Simmy Speaks-Designing for MAPs
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- Опубліковано 17 жов 2024
- This is entirely directed at MAP hosts and should not be used as general designing for animation advice. There's a whole load of lectures that would go into that so this is just for the sake of the MAP community, not that some of these idea's don't spill over, of course. K.I.S.S is a term used in Richard Williams Animator's Survival Guide and I feel we sometimes forget about it.
This is also not meant to be taken as "Tennelle is trying to dampen your creativity" or the other extreme "Tennelle thinks you're lazy or bad if you do x, y, or z". No. This is just a video explaining some basics that will hopefully help out MAP hosts and animators. I can't tell you how many times I've heard MAP hosts say after-the-fact "I wish I didn't make this design so complicated" and all their animators go "that's right, you monster! :'(" so this is just trying to help prevent it from happening in the future!
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"But I would never ask animators to animate this because
A.) They wouldn't and
B.) I like living."
- TenelleFlowers 2018
Oooh 100th like :D
900th like
Xd I loved that part
She be right dogh
Lol replying to something thats two years old
Edit: why did i comment this?
THANK YOU.
👀
~owo~
OMG I love u I am a big fan!! 😲😍😘😚😙❤
Wait why you don't have a like from tennel ?
OwO
My animation teachers used to say it too me this way, think of every button that you put on a character as 10 000$ each added to a full length movie production budget XD Thank you for this! I hope a lot of people see this!
BlueMaroon|Sarah Goran so... nothing??
so if you put floating things you get more money?
@@despoticsilhouette7841 i think its more like : more details you make, more money you spend
I can only think of how much money Ever after high spends
@@patisilence that's different bc it's a funded show with dozens of people working on solely animation
So...
Never animate Simmy :)
exactly. ;)
Yurp xd
Simmy might not be to bad
Don't animate Simmy unless she's doing it xD
@@TennelleFlowers bet
Wellcome to TennelleFlowers school of animation.
i know im being picky but you spelled Welcome wrong
Wallcom
If this was a real school, I would beg to join
Shadow Drawz wacom
Fang I’m bad at animation
For those who are wondering what the proper term for points 2-3 is: *line mileage.*
Line mileage simply refers to the amount of lines used in a drawing. The more lines there are the bigger the line mileage, and then the opposite. And like TennelleFlowers said, a big amount of lines in a singular drawing is fairly easy to do. But the same complex design for a hand-drawn animated sequence? Your animators will hate you, just saying. :P
You can of course have designs with a lot line mileage, but keep in mind that this will be costly and take a long time to animate. This is why so many extravagantly detailed anime characters tend to be in static poses for most of the duration of the episodes they are in.
when i was newer to animation my characters were static, too. they still don't move around a lot, and my lip sync is bad because idk how to properly move a face
That's one of the things that I personally enjoy so much about Warriors' art like Tennelle's, Beffalumps and Nifty Senpai's (and multiple others.) Every single character is extremely distinctive and unique and they don't solely rely on the character's colour and slight differences in body shape to distinguish who's who. Not saying that I don't like other art that more so relies on colourations and slight body changes, since a lot of them are aesthetically gorgeous, but it's harder to tell characters apart.
I agree so much with this! Before I made animations I felt like some designs were a little too simple. But when I started out I was really happy that characters were easy to break down into simple shapes and schemes and it wouldn't take me a hundred years to flatcolour one frame. :3
Pupville101 Sagutoyas does that beautifully as well like, all of them are so good at body differences
This actually helps a lot honestly?? Because holy crap. Ive always known of like Fursuit friendly but never thought of animator friendly! I'll definitely work on some of my ocs to simplify them for animations and whatnot :o
TheKittehTeam whoop whoop fursuits!
Im making a fursuit rn! Nice to see a fellow furry
FELLOW FURRY
there's gotta be alot of us in the warriors fandom tho XDDDDDDD
Oh hi there fellow furry
I think this can be used for casual animation in general, don't go overboard with the designs of you aren't willing to put effort into making it consistent (like I'm not, lol)
But what if you have a character that is an animal with a lot of those, like a cheetah or a leopard? They're known for being covered in spots.
I guess you're screwed, then.
Possibly getting a spot pattern drawn in a separate layer and copy+pasting it, and using Free Transform tools to make it fit the angle of the character? Sort of like they do in Chowder I guess.
It's stylistic and might not work for realistic styles, but it's probably better than killing yourself with spots. :P
Turn the spots into a pattern? maybe use larger spots? either way, thats gonna be tough XD
If you look at Cheetara from Thundercats, she has just a few spots on her considering how many a cheetah actually has. So you would take an artistic license here and maybe just put a pattern around the face, shoulders, rump, and tail. Big studios also designate employees, time, and money in writing advanced scripts that can track transforms and scales and then apply a spot texture to it. Look up 3D camera tracking for Nuke. And then of course Disney is hoarding their program that allows you to draw 2D lines on a 3D character and they follow any animations you give them.
Also, historically, 2D characters are simply just designed around the budget of the film/project. And even style in some situations. If you create a limited animation style that still looks pretty, then more spots would be doable as less frames are needed.
Perhaps you can simplify the design by placing spots in only a few key places, then making sure to include a note showing how they are alined on the character. For example, as noted by Joumana Medlej, a cheetah's spots follow an arc on the shoulders.
My appreciation for "Floor is Lava" continues to skyrocket after this video. I struggle to keep characters' markings consistent from one still drawing to the next; I have no idea how I'd ever animate them!
Also this has me wanting to redesign some of my OC Warriors designs to be more animator friendly, even though I have no intention of animating them or commissioning others to lol.
for a little bit "use the warriors wiki designs" was a trend and have you seen warriors wiki tabbies. All aboard the nope train lmfao
yepitie yep yep XD
NightTheKitten I'd never put anyone through that Hell unless the character has no design by other people and the Warriors Wiki design is animator friendly.
Oh g o d
Having experienced that once,,,,,it was h e l l
* gets on the nope train *
TAKE ME TO NARNIA
NightTheKitten imagine animating the tabbies I draw...oof
I love how your not bossy and saying "Don't do this it looks bad" or something instead your actually helpful and open minded.
Yeah, thank you for not giving us a headache by saying “Don’t you this! This is stupid and ugly!” Or something along those lines.
My designs oof
I suscribed to you!
Hi
Smoltoxin hi!
BLESS sometimes i'm really sad because there are great maps that just have impossible designs and I end up not wanting to join them because of that.
if you want to make really detailed designs maybe consider doing a PMV MAP instead?
Selket does pmv mean picture music video?
exactly :)
Great advice!!! and stuff I'm gonna try and keep a better eye on in the future as I design/redesign characters. Super helpful video cause I've definitely made these mistakes. And heck yes complicated (though pretty!) designs have kept me from joining MAPs in the past :c
i dont animate, but those are really helpful tips for character creations as well! im redesigning my fursona (see picture) to a more 'hybrid' like form and struggle with setting highlights, so if i can set those at such 'fix' spots its much easier to draw!
Any tips to overcome same face syndrome? I find it so hard to draw different body shapes, head shapes, and face proportions without it looking completely funky looking.
Oh man, I know what you're talking about. Getting out of that looks pretty hard, but in the end it just comes down to practice. :P At one point everything should just click and you'll have it down.
What helped me lots was breaking down the faces of different characters(from Disney and the like) to figure out what gave them their "vibe".
Another thing that could work is just drawing a bunch of different animal skulls/heads. Can really get you thinking about the different shapes a face could take.
Breaking down things in general can make them easier to draw, it's what I do to design characters now.
But if it's same BODY syndrome you're facing, just look to Steven Universe. I couldn't for the life of me figure out hips before that one xD Just beware of spoilers I guess.
Hope this helps even a little!
TijanaTheDragoness
Thanks! I don’t really watch Steven Universe but I have seen the character designs so I’ll take that into account.
Let it look funky !! Go wild!!! Absolutely bonkers!!!
@@TijanaTheDragoness as much as I love Steven Universe, I’ve never actually considered to look at the characters’ designs, and it’s a really good idea. Thanks for your comment, it helps a lot!
I know this comment is three years old but I wanted to put my input in anyway. With different breeds (especially dogs but cats and horses also vary in looks from breed to breed. The same can apply to bird, snake, rodent, rabbit, etc species/types) reference an irl image of that said animal. Avoid adding fluff to everything, too. I see so many people attempt to draw dobermans, pit bull terriers, and labs but they end up adding so much fur that it looks like a husky with another’s breeds markings. With bully breeds and mastiffs, extending the jowls and adding some wrinkles can also accentuate the character’s features. With cats, trying to come up with a variety of different face shapes may prove to be challenging since cat breeds are not as different from each other as dog breeds are, however you can still see differences between them. For example, a domestic longhair is not going to have the same face shape as a Siamese or Oriental Shorthair.
You're honestly one of the most down to earth UA-camrs I know. Some seem so fake--and I love your art. Love your channel ❤
Thanks for the heart!!
This. This is perfect. TBH I live by K.I.S.S when I design characters. And I don't animate. I write, so tend to make visual references so as to save time looking for written document. That and it's harder for me to miss an image, since I have horrible eyesight. And it is so much easier to describe a character when you have a simpler design to work with. And this advice works with any species, not just the felines you used as an example.
Holy cow yes! I worked on the Lady Stardust MAP and the stripes on those cats took up 80% of the time I spent on the part
Wonderful video!! Lots of people animate for fun and nonprofit, and time is the biggest (and most annoying, why can't I *finish* that part already it's been 4 months oh gosh) drawback to animation, so when I see designs with speckled thin-line tabby patterns its really easy to click off a video. Great work, I love your Simmy Speaks, you always know exactly what you're talking about!
Thank you thank you, this is so helpful! I'm currently working on designs for a map, and I was looking at them while watching this video and realized that I made some of these mistakes. I'm fully intending on going back and fixing them, thank you so much for the tips!
What I like about this is how most of her spoken words don't belong exclusively to warriorcats.
You could take this vid and show it to any animator or character designer.
i'd just like to say that this can go for comic artists too! though it's only you that's gonna go insane, making simple and easy to recognize characters instead of over complex story filled ones will seriously help you after drawing 50 panels.
I really appreciate this video! You were to the point, broke down the issue, and offered solutions with good examples. I've been thinking about giving animation another shot and I'll definitely keep these tips in mind when I do. Thanks for sharing your knowledge! :D
The best part. XD
"Because a happy animater is an animater that doesn't want to scoop out your insides with a dull spoon 'cause somebody went a little to overboard with the stripes!"
Thank you thank you thank you I’ve been thinking about this a lot for weeks. What bothers me even more is when people don’t even draw their own references. For some reason they don’t consider it art theft.
You should see Ladyteelia's character designs they are very detailed and complicated.
and she animates them, it's often choppy, but still not bad,,
One of my characters has freckles, I used to try and animate every spot but then I changed it to 3 easy spots under each eye and it is so much easier
As someone who is not only an animator but an owner of a complicated character covered in stripes
I wish I saw this video when I was 14 lmao
(I personally find it fun and rewarding to get all the patterns consistent as a result tho, so it's not completely a bad thing!)
I don't think it's impossible to do more complex designs, but you've got to be good to do it. Teelia manages, but I can see a lot of people not having the same skill/time.
This is full of great advice, thank you so much!
Wings of Fire dragons are pure pain to animate. Dragons are so difficult to start and then the tribe scale patterns PLUS some detailed design patterns? Oof. One of them I have right now has a bunch of stars on a rainbow gradient by the head and ahhhh
Oh boy yeah! I think there's definitely ways Wings of Fire could get MAPs made, but the MAP host is really gonna have to make sure the designs are simplified.
thank you so much it always bugs me when MAP hosts expect people to be able to animate a tabby with precise spots all over or something like that
like give the poor animators a break :(
This is fantastic advice, and I agree wholeheartedly! Thank you for the Tawnypelt example as well, I struggle with simplifying designs and it was really helpful to see a step-by-step process.
If the MAP is a PMV MAP, would you recommend still keeping the designs somewhat animator friendly, or would the astronomically less amount of redrawing allow greater flexibility with character design complexity? I’m planning out a PMV MAP myself, and while I do intend on giving artists a very distant due date, I have some very (very) complex designs in mind (that I would never have designed for frame-by-frame animation). Do you think that will still frighten away most people?
CosmicCreations I think when it comes to pmv’s, everyone is generally way more cool with complicated designs! It’s still just a matter of “is this needlessly complicated?” that I would keep in mind! :D
TennelleFlowers That’s good to hear! Again, thank you so much for the advice! ^^ 👍🏻
@@Imaedraw hey nice advice! im gonna note that down
I love these vids! You're awesome dude, thanks for sharing all your animation knowledge ^^
This video is actually very important. I like how you brought up the facts about using shapes and making the characters unique, not just copies with different colours and patterns. That's something I have always tried to focus on when designing my OCs.
*Me, not understanding why they were bad designs.*
*Me, an animator, who takes part in many maps with similar designs:*
TENELLE IM SO SORRY I DOUBTED YOU
ZS: body shapes, got it. Face: the less complicated, the better. No floating shapes. Easy patterns…., TYSM THIS IS SO HELPFUL.
1:13 Here we see the Bluestar of ThunderClan. While many cats use their teeth or claws, the Bluestar often uses her extremely sharp ear spikes to repel enemies.
UDGInauagaa
SHDGAKAYDJS
I like that opening music there *waggles eyebrows* XDDD
This is super informative!!! thx for the information, I'd never thought about this kinda stuff! Mostly because I haven't really dabbled in animation before, lol!
Spottedleaf, Tawneypelt, Cloud Spots, Tenelle’s Character, 5,000 other warriors and at least 1 million OC’s have been spot shamed.
Dear Tennelle,
Thank you for being such a huge inspiration for me! I am a young artist who is a huge fan of your videos. You are my biggest inspiration and person I admire. Thank you for all the tips you provided in this video, and they'll help me a lot! Your work is amazing and unique, and I can't help but look up to person like that. Again, thank you for all the inspiration you have given me and the support you give all your fans! Keep up the amazing work!
Love, Katie Kneeland
I cant animate so- ha!
saaaaaaaaaaaammme
I don’t even know what I’m doing here when I can’t either lol
I watched this anyway what the heck! 😂😂😂😂
Same
I don't either but I watch it to learn how to simplify my cat character designs and patterns and learn useful tips in drawing them and not spend 50000 hours on them (flashbacks to 5 hour long tigerstar drawing ON PAPER)
HELP THIS IS SO TRUE
Im in a map and the designs are driving me insane lol. Im very glad i got a animation part that only shows two characters, and mainly their faces :,)
"Get rid of floating shapes"
My OC who literally has wings that float: Dammit she found me-
Omg you don't know how thankful I am for this video. This helps me a lot especially since I took a huge break from animation and starting back into it. Thank you!!!!
"...and B, I like living."
I have no words Tennelle.
Tennelle: Boome will animate complicated designs!
Lady Teelia: you mortals discust me.
TAKE NOTES CHILDREN
Tennelleflowers, you are AWESOME!! Thank you for the advice, I’m still struggling with the same face part, hehe.... You’re my idol! Keep up the good work! Oh, and I love your, I think it’s your OC, she is adorable!!
I was really worried that MAP was for minor attracted person
Same omg
i was checking the comments for clarification.
I'm pretty shocked that people use this term for this, tbh. Why not just call them collabs like we used to?
Fuck 2019, I was listening to the video and looking at the comments a bit to check but didn't want to say anything if it wasn't. 🤣
I clicked the video because I was so baffled at the title! Lmao
THANK YOU FOR ADDRESSING THE FLOATING SHAPES. Sometimes I have to draw a character from an angel and I'm like "how the heck am I supposed to draw this part??"
Thank you for this wonderful advice! It’s really helpful because I might be doing a MAP soon and also when I join a MAP I’m always like why did I do this because I’m so bad at animating cats and stuff so yeah. Keep up the great work!
People always say to "keep it simple" but don't always explain how. This is super helpful!
also as a note: don't add 892434286734 different colors to the design, even if the markings themselves are simple it's still gonna be hell to put in that many colors for that many frames (gradients are also difficult/tedious)
thanks for coming to my TED talk goodnight
This is super insightful, and something I definately didn't take into consideration when designing some of the characters for my own MAP. It sucks that it's too late now, but at least I know for the future! Thank you Tennelle ❤
When I animate Warrior Cats, I change Tabby patterns to three to five simple stripes on their back, that make them look like a Neko Atsume or something XD
I love your simple abbreviation to remember,
K.I.S.S
keep it simple stupid
Im literally gonna recite this to myself every time I approach animation and designing a character for it :")
Perfect ideas, I'll use these in the future!
I freaking love your channel!! There's so many useful things to know that you discuss. You were one of the first youtubers to ever inspire me to start drawing
Well apparently LadyTeelia is doing this all wrong xD
LadyTeelia is a god at animating complex designs XD but to be fair I've never seen her asking for others to animate her more complex characters, and her silhouettes are still pretty distinct
katleidoscopic Lady Teelia is hardcore.
As soon as I saw this video I thought of her
Thank God! I have yet to participate in any maps, but now that you've made this, I have more hope in myself. So many times have I stumbled across the most complex of designs in a map :')
Thanks for the advice! I've been trying to learn to edit and style characters for maps and this really helped
As an MAP host myself, I think this video helps a lot. I can see why some of my maps didn't get a lot of entries. I've made super complex designs on many of my MAPs.
**sadly goes back to change the headache of a design for Ivypool**
Ugh! Thank you so much for this! I've been animating really detailed characters and that "floating spots" topic really helped me very much.
I've been wanting to animate LadyTeelia's characters for a long time now, but the problem that I have is that her character designs are very complicated...
This helped so much! I've been struggling with character design for a long time and this made so many things make so much more sense!
Have you read the Animatior's Survival Kit? If so, the Milt Kahl joke tipped me on that fact.
fantastic advice, tennelle !! watching this video made me seriously want to rethink most of my warriors designs- all of them are so needlessly complicated save for a few. best i go fix that now whilst i have some time on holidays- thankyou !!
My owl brain: hmmm we should go to sleep its 12:30 am and we are 9
My lazy brain: nah boi age don’t matter bruh we gonna be fine
YES !!!!!! this is so important !! having a simple design speeds up the animation process a TON and saves many wrists from carpal tunnel
You have helped me o design an oc to use for animation
_THANK YOU FOR MENTIONING RICHARD WILLIAMS'S K.I.S.S YOU ARE AMAZING!!_
This is so true I'm in tEars
As someone who now understands the pain of trying to animate complicated designs, I agree with this video. (Also there are so many maps that I’ve joined that I couldn’t look at the designs until after I applied and then I ended up having to animate them..)
ikr i thought it was a bit obvious to not make it so freaking complex XD
i’m
crying
GRAYSTRIPES FACE DESIGN IS SO FUCKING ADORABLE-
TENNELLE TEACH ME YOUR WAYSSS
Unless you're ladyteelia. That girl's a god I swear
stxrmy I see u everywhere
;D
stxrmy that's why I subbed to u
oh wow thanks lol
" Scoop out your insides with a dull spoon " ..... I would use... THE SCOOPER FROM SISTER LOCATION lol
I think Viziepop can keep an eye on literally every detail. Go watch Die Young animated by Viziepop. You’ll see what I mean.
Fried Waffles Yeah but some people don't like Viziepop's style and or animation.
THE WORLD ENDS WITH YOU BACKGROUND MUSIC I LOVE THIS VIDEO AND TWEWY!!!
I don’t really suffer from same face syndrome. Since they are basically humans but cats, so they’ll look the same expect for you know. The type of breed they are. If you stray too much from the same face syndrome look they won’t end up looking like cats.
That's not really true. You can make designs as out there as you like and so long as you call them cats, they are cats. (even if, yes, they don't really look like cats anymore.) But avoiding same face is generally preferable even if that means making a character design that is only a cat because you say it is. Take Jiminy Cricket for example. One of the most iconic character designs ever created and he barely resembles a cricket at all.
This actually helps me! I’ve been working on animating for awhile now. I’m still on the “walk cycle” phase, but I’m getting better. I use a lot of your tutorials, and they really help! Thank you so much. (Saw this yesterday, but wasn’t on account.)
My oc used to be a brown tabby. Now he's blue...
The tips are really helpful. My main character had a lot of battle scars but now I narrowed it down to one across his muzzle one over his eye one on his shoulder and one on his tail
I thought you meant MAPS like minor attracted person. I was thoroughly confused
aaa thank you so much Tennelle! I didn't honestly consider these points at all before. Without this vid I probably wouldn't survive MAP hosting.
But what if an animator has to use those stripes like if he/She has an oc that needs to have stripes,spots,scars and they don’t wont to ruin the character just to make things easierfor them then what do they do?
Sparkolgaming 5 just like she said: you trim it down. Keep it simple! Drawings with stripes and things are fine but ANIMATING that is hard! Also its more realistic to not have crazy things on the cat just because you want it to look "special". You need to be considerate for the animators because animating is a tough job and it takes 4-5 hours to even draw a walk cycle! (Not with all animators).
A scar is fine. Stripes and a few spots are fine! But just COVERED in them??? Dont go overboard. It'll look way better if you keep it simple and not give the animator hell while they do this.
Wolf thank you now i get IT
Thank you for this
I always tell my girl who also animates in MAPs with insane designs, "JUST CAUSE YOU CAN DOESN'T MEAN YOU SHOULD" with those extra floating markings ;o;
Now go animate a cheetah.
Damn late for the party but this is valid for comics as well! As an artist who works mostly with still images and panels, simple designs work wonders for comic pages too. Same rules, same ideas, keep it simple and easy to copy, I don't want to spend 40 minutes on one panel because I've to draw a thousand tiny jewels on a fancy dress or dozens of stripes on a cat.
TenelleFlowers didnt like my map so she made this
Julie Foster WOOOOSH
WFT I LOVE THOSE AMATION AND DESIGN GIRL WHAT TALKING ABOUT I WANT LIVE WITH THOSE ART DESIGN!
Hola cómo
Good advice!
I'm currently working on designs for EVERY warrior cat,(Save me) and this really helped me understand why to do simple patterns on characters (Since I'm going to animate some of them)
Great video, as always 😉
I'm not really into animation, but these were AWESOME tips in terms of character design too! I'm really glad i found this video. :DD
OMG these pointers are taken.
I've been inspired to put out MAP calls in the future, so I've just been watching all of the MAP do and don't videos so people actually join the MAP.
I'm just here. I have no videos out and have never animated in my life, so I'm just hoping people will join the future MAPs.
Yeeesss the shapes part is sooo important, just to character design in general, but ESPECIALLY in a series where there's 50000 "huge brown tabbys with amber eyes" that might share a map script.
This was actually really helpful not just for MAPs but animating and art in general. I myself don't do MAP's since i'm still very new to animating and only am capable of basic stuff like run cycles or head turns, but I tried animating a tiger the other day, and even though it was only a simple 4 frame run cycle, the stripes were absolute murder on my sanity and the entire time I was questioning how the fluff anyone manages to do full scenes.
But you had quite a few great tips in your video that i'm definitely going to keep in mind next time i try animating anything or drawing many different characters(I'm getting better, but i still suffer somewhat from same face syndrome).