Pencil tests.

[longarms]

Hi all.

I've heard about pencil tests, but I'm not really sure what they are or their purpose. And is it necessary to do one for Flash animation?

Thanks!

[Spoooze!]

The purpose of pencil tests are to check to see that your animation looks right and you haven't made any mistakes.
I've never used flash so I wouldn't know if you need pencil tests for it or not.

Spoooze!

[animotion3d]

hey,

in 2d cel animation,
when animator is done with roughing out the scene he is animating.
he does a pencil test,

which mean he shots his rough animation drawing done by pencil, which have
no paint or no clean up,

this process is for directors and lead animators to view the test and review it
that is it as per director's idea.

this test is necessary before clean up artist does the clean up drawings and
paint department does painting on cels.
because after all this process done if animator or director finds problem in
animation then they have to start all over again.

time and budget may not allow that.

flash is a vector drawing and animation software not hand drawn so
no pencil test in it.


hope this helps...

[longarms]

That all makes sense, thank you for clearing that up, I was beginning to worry that I had even more work to do.

Thank you!

[Animated Ape]

I still do pencil tests working in Flash, esspecially with harder, more complicated scenes.

What I do, is bring in the chacater symbols for a scene to get all the right scale. Then on a layer above, I use the paint brush tool, and rough in all the key poses, and break-down drawings. I then export it out as a low res avi and play it to check all the timing. Then I can move the drawings around forward or back on the timeline till I like the timing. When I'm finally happy with what I have, then I go and animate with the symbols. It's not a true pencil test in the strictest sence of the word, but it serves the same purpose, which is to nail down the timing and acting befor you get too far into it and waste your time.

Aloha,
the Ape

[longarms]

Thanks thats a big help, I think I'll give that ago as most of my key drawing are done and I know how important it is to get the timing right.

Thanks to all who have commented, I really appreciate it. Because of it I should have a better looking animation, which I will post up once complete.

Thank you!