where to start:

[riche]

frankly many of these discussions are over my head... any guidance tips, or suggestions, for a new user will be appreciated.



thanks rich

[Byron]

My advice would be, dive right in and start messing about - you'll soon have a whole host of questions you want answering, but you'll also have answered quite a lot of them yourself.

[Sewie]

I started reading the manual (printed the pdf) and went from there. There is also a selection of video tutorials over here.

[Byron]

Yes - I forgot about those video tutorials. They're really good.

[riche]

yes! i have done some of the tutorials and they have been helpful also i have worked with the help files. i have short attention span with the help files and i find it difficult to locate a subject i am interested in. my optimum way of learning is by pushing buttons and fooling around to see what will explode and what won't. tvpaint is to me like learning a foreign language but i have to say with persistence i have made considerable progress. seeing the term "key framer" not know what the hell that means or what it's used for then discovering its location and how it can link to other open projects was eyeopening. how to put all this to use is beyond my level of sophistication at this point. i am a neophyte(i use to be hot but now i'm sixty) animator. i am really fond of tvpaint and i see great potential in it from looking at some of the work produced by the users on this site. a major portion of my day is dedicated to working with the software.

looking forward to learning more about the software, animation, and the members of this forum.

rich

"i use to be a serious guy. i'm not anymore i quit. (long pause for effect) I'M SERIOUS!!! "

[Byron]

Sounds like you have a pretty good approach already! Compared to other animation and graphics apps, TVP does exist in a universe all it's own - but it is definitely a universe that's worth exploring, and the help and support you get here at the forum is second to none.

[idragosani]

frankly many of these discussions are over my head... any guidance tips, or suggestions, for a new user will be appreciated.

I would just dive in and start drawing. Get a book on animation (Tony White's How to Make Animated Films is a good start) and work out some basic animation tests. You'll find that doing traditional animation translates very well to the TVPaint environment, the principles are all the same.

[Sierra Rose]

It's very good if you describe a task you are trying to achieve in specific terms. You might be amazed at how quickly people will answer with the right help. Not a huge task like "I want to make an animated film" but a smaller task like "I'm trying to pan a scene."

TVP is like rich food, must be taken in small bytes. Seriously, all the little helps add up before long and you should be able to function quite well with the software.

I agree with Idragosani that studying books on animation can be very helpful. You can also google terms you don't understand.

I too started as a neophyte at about your age right into computer animation and had no experience with classic cel work. Even though I am older, my learning curve is fairly smooth. and of course it's lucky that I can spend so much time every day with it.

I think you have stepped into a most interesting, challenging and rewarding world. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

I also wanted to add something that has helped me greatly. Every day I come into the forums and click on view new posts. I go through every one of them even though it may not be what I am working on at the moment. I try to be sure i understand what is being advised, explained in each post by having the software open on my art computer while I go through the posts on my internet computer. I have learned the most through this activity, I think than anything.

[riche]

thank you all for your interest.

rich

[Paul Fierlinger]

thank you all for your interest.

rich

Rich, I'm curious if I got your thread topic right: are you new to animation or just new to TVP, or both? The way you formulated your question I have a notion that you are just new to TVP.

[riche]

thank you all for your interest.

rich

Rich, I'm curious if I got your thread topic right: are you new to animation or just new to TVP, or both? The way you formulated your question I have a notion that you are just new to TVP.

i'm new to both tvp and animation. when i was a younger man i made my living making steel sculpture.


rich

[Paul Fierlinger]

My! Have your hands stopped shaking yet? Years ago we had a fellow from Belgium, named Raymond, on these forums who was a sculptor (steel and bronze and stone and clay I believe) and he teeter-tottered a lot between the two until he eventually drifted back to sculpture and was doing well the last i heard of him. But that was when TVP was still in short pants -- now it should be difficult to ever leave TVPaint.

[riche]

My! Have your hands stopped shaking yet? Years ago we had a fellow from Belgium, named Raymond, on these forums who was a sculptor (steel and bronze and stone and clay I believe) and he teeter-tottered a lot between the two until he eventually drifted back to sculpture and was doing well the last i heard of him. But that was when TVP was still in short pants -- now it should be difficult to ever leave TVPaint.

here for today excited and enthusiastic...

rich

[Paul Fierlinger]

Ask away as you stumble across any problem. If the question has been dealt with many times before, someone will point you to the thread which best dealt with it. Sometimes these threads are not well labeled and the topic can be difficult to find for someone new.

[riche]

thank you kind sir.

i hope to make good use of all the resources here.

rich