User blog:ThePsychicSavior/A Guide to Making Your First Animation

So, while I'm by no means a pro at animating, I have been improving over the past few months, and posted my first fight about two weeks ago. I'm sure everyone on this wiki has a fight they'd love to see. So, I figured I'd take what I know works as of now, and share that knowledge with the community. This is not going to be the end all guide to animation, but if you want some easy first steps, I think this is a good way to get into animation.

1. The programs.

You'll need two programs to make raw fight scenes. You'll also need an additional one if you plan to make it look nice and pretty in a video format. These programs are:

Fighter Factory 3 A program that allows you to edit Mugen characters and download their assets,. This includes their sprites, which you can download one at a time, in groups, or all at once, depending on how you prefer to manage your time and space on your computer. This allows you to get the character, their attacks, and any other assets the creator has added to the character. In other words, it's the easiest way to get all of the sprites you need, as long as the character exists.

Pivot Animator  While normally used for stick figure fights you'd see on Hyun's Dojo and other channels, this program also allows you to import sprites and use those. While by no means the fastest way to animate, it's easy to learn, and simple to use.

The above two programs are entirely free, and have no pay walls or trials to worry about.

Finally, if you want to make it spiffy, you'll need a video editing software. You could use Movie Maker if you're feeling cheap, or get something like Movie Studio Platinum 13, the program I used.

2. Getting the Sprites

So, if you download the two programs, you'll need to download the characters and backgrounds. I'd recomend the Mugen Archive for the most choices, but there will be characters only on other sites. Think of your matchup, and search for both characters. Take your time looking through each one, and see which two combination of sprites A: Look the Best and B: Match each other. If you choose to use a Street Fighter 2 sprite with an original Mortal Kombat sprite, expect the animation to look weird and clashing. Find two that look similar in quality, and download them. After that, open the RAR file, and look for the SFF file. Extract that to where you can locate it easily. Finally, open Fighter Factory, go to sprites, open, and select your SFF file. You'll now be able to see all of your sprites. They can range from having around two hundred different ones, to over two thousand. Download the ones you want to use, either individually, or all together. Do the same for the other character. Then all you have to do is find a sprite background from any number of sites, and you'll have all of the tools for a raw animation.

3. Animating the Sprites.

Open Pivot, and add the background using File Load Background. After that, you'll have your canvas. Delete the stick figure that's automatically put in, and finally, put in your two characters. You can do it one by one, or try to load in many, though this isn't recomended, as you have to delete all of them, and there is a chance it'll mess up the sprites. Your sprites should be orginized by the action they're preforming. Choose the first sprite in the action you'd like, and add it in. Once you have your two sprites in, place them around with the orange circle next to them, or rotate them with the red circle. You can change their size by selecting them and changing the number on the left side of the screen, and finally, press the add frame button when you like what you see. Then, delete your two sprites, and add the next sprites in their actions. Place the next two sprites so it looks fluent, like a fighting game. I try to line up the feet, using the mouse and arrow keys for precise placement. Then simply add the frame, and repeat the procress. Do yourself a favor, and keep track of how the animation looks with the play and stop buttons. Do this often to avoid redoing a bunch of work if it doesn't look right. When your scene is done, save it, and export it as a gif. You know have a raw animation on your hands! You can finish here if that's what you were going for, but if you want something more...

4. Making it a Full Fight

If you want to make a full fight scene, you'll need to make multiple animations, and plan out how your fight will play out. Think of setpieces, and the actions your characters can take. Convert the gifs into MP4 files in one of many ways, and you'll have something you can place into your movie editing software. I can't go into detail about editing the fight together, since you may have a different editing software than me. However, you'll need to plan out many things in advance, such as the music that'll go along with your fight, and the progression of how the enviornment changes, and of course, who wins the battle. When you have an idea of how it works, get started making the scenes, and putting it into your editing software. The file you downloaded for your mugen character may have all of the sounds you'll want, though it doesn't hurt to find other sound effects and voice lines if you prefer to. Moving the camera is very important in an animated fight, even when not a lot is happening. If you want your background to move, and your software has a chroma key feature, use a base color for animating, and green screen a moving background behind the fighters. Add stuff like and intro, outro, and maybe some effects if you're feeling spicy. Before you know it, you'll be making a ton of progress, and eventually have a full on fight scene.

5. Finishing Touches

It doesn't hurt to take a final look at your fight to see if it need any changes. One of the biggest regrets of making my first fight was rushing it out in the last few steps. Take your time, and finish nice a strong. Don't be afraid to revise anything. When you're actually satisfied, export the movie, and upload it to youtube. I'm sure you know how to title it and make a thumbnail, if you've gotten this far. Upload that baby, and congrats, you just made an animated sprite battle. Now be prepared to be greeted by both positive words, constructive criticism, and people mad that their character lost. Either way, enjoy what you made, and be proud of it.

Bonus Tip

Sprite animation isn't incredibly difficult. It just takes time. You make many mistakes along the way, and it will take up weeks, probably months of work during free time. But if you keep at it, and have the ambition to make it as good as you can, you'll find a way to do the fight you want to see justice.

I hope this helps in any way I can. Even if it's confusing, it's much better than looking all over the place wiht no real guide to it. I hope to eventually see future animations from both the pros at Death Battle and One Minute Melee, but also any independent animators who just want to make a good fight scene. Feel free to check out my animation Zero VS Meta Knight, or perhaps even subscribe to my channel for upcoming projects of mine. Thanks for reading, and happy animating. - Psychic