on YouTube. You should watch them (assuming you are going to watch them) in order (and watch them on YouTube if you want to see them full screen on your PC. With HD it's worth it :>):

Episode 7 - The Big Show



Episode 8 - Water and Power

Never Too Late -- The Series

"Never Too Late" is an animated half hour series about life in an active adult community. Royal PITA is located in central Florida and is owned by the Dingle family. It's a good natured look at getting older, and those who know it's never too late to have fun.

Here's a look at our pilot episode (primitive animation but we got *lots* better at doing this as the show progresses):

Never Too Late -- The Pilot from Mike Kelley on Vimeo.

All forum, all the time

Folks,

When I started this blog I intended to provide all kinds of tutorials on using Anime Studio, recommendations for animation books, links and pointers to cool animation sites, etc. etc. And I have done so... but not here.

What's happened is that the Animator's Forum Wes and I set up (details in the July blog entry) has basically taken the place of what I intended to do on this site. And more. In addition to me posting useful and/or interesting information on the process of animation (and Anime Studio in particular) there are all kinds of other members there helping out.

So I think I'm going to repurpose (a word I never thought I'd use) this site and focus more on the actual animations we've been doing, and save the more generalized discussions and tutorials for the forum site. That way those of you who have been following this can ask more specific questions and get answers far easier.

And maybe, just maybe, I'll be able to update this page on a more frequent basis (stay tuned to see).

New Animators Forum!

Wes and I (synth75 on the old LM site) have started a new animators forum, mostly devoted to using Anime Studio (but will include general tips for all animators). It's early days but already there are tips and tutorials there available no where else. I would recommend anyone interested in animation to come join us and make it the best possible place for discussing the art form we all know and love.

Unlike the Lost Marble site, we aren't beholden to Smith Micro and can say things that cannot be said there. But that's not the main reason to participate -- Wes and I together have over three decades of experience in animation and we were among the top ten posters in the old AS forum. Wes and I have written many useful scripts that add funtionality to the program almost anyone can use. We can promise you there is no greater expertise to be found anywhere when it comes to Anime Studio.

My blog now will concentrate more on aspects of our show but tutorials and Anime Studio stuff will be on the forum. We hope to see you all there!

Animators Forums

Paying Lip Service

As promised, here is a video tutorial on how we do lip sync for the series. It shows how easy using Papagayo (the freeware phoneme generating software) is and how quick and fast it is to incorporate this into Anime Studio.

One thing to note: Vimeo is notorious about having audio sync issues, so if the lip sync looks "off" to you when playing this file I would suggest downloading it and playing it on your own machine to see that it is indeed correct. But the good news about lip sync is that you can easily adjust it yourself (in your own files) to be whatever you want it to be in terms of timing.

Lip Sync Tutorial from Mike Kelley on Vimeo.

Next week I'm planning on doing a tutorial to demonstrate some of the principles of Richard Williams superb animation book "The Animator's Survival Kit" as they are applied inside of Anime Studio. If you don't have this book already you must get it -- it's that important a tool to the budding animator. Here's a link to it:

The Animator's Survival Kit