Using Adobe animate, we are learning to animate a robot using the bone tool.
First, make your robot using Adobe Illustrator – this is my design of a character called Genos.
Ensure that each joint is grouped in the illustrator file – for instance, forearm, upper leg, hand etc. This an example of the forearm that is all grouped.
Now open Adobe Animate and set up an ActionScript 3.0 file with the width set at 1920px and the height 1080px.
Once your stage has opened, go to File > Import > Import to Stage and locate the illustrator file of your robot. Ensure that the layer with your robot on it is selected.
Before beginning to animate, you need to make every joint or part into a symbol. Select a part, and go to Modify > Convert to Symbol. Name the part appropriately and set the type to ‘Movie Clip’.
Once they have all been converted, they should show up in the library. You then need to select them all and convert the whole robot into a symbol as well. Now it is ready to animate.
First, go into the robot symbol and select the bone tool (shortcut M). Now click on the centre towards the top of the body and drag to the middle of the neck and then to the middle of the head – each time clicking and dragging from the previous point. From the body, drag to the shoulder, elbow and then the middle of the hand. Do the same for the other arm. After this drag from the torso to the lower body or pelvis, to the top of the upper leg, the top of the lower leg and finally to the foot. Repeat this for the other leg and your robot will be ready for animating.
Now, create some new frames on your armature layer.
Move your robot into your first running position on the first frame. When moving the joints, hold down shift so that they move uniformly around its pivot point.
You can split a run cycle into 4 parts: up, contact, passing and kickoff. You can reference an image to help with positioning your robot.
Along the timeline, go to a frame, right-click and select Insert Pose for when you want to add in the next pose in the sequence. First, insert a pose on the last frame so that when looped, your run cycle plays smoothly as it starts and ends from the starting position exactly. You can test your animation by going to Control > Test Movie > In Animate and a browser window will open showing you a loop of the animation. You can rename this symbol ‘running robot’ now that it is animated.
To begin animating the next part, exit the symbol by pressing Scene 1 in the crumb trail.
Here, you might want to change your robot symbol into a graphic type rather than a movie clip. This is because the graphic format allows you to view the animation of the robot running as you play through frames in the timeline but with the movie clip format, you would need to preview the whole animation to see it – they are interchangeable.
First, create some frames by choosing a frame on the timeline, right-clicking and selecting Insert Keyframe. As my running cycle is a bit more complex, I mapped out points across the stage and inserted a keyframe for each of the main poses so that I could position my robot realistically to how he was landing. I got rulers by going to View > Rulers to enable them.
After you have positioned your robot in each frame, right-click on each of the keyframes apart from the last one and select Insert Classic Tween.
You can develop the animation further by having your robot going the opposite way and stopping in between.
First, duplicate your running robot symbol in the library and rename it standing robot.
Go into the symbol and remove all of the frames apart from the first one – in this frame, readjust your robot to be in a standing position.
Now begin to animate your robot going back onto the stage but in the opposite direction. Simply flip the symbol by going to Modify > Transform > Flip Horizontal. Find the frame where the robot reaches the middle of the stage and create a keyframe in the next frame.
In this frame, select the robot and go into the properties. You will see a swap option. Press it and select the standing robot. Leave some frames to elongate the amount of time your robot stands for before creating another keyframe and continuing the running animation as normal.
You can export the animation in various formats but I will export it as a GIF. Go to Export > Export Animated GIF and a dialogue box should open. Ensure that the name is set to GIF 128 Dithered before pressing save and choosing where to save it.
This is my finished GIF:
I am happy with my end result as the run cycle that I looked into and applied adds some character and a more realistic nature to the animation. I also feel that the intricacy of my robot design helps to improve the quality as it’s solid and has been created well to the requirements of using the bone tool to form a functioning body structure. What I would change is the frame rate as, while the running looks alright as it is, it might look better were he running faster so that his air time doesn’t make him look as though he is floating.
Jasmine Cooper 