James Whitelaw Animation

This will be a very practical course.

Initially the idea I had for the course was to have a very structured course that goes through each part of OpenToonz in a very structured, detailed way. Some of that will remain, however I have changed the structure now to make it more "hands on" and practical. 

So, let's dive straight in and see what's in this Animating With OpenToonz course.

Course structure and format

The course will first cover the Basics, where you will discover where everything is, what it does and how to use it. You will need this part to get to know your away around the OpenToonz interface, especially if you have never used OpenToonz before. 

We will start with the installation process of OpenToonz and it's setting up so you can render out and import various (Mpeg) video formats.

Then once you have it installed, and you have covered some of the basics of the tools and drawing techniques that can be used, you will dive immediately into using OpenToonz to create some very cool animations.

The format on offer in the course, is currently 2 scenes - the first relatively simple, and the second a bit more complex. The idea is that you can follow along and do some, or all, of the creation in these scenes, or just sit back and watch, and learn.

The choice is up to you. I know some students will just want to get their hands dirty right from the start, and get going with the creation process whilst others may want to sit back and observe. We are all different. And maybe the scenes that I have created here are not something that you may want to create yourself. You may have your own ideas, and I expect you will. But if not, and you just want to follow along how I create these scenes, then that is fine too.

How ever you interact with this course, whether you get involved in the creation of these scenes, or simply watch and learn, it really is up to you.

In each video, I will show you step by step how I did something, in such a way that you can follow along and do the same. Or at least learn and understand how I did it, whether you do it or not yourself. 

In each scene there will be several steps and tasks and in working through each step and in doing each task you will learn how to use a specific part of OpenToonz. The tasks may seen complex at first, but after a while, you will start to understand what each thing is, and the tasks will start to seem easier. As we work our way through the scenes, we will also be working or way through what OpenToonz has to offer. 

Do you need to do all the tasks in the course?

Heck no! You don't have to do any tasks. It is up to you. You may learn by watching. And you may want to take what you learn, and apply it to your own animated scene or creation. That is totally up to you.

The course, and how you work through it, does not depend on you doing all the tasks. You can pick and choose what you want to do. But perhaps if you are a little like me, the more you do, and the more you "practice" by doing, the faster the learning will happen. Plus, the more you do of these tasks, the better the end product will be. And that end product will be your very own creation. Your take away from this course. So it's in your best interests, I believe anyway, to do as much of the tasks as you can. And even do more, if you feel like it.

I will set out the scenes as they are in this course, from my creations. But please be free to change it all to your own desire. I am not encouraging you to copy the material as set out in the course, exactly as I have presented it. I would rather encourage you to bring in some new creative material, your own material. You may not like the settings I have created. Awesome, please create your own. Create your own assets, back grounds, people etc - you are in charge here. I have just set out an animation that can either be followed, added to, or just used as a rough guide. The choice is yours.

Just have fun, and learn. That is the main goal here! 

So what exactly is in the course? Let's explore that now...

Basics

Initially in the first part of the course, Basics, you will cover all the moving parts of the OpenToons platform. You will look at installing the latest version of OpenToonz and how to add and install correctly the FFmpeg files that are necessary to import and export MP4 video files. You will need to be able to do this (import and export MP4 video files) often in your future animation work. 

Then you will look at things like the layout of the workspace, specifically the "rooms" OpenToons is organised into, and the Tool and Function bars. And you will look at what's available in each. You will look at the Schematic & FX windows, and the Function editor, the X-sheet etc. 

This will all be at an introductory level. We will dive into each in more detail later as we get to the creation parts of the course. But these introductory lessons will enable you to see what's available in OpenToonz, and how to navigate your way around. 

Ok. The creating is about to begin! 

Scene 1

In Scene 1, you will start creating!

After looking at the various options available, you will begin creating your first drawings in OpenToonz. You will cover the various ways OpenToonz allows you to draw and create your work, looking at the different types of layers available, like vectors & rasters and some special OpenToonz formats of both of these. You will look at how to create and edit objects and lines, and fill them, paint them etc. Then you will create your first project folder, and start creating your first scene by creating drawings and assets you will come back to later in the course.

You have begun!

Once you have created some drawings and assets, you will then take a look at creating your first animation in OpenToonz. You will look at the various ways OpenToonz allows you to animate, and you will do your first Frame By Frame animation. Later on in the course you will get to Puppet or Cut-Out animation, and using Plastic and Skeletons to animate. But Frame by Frame animation is where you will start. 

Relax, you will get to everything... this journey has only begun!
 

Scene 2 

In the second scene of the course, you will create some more drawings and assets. Just this time they will be a little more complex and plentiful than in Scene 1. You will also look at creating some beautiful back grounds and you will be introduced to a variety of ways to create these back grounds. Then you will learn some amazing ways to animate these backgrounds so that the scene starts to get depth and almost looks 3D! This is the amazing 2.5D aspect of using multiplanes, and you will be introduced to it in this scene. As it will be vital to this scene working well, you may want to spend some extra time here. 

Around this point you will start to dig a bit deeper into some more advanced methods of animating that OpenToonz offers, like using Skeletons, Plastic and IK to animate. You will apply these methods to some of your creations here, and this scene will start to "come alive".

You will now be ready to create a camera fly through that will give he illusion of depth, as earlier mentioned, and the scene with start to feel almost 3D. You will also be shown how to create multiple cameras around the scene so you can shoot the same animation from a variety of angles, distances etc. so as to have unique footage for editing and compositing later. 

At this stage you will be shown how to separate the scenes into various layers ready to apply the next steps, the FX. 

Adding FX

In this part, you will be shown how to use all the powerful FX tools that are available in OpenToonz. You will look at the many filters & special effects (FX) that OpenToonz offers, like light, shadow, water, dust, mist, smoke, reflection etc - and you will be shown how you can apply these to your scenes. These FX applications will change your scenes radically, and you will soon become very accustomed to using them as you dig deeper into the power and depth of OpenToonz.

Rendering out the separate layers

You will be shown how to render out the separate layers of your scenes in such a way that you can composite them together in your editing software. The trick here is to render these layers in such a way that the FX are applied correctly to them, and then most importantly, the backgrounds of each layer are transparent, so they can later be composited. 

Compositing

After rendering out the various levels of your scenes, you will need to put it all together in a compositing, or editing software. I will introduce you to the software I am currently using, ShotCut. And you will be shown how to composit and edit these scenes in ShotCut. However, you may have or want to use a specific editing software, such as DaVinci Resolve or Adobe After Effects etc. - that is up to you. Just know that I will be using ShotCut in this course, but what I do will be applicable to what ever editing/compositing software you are using.

You may even want to use OpenToonz for this process, as it certainly do compositing, and we will cover that too.

Adding sound and final editing 

Once the various layers have been rendered and composited, there is only one thing to do, and that is add sound and do a last final edit. I will show you my favourite source of (free) sound effects, and you can apply them to the final edit of your scenes. Then we will do one final render, and the project is done!

Congratulations!! You have just created an amazing piece of animation that you can be both amazed by, that you created this, and proud of, because you created this! You can now post it on all your socials, put in your Show Reel or up on your YouTube channel.

You did this, you should be proud! Oh, and along the way, you have mastered OpenToonz. 

A big achievement. 

Well done!

Postscript of the course

Here you will look at everything you have learnt and done in this course. You have done A LOT, and this is just a quick refresher and a shortened version of everything you have covered. 

Extra material

This section will remain "live" and will be updated from time to time for the life of this course, which will be a very, very long time.

Whether it is something I have created or animated in OpenToonz, or perhaps it is a new OpenToonz feature or tool - what ever it is that I feel is appropriate to your continued growth and learning, will be added here over time. 

It is bonus material, not connected directly to the course, but will perhaps be of interest to you if you check in after you have completed the course anytime in the future.

And that's it! That's what's in the course. 

I certainly hope you have been inspired and intrigued enough that you will look into taking the course. It will be a pleasure and a privilege to have you onboard!