Question About Animation

[Antdawg]

So I wanted to make an animation of a stick figure waving, something super basic, but I have a question about how to go about animating it.

I can make him wave easily by erasing his right arm and then redrawing it in slightly different positions every frame, but is there an easier more efficient way of doing this? I've seen people do rigging for 3d models, and it seems like with 3d animation you can sort of move the limbs independently with a skeleton rig, and reposition limbs that way. Here it looks like I'd have to literally delete the arm and redraw it for every single frame unless I'm missing something that helps streamline the process. But with really complex sprites that seems...painful.

I feel like there has to be an easier way. I saw a video of a guy using the wand tool to move things, and in one video it looked like the guy (AdamCYounis) put every individual limb as it's own layer but I couldn't tell cause he never clicked on each layer, though each one said something like- arm, leg, head ect. Do people put each limb of their pixel characters on different layers?

Basically, I have no idea what I'm doing lol

[Milt]

For 2D rigging everything has its own layer as for animating there is no quick way as yet or at least I don't know one (Answers on a postcard please). There is an onion skin function which references the last frame you drew so you can keep track of the animation. I did come across an app over 10 years ago called Anime Studio and that had a Rigging/Skeleton function much like in 3D also Flash had a boning tool Lol for the same thing. Another thing that this app is missing is a Tweening function that would save lots of time as well.

[Antdawg]

Originally posted by Milt:

For 2D rigging everything has its own layer as for animating there is no quick way as yet or at least I don't know one (Answers on a postcard please). There is an onion skin function which references the last frame you drew so you can keep track of the animation. I did come across an app over 10 years ago called Anime Studio and that had a Rigging/Skeleton function much like in 3D also Flash had a boning tool Lol for the same thing. Another thing that this app is missing is a Tweening function that would save lots of time as well.

Oh, so basically, Aseprite doesn't have anything like rigging a skelton? I saw the onion feature and an explanation on it on youtube and that does look like a very useful tool for guiding you as you draw. I just don't understand why he had every individual body part on a separate layer when drawing his character, unless I was seeing something in his timeline related to something else. I just bought this and started looking into pixel art a few days ago so it's a lot to take in. Ultimately though what you're saying, is that there is just gonna be a lot of redrawing and adjusting?

[Milt]

Pretty much and here is a quick guide to set up/rig a sprite for a game engine, but it can be used for your animations.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2752109587

[Antdawg]

Originally posted by Milt:

Pretty much and here is a quick guide to set up/rig a sprite for a game engine, but it can be used for your animations.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2752109587

Well that clear a lot up thanks a lot i appreciate the quick response!

I did some more googling and now that I'm seeing the rigging animations in motion, I'm realizing I actually do prefer the hand drawn look. Just wanted to make sure I wasn't about to make myself work waaay harder than I need to, but it looks like it really is just a lot of redrawing and micro adjustments using the onion tool lol I'd always heard that hand animation was pretty intense...and now I see what they mean. Makes me appreciate all the awesome pixel art in the games I play even more.