Chris Pirillo » animate

How to Create Stick Figure Animations

Chris Pirillo — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 10:43:44 +0000

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I am definitely not an artist. I have trouble even drawing a simple stick figure! Thank goodness there’s software out there that will help me. It’s a lot of fun, too! Stykz is cross-platform, and won’t cost you anything.

Stykz is frame-based, letting you to work on individual frames of your animation. Figures can be rotated, scaled, flipped, duplicated, colorized, and relayered. Figures can be created and edited directly in place; no separate “editor” window is required. Stykz’s PolyFill tool lets you fill shapes with just a few clicks! You can individually adjust the line segments in a figure, setting their length, width, color, and angle.

As you can see, it’s not just some boring old software that lets you make simple designs. Oh no! Stykz is full-featured, allowing you to create very complex little stick men and women!

Windows and Mac versions can be downloaded now, but sadly, the Linux version is still in beta form, so it’s not available just yet. The Linux public beta is coming soon – so stay tuned! The program is awesome, and a lot of fun!

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How to Create Stick Figure Animations

Want to Create Your Own 3D Cartoon?

Chris Pirillo — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 03:56:35 +0000

Want to Create Your Own 3D Cartoon?

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If you can type, you can movies at xtranormal! My friend Joe sent this link along to me, so I had to check it out. I think it took longer for the movie to render than it did for me to create it!

It’s so simple to create your own movie. First, choose the number of characters, and the scene. The movie maker appears. You can change the set, actors, and background music. Start typing the dialogue for your actors. You can drag many actions directly into the text blocks such as camera angles, sound effects, facial expressions, and character animations.

From here, you can share your movie with others, or even remix theirs! The possibilities of what you can do are literally endless.

Xtranormal’s mission is to bring movie-making to the people. Everyone watches movies and we believe everyone can make movies. Movie-making, short and long, online and on-screen, private and public, will be the most important communications process of the 21st century and its democratization is a massive business opportunity. Our revolutionary approach to movie-making builds on an almost universally held skill—typing. You type something; we turn it into a movie.

Make sure you check out my Sonic Farts video, and feel free to remix it!

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Want to Create Your Own 3D Cartoon?

Are You an Aspiring iPhone Animator?

Chris Pirillo — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 06:49:48 +0000

Are You an Aspiring iPhone Animator?

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Here’s a happy face that I created. It’s not just any happy face though. It’s a happy face that animates into a puddle of good. And out of that puddle of goo comes some pink puss. Ok, so I made that up. Basically this is a Flip Book Application for the iPhone. You may remember that recently I reviewed a similar App, called the FlickBook. This one costs $10.00, compared to $5.00 for the FlickBook. Now, you may be already asking whether double the price is worth it. I’m here to tell you, it is. The tool set that comes with FlipBook is just awesome.

Drawing hand held animation gets easier, and more fun using FlipBook on the iPhone. FlipBook makes it easy to create colorful animations with your fingertips, and share them with your friends and family. Getting started is easy, simply download the $9.99 application from the app store and start animating. Use anything from eraser to onion skinning to layered drawing. Draw on top of images from your photo album including images taken with your iPhone’s camera. Touch play when you’re ready to see how your movie looks, and use the accelerometer to control how fast your movie plays then upload it to flipbook.tv and share it with everyone. FlipBook puts animation into your hands.

FlipBook has easy to use drawing controls and is available for iPhone and iPod Touch. Some of its features include customizable brush and eraser sizes, an advanced color picker, layer-based drawing, and a move tool, enabling you to create beautiful drawings. Use one finger to draw and two fingers to control. Bring up the toolbar by tapping with two fingers. Pinch with two fingers to zoom in and out or slide two fingers around the screen to pan. When zoomed out, swipe with two fingers to go forward and back through your frames. FlipBook allows you to choose between varying your movie’s speed with the accelerometer or use a fixed-frame rate. While paused, swipe your finger to change frames.

You can easily upload movies you create using FlipBook, or email them to friends. Create layer-based drawings using customizable brushes and multiple colors. There are just so many cool things you can do with this App, that you’ll find you used more than $10 worth in the first sitting alone.

This App is very clean, and very advanced. It’s quite intuitive, which is great for most people. If you do enjoy flip books, art or animation, be sure to give FlipBook a shot. I give it a huge thumbs up!

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Are You an Aspiring iPhone Animator?

Have You Ever Wanted to Animate Your own Cartoon?

Chris Pirillo — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 07:46:03 +0000

Have You Ever Wanted to Animate Your own Cartoon?

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My friend Duncan Riley posted a link on his FriendFeed yesterday, and I had to check it out. The link said that you could build your own cartoon. I love cartoons, and I love trying to create new things, so this works perfectly! You can simply drag and drop… edit… and go! With GoAnimate, there’s nothing to install. It’s all done online. Create and share your animation in just minutes.

GoAnimate can do loads of stuff! While we do our best to make it easy to use, it is always hard to pack so many features onto a computer screen and make it easy for say a chiwawa with its legs attached behind its back to use. Whether you have trouble creating animations or you want to learn about the more advanced features of the application, this page is the place to be!

You can use any of their hundreds of pre-installed images, or upload your own. There are cool backgrounds, sounds, and of course animations you can edit and change. Create your comics, share them with your friends, and build a fan base for your work. At this point, you can even embed your cartoons.

I’ve never seen something quite like this before. It’s pretty powerful stuff, and tons of fun. Be sure and share with all of us whatever you create!

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Have You Ever Wanted to Animate Your own Cartoon?