Making an Episode
If you've watched the extras for most any animated feature (example: Shrek), you'll see pretty much how I do things, but obviously on a far smaller scale. Instead of a crew of 500-1,000 artists and technicians laboring away, it's just me. I do it all: writing, recording, editing, sound design, artwork, animation, effects, the whole kit and caboodle.
An episode begins as a script. Sometimes it's fully fleshed out, sometimes it's a loose draft awaiting ad hoc additions and changes as the episode is built. When most of the dialog is nailed down, I use an online speech synthesis tool called Voicemaker to realize the voices.
The app has hundreds of voices capable of speaking in dozens of languages. Many voices can be fine-tuned and imbued with different delivery styles (happy, sad, angry, frightened, etc.), resulting in a virtually infinite array of possibilities. It's free to use; however, for $20 a month, you get access to even more voices, many of which are experimental or works-in-progress; these are solid gold for creative applications such as my stupid cartoon.
After I record all of the dialog, I begin cutting the audio mix for an episode. During this time I may make many alterations simply because new ideas emerge when I can hear the voices assembled and can actually have characters interacting. Gradually I work towards a final version, at which point I'll begin sound design by adding room tones and effects. When I think I'm done, I'll listen to the whole episode over and over to see if it all hangs together.
Once the audio mix is set in stone, the animation begins. The first pass is to establish the basic visual flow, roughing in settings and character groups. At this point it's much like an animatic, or video storyboard. I'll play this several times to get a feel for the flow, and make alterations as necessary.
Next, I'll dig into the actual animation. I'll usually start with any heavy-duty effects, such as planets and space battles, since these often require new, unique artwork, which can get time-consuming. Then I'll fine-tune character positions and any moves they may make. At this point I'll burn it to a DVD to play on the big screen repeatedly to make sure it all still hangs together.
Finally comes lip-syncing, which I leave for last because if I happen to make any changes in a scene composition, I have to start over. This is by far the most labor-intensive step, because I do it all by hand. I don't have an application where I can push a button and all of the characters magically begin to speak. It usually takes 2-4 days to lip-sync an episode. I settled on three-frame steps: it's a good compromise between quality and economy. Had I gone with single-frame, I'd still be working on the first episode... either that, or I'd be in a straight jacket.
Lip-syncing is accomplished with 6-8 basic mouth shapes. Expressions are governed principally through the eyes, and I'll have anywhere from a dozen to over 50 eye renderings for any given character. Eyes are superimposed over the rest of the face via chroma-key ("green screen"). Indeed, I make heavy use of chroma-keying to assemble scenes, which may involve as many as 20 layers, sometimes more.
Start to finish, the average episode takes 8-10 days to complete, but this of course can vary widely. I've completed some episodes in as little as 5 days, whereas a few have taken months. All of the work is going progressively much slower due to my disease; imagine being a surgeon and having shaky hands. time consuming and, worse, frustrating as all hell. I can see what needs to be done, but often my hands refuse to cooperate. It used to be a lot of fun. Now it's mostly infuriating.
What software do I use? Two applications: I rely on CorelDraw version X8 to render all of the artwork, and I assemble the videos with Sony Movie Studio Platinum version 12. It's all (relatively speaking) "ancient" software, but a) it works, and b) it cost me nothing since I'd already invested in it many moons ago for commercial purposes.
Incidentally, my favorite step in the process is sound design. I once worked as an audio engineer, and it's a fun and rewarding task. I love imbuing the show with rich, realistic sound, because the more believable it is, the more engaging the program becomes. Nothing pulls me out of a story faster than poor sound design.