Creating a Rough Animation

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The first step to complete a traditional paperless animation is the rough construction, which is the skeleton of your animation. You would usually start with the main action. For example, to animate a walk cycle, you will start with the torso motion and the legs. Head, arms and clothes will be added later during the secondary animation.

For a satisfactory animation, complete the main action before adding all the details. If you start animating all the details right away, you will lose a lot of time if you have to make corrections. Your animation will often look too rigid.

How to create a rough animation

Press Ctrl + U (Windows/Linux) or ⌘ + U (Mac OS X) to open the Preferences dialog box.

Select the Exposure Sheet tab.

Select the Use Current Frame as Drawing Name option. When this preference is enabled, drawings will be named like the frame they are created on (frame number).

In the Tools toolbar, select the Brush tool or press Alt + B.

In the Colour view, select a colour for the brush. It is a good idea to choose a light colour for your rough animation. This will help you in the task that follows, the clean up process.

In the Timeline or Xsheet view, select the cell where the first drawing will appear.

In the Camera or Drawing view, draw the first key drawing.

With your first cell still selected, do one of the following to mark your drawing as a key drawing. This will help you stay organized.

In the Mark Drawing toolbar, click the Mark Selected Drawings as Key button.

In the Xsheet view, select Drawings > Mark Drawing As > Key Drawing.

In the Timeline view, select Drawings > Mark Drawing As > Key Drawing.

In the Tools toolbar, click the Onion Skin button to display the previous and next drawings as visual references to help you draw new poses.

In the Timeline view, drag the blue onion skin markers to extend the number of previous and next visible drawings.

In the Camera View or Drawing View toolbar, press the Onion Skin Reduce One Next/Previous Drawing or Onion Skin Add One Next/Previous Drawing to reduce or increase the number of previous and next visible drawings. The red icons are for the previous drawings and the green icons are for the next drawings.

In the Timeline or Xsheet view, select the cell where your next key drawing will appear.

In the Camera or Drawing view, draw your second key drawing.

In the Xsheet or Timeline view, identify the drawing as a key drawing.

In the Timeline or Xsheet view, select a cell between the two key drawings.

From the Timeline toolbar, click Create Empty Drawing to create an empty drawing or press Alt + Shift + R.

In the Xsheet view, right-click and select Drawings > Create Empty Drawing or press Alt + Shift + R.

NOTE: Instead of creating an empty drawing, you can simply start drawing.

In the Camera or Drawing view, draw your new pose.

If necessary, in the Xsheet or Timeline view, identify the new drawing as a key, breakdown or in-between drawing using the Mark Drawing toolbar.

Use the Flip and Easy Flipping toolbars to review your animation.

In the Timeline or Xsheet view, select a new cell and repeat the previous steps for each new drawing.

In the Timeline view, use the Enable/Disable All and Solo buttons to turn off any layers you don't want to see during playback.

To loop playback, move the red playhead to the desired start frame and click the Start button on the Timeline toolbar. Move the playhead to the last frame of the playback and click the Stop button.