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I think there is a misconception here about what it means to be taught by and learned from other animators to join their ranks. It is the same process as how writing classes are taught and this is not a coincidence because both disciplines are very much the same; they teach intellectual clarity and concepts and the instructors point to samples of the good and the not so good that comes down through the parade of time.

Animation classes in all the schools I have visited or actually taught in fail to teach much of anything useful because the instructors behave like live tutorials, minus conceptuality. They teach how to use software. The rest is left for the students to learn on their own -- as it should be. But this also means that animation schools are more a place for teaching animators to take a reprieve than for students to learn anything they can't learn better when left to their own devices.

To be equipped with passion to express viewpoints and thoughts and feelings are products of individual minds and having someone show you how to animate a walk cycle won't help you to become an animator. What needs to be taught is not to make walk cycles and to think about what do I do then, if I'm not allowed to draw cycles? Now I've just given you the best lesson in animation money can't buy.

This is interesting thoughts Paul.
How do you think the best way is the Animations Schools should teach.
Same as writing classes and not on the technical aspects. or just focus on the tecnical. or not to teach at all or?
-Mads

I agree with you Paul : technology (software) and techniques (how to animate) are linked.

But in TVPaint case, it is a little different. Even if some of us have contact with drawing, painting or animation, we cannot have the pretentiousness of teaching animation.

I would make students take literature and writing classes, anatomy classes and painting classes to understand the relationship between colors. I would also make them take musical and art history to understand that current music and art are very limited in their scope of expressing emotions. A good liberal arts school has all these classes available to animation students but they aren't taking advantage of them so I would make them mandatory.

I've been told that such a program wouldn't leave enough time for them to learn how to animate, which is bogus thinking because to learn to animate you need to learn to formulate an entire world view. When a student from all these intellectually deprived families is exposed to classics, something awakens in them, which is the need to express themselves using whatever talents are available within their make-up. If it doesn't become the birth of passion to animate, they should be failed. If it does become a spiritual awakening to express oneself through drawings in motion, then all they need are a few tutorials and lectures about software and file management, which comes in-between the business of coming and going to all those lessons of culture.

Elodie wrote:I agree with you Paul : technology (software) and techniques (how to animate) are linked.

But in TVPaint case, it is a little different. Even if some of us have contact with drawing, painting or animation, we cannot have the pretentiousness of teaching animation.

I am with you there; I have said nothing that opposes this thinking. On the contrary, I have suggested that people learn those things on their own.

Okay, sorry if I have misunderstood you =)
(Love agreeing with someone ^^)

Paul Fierlinger wrote:I would make students take literature and writing classes, anatomy classes and painting classes to understand the relationship between colors. I would also make them take musical and art history to understand that current music and art are very limited in their scope of expressing emotions. A good liberal arts school has all these classes available to animation students but they aren't taking advantage of them so I would make them mandatory.

I've been told that such a program wouldn't leave enough time for them to learn how to animate, which is bogus thinking because to learn to animate you need to learn to formulate an entire world view. When a student from all these intellectually deprived families is exposed to classics, something awakens in them, which is the need to express themselves using whatever talents are available within their make-up. If it doesn't become the birth of passion to animate, they should be failed. If it does become a spiritual awakening to express oneself through drawings in motion, then all they need are a few tutorials and lectures about software and file management, which comes in-between the business of coming and going to all those lessons of culture.

Paul, you do say all this better than what I managed to get out - I agree with what you are saying: "If it does become a spiritual awakening to express oneself through drawings in motion, then all they need are a few tutorials and lectures about software and file management, which comes in-between the business of coming and going to all those lessons of culture."
This is what has led me to want to learn to animate.
On the tutorial side, the ones TVP has up on the website, the ones that work, are great for helping to learn this software. Some of them seem to need QuickTime, and aren't opening, for me, but the ones that do open are great. I recommend using them.

idragosani wrote:There's an extended video on the particle system that was done by Terrence Walker (studio artfx). I don't know if it's still available or not.

It's still available. Those interested can find it here: http://www.studioartfx.com/ArtFXshop/3D ... magic.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The entire video set is also included in my Final Independent Animation Training video set, which is mostly centered around TVP.

I'm glad it's still available, it's very thorough in it's coverage of the particle system

Paul Fierlinger wrote:

I can see that several of us here are no more students… and wo'nt be anymore… except, maybe, here !

Well put, but considering the developer's shortness of time, and considering how much time it takes to build a tutorial, and finally considering that it is beyond the scope of developers to teach their software owners how to become animators given that the software is made for animators, would you be willing to start a collection to pay someone like lemec to create a tutorial that teaches how to animate? Personally, I would prefer that the valuable time of developers be spent on further developing the functionality of the software.

I wholeheartedly agree here .. Tutorials are not a function of software development. I just feel that there is an existing market for tvpaint training, and if structured appropriately could even increase TVPaint sales. David Revoy http://www.davidrevoy.com/portfolio.html is one of my favorite digital artists, he uses Gimp and myPaint for a lot of his work. I would like to see someone use TVPaint for that type of digital painting.

He used to use TVPaint and was a beta tester in the past. I think he's using open source tools right now because he's been working a lot with the Open Movie project and they are using open source tools as much as possible.

You were faster than me Breff :p

idragosani wrote:He used to use TVPaint and was a beta tester in the past. I think he's using open source tools right now because he's been working a lot with the Open Movie project and they are using open source tools as much as possible.

Yes, he is their art director... I have many of his DVDs obtained through the Blender Foundation.

masterchief wrote:

idragosani wrote:He used to use TVPaint and was a beta tester in the past. I think he's using open source tools right now because he's been working a lot with the Open Movie project and they are using open source tools as much as possible.

Yes, he is their art director... I have many of his DVDs obtained through the Blender Foundation.

I do too... excellent stuff. You can do all of those techniques with TVPaint also (he even mentions that somewhere, I think).

idragosani wrote:I'm glad it's still available, it's very thorough in it's coverage of the particle system

Thanks. I'm glad to know people are interested in and benefiting from the TVP Particle Tutorials.

I wish I could check out the David Revoy videos, but it seems I am unable to view the site from here. I have found that many people are wholly unaware of how easy things can be with TVPaint. When I do demonstrations at schools here, students and teachers alike are often amazed and have tons of questions afterwards. I usually animate this simple character, something like QBert from that old video game, for reasons of speed, and when students begin to see how it all comes together, with background and an example of quickly cleaning up and coloring a frame or two, they get very interested.