Cartoon Animator's camera is like a very basic, fixed lens camera. You have two options, keep it still or move it around. But what if you want to get more cinematic with your animations? Create epic landscape shots, or follow the action in a more dynamic way? In  The Lazy Animator Guide to Cartoon Animator Camera Craft (coming soon) I'm going to show you how to create more cinematic shots inside Cartoon Animator. I'm excited to be starting work on this all new online course for Reallusion's Cartoon Animator with the goal of teaching you how to create more cinematic camera shots within Cartoon Animator itself. Shots that require a little more work than just key framing Cartoon Animator's camera. The focus will be on how to create each shot 'in camera' reducing the need for additional applications like After Effects and making your scenes easier to edit directly, rather than having to re-export footage from CA4 into After Effects whenever you need to change so

If you have completed The Lazy Animator Beginner's Guide to Cartoon Animator and are in need of a project to help retain all your newly gained knowledge, without having to start from scratch, then this Demonstration 'draft' Project should do the trick. The project comes with a suggestion sheet of potential 'upgrades' you could make that will test some of the skills you learned throughout the Beginner's Guide Course. There's also a storyboard document so you can match 'suggested' camera shots if you wish (or you can make up your own). All the character audio files (created with Replica Studios AI voices) are included should you need to reimport any dialogue into the project (or add your own dialogue if you sign up to Replica Studios for 30 minutes of free Text To Speech audio). The Demonstration Project is still worth buying, even if you haven't bought the Beginner's Guide Aside from being able to use it to test your own Cartoon Animator kno

Reallusion's Cartoon Animator 4 used to feature vector images more prominently for character and prop creation back when it was launched as CrazyTalk Animator 2 . So much so that they built into the application a Render Styles system that made it easy to recolor vector images if you took the extra steps to create vector color groupings for G2 vector characters and props. Unfortunately G2 Vector characters weren't the success story Reallusion hoped for, proving to be too difficult for the average user to make, and they also required Adobe Flash (now Animate CC) for which many users weren't willing to invest in a subscription. Since then  CrazyTalk Animator 3 , and now Cartoon Animator 4 , have focused more on high resolution bitmaps to create quality characters and props, however the Render Styles system and support for vector images still remains. Reallusion Not Interested in SVG Support? The only vector file supported by Cartoon Animator is Adobe's SWF format which i

One of the most recent additions to Reallusion's Cartoon Animator was the introduction of G3-360 Character Heads.  If you're not familiar with them it's a character head where all the component sprites are 2D images but, when rigged, they give the illusion of a 3D head - one that can turn from side to side or up and down simply by moving the sprites in a coordinated way. The heads themselves look really great but give the impression that they must be complicated to rig however, my latest tutorial,  How to Rig G3 and G3-360 Character Heads in Cartoon Animator , demonstrates that you really only need to rig four main angles to create a fully functioning G3-360 character head. This tutorial is the third and final in my Character Rigging Series for Beginners that includes: The Fastest Way to Rig a Character in Cartoon Animator - The One Sprite Method . Three Ways to Improve the One Sprite Character Rig in Cartoon Animator . Fortunately you don't need to have completed eith

If you've purchased my previous tutorial, The Fastest Way to Rig a Character in Cartoon Animator , you'll know that, while the one sprite character rig is relatively quick and easy, it does come with some limitations. The three main ones being: Limbs that have an elastic, noodle-like, quality that causes distortion at the joints when bending.   Very limited ability to have the character limbs overlap since all are on the same layer.   Bone hands that can't be flipped for the full range of front and back poses. To overcome these issues I have created a new, step by step tutorial that will take your G3 character rigging skills to the next level. Three Ways to Improve Your One Sprite Character Rig , shows you how to create layered character rigs and bone hands with a full range of motion, all using the same 'one sprite' you used in your original rig. All these improvements could be completed in 2-3 hours. Maybe even faster once you know the process. You will need to do

One of the biggest hurdles for beginner animators, new to Reallusion's Cartoon Animator Studio , is learning how to rig their own character designs from scratch. While Reallusion has worked very hard to make the process easier it still can seem complex and overwhelming, particularly now that CA's flagship, G3-360 character rigs are being adapted to work with live motion capture and pre-animated 3D motion files. Fortunately, by combining some of CA4's newest features (G3-360 body rigs and Bone hands) with one of its oldest (Morph-based heads), newcomers can get into animating their own character quickly and easily. The Lazy Animator tutorial, The Fastest Way to Rig a Character in Cartoon Animator , uses just one custom character sprite, and takes, around an hour or so (once you're familiar with the process) to rig a relatively simple, but still quite versatile character. The course is presented as a 19 page PDF document, with just two steps per page and clear diagrammati