#watchmeanimate

[erikals]

might be of interest...

#watchmeanimate

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxt...BFyITSA/videos

...tricks are (mostly) applicable to all 3D anim Apps

[macb]

Clever way to show animations using flat shading,
nice to see how the polys bend and twist at the joints.

[TheLexx]

Thanks Erikals. But how to achieve that level of quality in Lightwave ?

It would seem RebelHill is Keeper of the Sacred Knowledge:-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=P...b_logo#t=2m31s

[erikals]

no problem whatsoever doing that LightWave, all it comes down to to is skill and time.

[hypersuperduper]

It’s all just moving vertices over time. Real pros can animate like this in a text editor.

[TheLexx]

Real pros can animate like this in a text editor.

Could anyone just elaborate on that a little, possibly with any example or link. Is this referring to animating with scripts of some kind ?

[Carm3D]

Could anyone just elaborate on that a little, possibly with any example or link. Is this referring to animating with scripts of some kind ?

I think he was making a joke.

[Ztreem]

Could anyone just elaborate on that a little, possibly with any example or link. Is this referring to animating with scripts of some kind ?

Something like this, maybe?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wii_...ature=youtu.be

[Ryan Roye]

Thanks Erikals. But how to achieve that level of quality in Lightwave ?

Be a good animator. Seriously.

Generally, Lightwave suffers from "chicken and egg" syndrome, no one believes good animation is possible in the application because a lot of good animators don't really publish their work or can't due to NDA. A lot of the best animations for lightwave come from Japan.

One of the major complaints people might have are a lack of native animation layers (which 3rd party tools address). Perhaps software can make you a *faster* animator (which is why I use lightwave), but not a *better* animator.

[lardbros]

Agree, entirely with you Ryan.

Some people have a natural knack for animation, the timing and movement, and whatever application they use they'll create awesome animations. Just look at everything Chris Jones did using LightWave... his films, "The Passenger" and "String Theory" just go to show how AMAZING work can be done using LightWave with a lot of time and skills.

Other people have to work really hard at it, and practice a lot... but LightWave is more than capable of decent character animation work. Maybe it's not as straight forward to bone and rig things in Lightwave as Maya or Blender, but there's some great LightWave character work out there if you look for it.

[raymondtrace]

It’s all just moving vertices over time. Real pros can animate like this in a text editor.

Could anyone just elaborate on that a little, possibly with any example or link. Is this referring to animating with scripts of some kind ?

I think he was making a joke.

This is mostly a joke but it is based on substance. There is a reason why LightWave's scene files are text (not binary). And text files can certainly drive animation easily... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WblTVsR7SMs

[Carm3D]

Get yourself a video camera and record yourself miming the sequence you want to animate. Then animate using the video as a reference. Disney does it all the time.

[hypersuperduper]

It was a joke. It was a comment on tools being just tools. Any tool that can move vertices over time that then can be rendered as polygons can be used to animate. technically a text editor can do that. I imagine the 3d animator who animates in a text editor would be like Beethoven, who composed symphonies while deaf because he knew what they sounded like in his head. A truly genius animator wouldn’t even need to see what he/she was doing and a text editor would suffice. No clunky tools just directly manipulating the data. He or she would know simply know where to put the points because it would all be clearly visible in the minds eye!

[raymondtrace]

Get yourself a video camera...

That's how our grandparents did it. Now, you just write a regular script (with a text editor).

https://venturebeat.com/2019/04/12/d...m-screenplays/

http://www.cond.org/taketoons.pdf

[Kryslin]

It was a joke. It was a comment on tools being just tools. Any tool that can move vertices over time that then can be rendered as polygons can be used to animate. technically a text editor can do that. I imagine the 3d animator who animates in a text editor would be like Beethoven, who composed symphonies while deaf because he knew what they sounded like in his head. A truly genius animator wouldn’t even need to see what he/she was doing and a text editor would suffice. No clunky tools just directly manipulating the data. He or she would know simply know where to put the points because it would all be clearly visible in the minds eye!

Not as much of a joke as you might think...
Some of the earlier Dreamworks native animation tools were spreadsheet based, according to a couple of articles printed about the time the second How To Train Your Dragon film came out. Some of the earliest animation samples were probably done in a text editor...