There's more to Artoonix than stick figures

Artoonix is an excellent, easy-to-learn and affordable animation program. (If you don't want functions like tweening, it's free). But the one style of animation that it isn't really suited to is stick-figure work. Programs such as 'Pivot' and 'Skeleton' are MUCH better for this kind of work and have been specifically designed for that style of animation. In those programs (both free), bodyparts are locked together at pivot points, so it is extremely easy to animate a stick figure without having to work frame-by-frame, moving every associated bodypart one-by-one. With 'Pivot' you can easily make complete movies. There are many examples on YouTube.

In Artoonix, excellent though it's tweening function is, it just does not work with this level of object manipulation. Bodyparts go all over the place instead of remaining locked at the joints.

In this movie there are 5 main characters:

(1) A basic stick figure with 6 bodyparts, animated frame-by-frame.
(2) A basic stick-figure with 10 bodyparts, animated frame-by-frame.
(3) A complex figure with 15 bodyparts, animated frame by frame. This took HOURS AND HOURS.
(4) The same complex figure, exported in a standing position into another program where all the bodyparts were RIGGED with BONES. The whole sequence for this second set of movements was done in FIVE MINUTES. The result was then exported as a set of png images and imported back into Artoonix where transparency was retained.
(5) The final figure was extracted from a previous Artoonix movie and altered for the purposes of this project. Animation had originally been done frame-by-frame.

There is also an additional ultra-simple stick figure who walks across the frame at the beginning and end. THis figure has 5 bodyparts and the walk cycle has only 3 stages. Even so, it took longer to animate that walk than it did to animate the spinning dancer rigged with bones.

So - my advice, if you're an Artoonix user - is to try to move away from simple, crude stick-figures and try instead to develop styles of traditional 2D animation that the program supports so well.

But if you're set on stick-figure animation - try programs that are dedicated to that style of work and in which bodyparts remain locked together at their joints.

Of course - if ever Artoonix implemented pivots or bone-rigging, it would surely become a contender for the title of 'Best affordable animation program to be found anywhere.'

Until then, I'll stick with tweening shapes that don't depend upon pivots and bones .... not unless I want strange or chaotic results!

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• Artoonix
• animation
• Pivot
• Skeleton
• bones
• rigging
• tweening
• stick
• figure
• stick-figure

[EliaForce1984ita]

"We're sorry, this video is no longer available." why did you put that title????

[AlanSturgess]

This is either just a silly comment (if so, why bother?), or for some reason you aren't getting the movie. It's not been removed and it still plays.

[spoofisushi]

AMAZING!!

How long did it take you??

[AlanSturgess]

On and off, it took 2 days, but that was in bursts of 15-20 minutes. Some of the sequences were extracted from previous animations and then imported as ipa files against new backgrounds or in new contexts. There isn't really anything complex here once you figure out what Artoonix can do (which is just about everything except for handling multiple pivots or offering vector graphics). I've posted a lot of walk-throughs and links to Youtube demos in the Artoonix forum.

[playerJSOR]

Great!, you do a perfect animation!

[AlanSturgess]

Nice of you to say so, although I don't really agree. My stuff is pretty basic, although I think I'm reasonable when it comes to ideas. I just wish I could draw better than I can. CORRECTION - I just wish I could draw! But I still appreciate the comment. Thanks.

[MaximumAlex128]

The dancer just fell down, that was funny

[Buglad5623]

nice.....YEah.........  :)

[peacefulshades]

Everyone can draw... just practice, ie... just do it.

I agree, dig your animations are cool!