How I animate (in FireAlpaca)

[@au.tomobile]

Moral of the story: Northflower likes to make everything harder for herself.

[@juneb3rry]

mood

[@clydestuff3199]

is that a ramshackle fan i see-

[@artisticfilzah]

ikr

[@sirenaxon5900]

Me who uses firealpaca to animate: *Laughs in pain from 5420 layers-*

[@mamatrans145]

WHAT😀😀

[@sirenaxon5900]

Sadly its the pain of using firealpaca- ;-;

[@sirenaxon5900]

Wait holy crap I have more than a hundred likes and got hearted- This is one of my most liked comments that I have- What is this sorcery. o-o

[@xwaffleconex2909]

I use ibis paint and thought 100 was a lot

[@jet1482]

um 😃😃

[@sagefauna2806]

Just a tip that I figured out by accident on firealpaca: If you need to make multiple frames invisible or visible again, just hover your mouse over the area with the button, then click and move your mouse up and down depending on which frames you want to change, so you don't have to click on each one individually. Sorry if this makes no sense lol, it's kinda hard to explain ;-; Edit: I've been informed that you don't need to hold down space, my bad!

[@zib69420]

hi

[@Northflowo]

:0 woah I did not know that

[@CocoDentzel]

I did not expect to see you here haha thanks for that tip

[@ArtisticAngelLucas]

Just gonna save this info because holy frick I did not know this

[@bookshelf4354]

THANK YOUUU

[@foxxfurrz]

Lets be honest. It's gonna help a ton of madlads.

[@Mimikyu007]

Yes Hi

[@strawber3seal_77]

Yes indeed it did

[@Lemieuxponyvlogs]

Same I use flipa clip

[@Lemieuxponyvlogs]

Opps worng comment. Ugh

[@ink6048]

“An editing program preferably” *laughs in iMovie mobile while emailing 500 frames one by one to myself*

[@TheHydrakeHydra]

Jesus Christ that sounds like absolute hell

[@Zarii_]

Is it bad that I do that too-

[@TheHydrakeHydra]

@@Zarii_ dam-

[@theaveragecomment1014]

oh god

[@furyleferret2288]

and here I thought I was the only one who did that

[@beplinquent]

that is one interesting thumbnail

[@MATOGAST.]

Its beautiful

[@Twinklenighterstarshine]

@@MATOGAST. yes c:

[@beplinquent]

very intriguing

[@cinnamonrollyK]

E

[@Cfneoz120]

Indeed so, comrad.

[@howler746]

My animator friends: "why do you use such complicated animation softwares? Do you want to suffer?" Me watching this video: 🤠they don't know what pain is

[@tori6871]

north flower giving us a whole tut on how they animate. * Me: FlipaClip is nice. Yeah.

[@vyronix5698]

Lol- I need a better animation program than FlipaClip

[@kittieshauntedourfantasy]

Lol

[@kittieshauntedourfantasy]

@@vyronix5698 Same

[@Clooover]

Flipaclip is actually a pretty good program to animate with if you have access to the paid features.

[@tori6871]

@@Clooover Haha I used it for everything lol I love it way more than having to press so many controls just to make a god blessing line lol

[@lynxii3234]

the way she becomes tireder and more exhausted by the second is hilarious and i feel bad for laughing at it but - thanks for the tutorial!

[@leoteodia.6952]

Really surprised of Northflower persistence she is literally dying and still using FireAlpaca :00

[@Sukiato]

Firealpaca, was so so painful. I recently switched over to Clip Studio for animation just because the absolute pain of counting out which frames should happen when in my editor made me lose my shit. I mainly switched so shading would be easier but then I figured out in fire alpaca onion skim you can just make a folder for every frame instead 😭😭😭

[@LmaoMeowz]

‘Wow you did it.’

[@zib69420]

hi

[@moosechild6681]

You can export all the layers together with FireAlpaca, you just need to put it on onion skin so when you click Export, the option "Export Layers Onion Skin Mode" you can use. You can cease a percentage of your suffering~

[@audge-audge]

Oh that's cool XD

[@EzShiloh]

I did that since day one and I deadass laughed when I saw them exporting one by one Like "yesss... I enjoy your excessive suffering as I use the export layers >:) yEEEessssss.."

[@WisteriaWaves]

My brain leaves me every time I try a computer animation app. That’s why I stick with Callipeg (which I highly recommend) or my animations will never be finished.

[@sabersibertiger1520]

I could never animate without being able to play back what I’m animating, I know it’ll turn out wonky in more ways than one. I gotta have onion skin

[@mcytfan1415]

Same thats why I use FlipaClip lol

[@Ravenflight12345]

Firealpaca does have onion skin, looks like northflower just doesnt use it

[@modifiedconsequences]

I use flipaclip

[@sabersibertiger1520]

@Pixeloti I use flipaclip at the moment, and I did when I wrote that.

[@lizzypeer8709]

Likewise! Especially, when I'm new to animation and STILL trying to figure out cat poses, and having to change colors, because I did a Leafpool and Crowfeather the other day I finally uploaded wee hour in the morning this morning. When I was doing colors, I realized I had to make him gray instead of black, because in my mind, he's a black cat. Now I understand why I see some people make him more gray than black. I grew up with cats, but because I don't currently own one, I don't get to study their poses unless I go online.

[@hahano2022]

* deep breath* *Why is no one talking about the fact she has a folder called buff ivypool?*

[@FlvffyDashhh]

omG WAT

[@A_Traumatized_Duck]

Wait-

[@zib69420]

1:31 "Drawing tablet-" me: *laughs in animating with bare hands + with a phone*

[@twinkiesthezombiedog1768]

SAMEEEEE

[@ven0mspark]

thanks, i will now maybe think about making 4 second animations

[@audge-audge]

XD I made a video with Fire Alpaca

[@chaosisnotcoolbro]

I love the “wow you did it” when North added a new layer

[@AnAnimatorWithSunglasses]

Lemon demon has emerged from Map Hell

[@charlottesuzanne5423]

I love the motivation and then the praise: ' wow. You did it. " Those words will follow me throughout my existance Thank you :')

[@latiashe]

YOU GODSEND I WAS JUST ABOUT TO GO ATTEMPT TO ANIMATE AS A FIREALPACA USER

[@reallyoriginalusername4574]

Autodesk sketchbook is good its free and u can animate on it

[@colemorgan3356]

Yo, pro-tip, if you make folders, FireAlpaca will combine all of the layers in that folder to make each frame. It makes it really convenient to do linework and color and such over sketches without making things super complicated with trying to figure out which layer is an actual frame and which is a sketch. Also makes backgrounds so much easier, as you can just copy and paste them into all of your folders and still be able to tweak other stuff if need be. Also, I'm doing the same thing lmaoo, except I'm using Windows Movie Maker to put all my frames together and add audio.

[@vilet918]

As someone who animated in fire alpaca for years, this methodology is terrifying

[@thishuman1621]

When you were doing shading and everything after that you literally sound like you’re heading to the nearest bridge-

[@biscuitmixx]

Me who already knows how to use firealpaca: WRITE THAT DOWN WRITE THAT DOWN

[@audge-audge]

XD Same

[@Frostwing]

i cannot believe that nobody is talking about how the classical music gets more cursed by the second

[@IronycheinPain]

as a Firealpaca animator, I am definitely appalled and intrigued in your methods (I an an Onion Skin child so :"">) EDIT: *the transparent PNG exporting is such a m o o d*

[@wolfhead8926]

i was there for the stream of animating whatever that was and i couldn’t have guessed what it was for ;-;

[@dariascott2267]

A thing that I noticed! If you don't want to export all the frames manually, there is an export layers (onion skin mode) option. (You allready prob know that but hear me out) If you put the layers for the frames in a folder then it counts it as one frame (also allows the autoplay feature to work, and keep you organized anyway) (also you can duplicate folders too so yeah)

[@Sam_IsSwaggy]

how u do that

[@thana6499]

I'm over here screeching at the relatability of this, I too use firealpaca for art, and THANK YOU FOR SHOWING WHAT THE CLIP TOOL IS FOR, I COULDN'T FIGURE THAT OUT, I AM A FOOL

[@Feezee223]

This helped a lot. I’ve been drawing in fire alpaca for like almost 5 years I think idk and have been wanting to use it for animation and now I know how.

[@oreo-lynx7809]

Why do you do this to yourself??? This would drive me insane

[@JasperGleam]

Tips Every layer can have a sub layer using folders, draw a sketch in a folder, then draw line art, then its like normally if you drew art, think of folders as a frame with different layers if that makes sense, you can also have more frames in said frame for multiple characters (in case u want to move them around later) "File" "export layers (Onion skin mode)" create a New folder (rename the folder) click ok, then u dont have to redo years of work if u forgot to put transparent. messed up? delete the folder and try again, Hold down Ctrl Up or down to preview ur animation without looking at fire alpacas auto play Do not forget to save, do not rely on autosave, always keep the habit no matter what, ctrl s often if ur keyboard is selecting the layers instead of clicking individual ones even if youre not holding down ctrl, press ctrl once, then itll not do that anymore mark shading and patterns as you go on your keyframes, dont do it after you inbetween hopes this helps Ctrl T to transform and size up or down a thing, or even rotate, only do this during sketch phase as it looses quality. You may also while in ctrl T mode hold down contrl to change more Do not rely on fire alpaca to remember whats outside the white box, ctrl t allows you to resize it without cutting off, but the lasso tool will cut off anything outside the white box

[@SillyShellALT]

holy shit man i do not know if youll see this but thank you SO MUCH for writing this, you have no idea how appreciative i am because this will def help me in the long run with something im making kudos!! ❤

[@Moonrise_Animates]

Alternative title: Animation tutorial slowly turns into madness for 9 minutes.

[@katmoone8568]

Don’t have it so I’m sad :((( but this is going to help so many people!

[@junimeme5626]

I like how this began as a proper tutorial and ended up a fever dream

[@weirdyyy006]

Northflower is just on the verge of tears whenever she explains how she did it her way

[@JalapenoCat1933]

My brain: well, this seems like the absolute best way to animate and it’s totally very practical and not inconvenient at all, *I should do this.*

[@ft_slushie_studio]

I used to animate on firealpaca and just export them as gifs but that was almost IMPOSSIBLE with the onion skin mode, I’ve moved to flipaclip like a year or two ago and it’s just- so much easier for me personally

[@yeetmastercatto]

OH FINALLY a youtuber I watch who can show me how to animate with Firealpaca. Northflower I am eternally grateful.

[@lighinz137]

Additional tip: if you put the layers of each frame into separate folders, the export all layers feature will export a PNG for each folder, so you don't have to export frame by frame manually in order to have all of your layers for each frame together

[@aeris1905]

You know animating is hard when you can hear her suffering

[@Weaklytune]

I could hear the pain in her voice lmao I relate so much

[@Moonbeanie]

The further we got the more chaotic this bullshit came. Don't tell me I was the only one who felt bad for North because she/they had no idea how to explain their coloring and shading methods *oh GOD.* Otherwises, very hecking awesome video. Again.

[@zeira_wolf2627]

Hello! I sometimes animate in Fire Alpaca aswell, and I just wanted to tell you that if you make a folder for each of your frames, you will be able to export all of the layers of this frame togheter and to view it correctly in the fa preview animation option! :D

[@POBBLEBONK0.0]

Just a tip for you North, in case ya didn't know! You can just set the layers of each frame into a folder so that, when exporting it in onion layers [Firealpaca's built in way to export all the layers for you], it will take all the visible frames in that folder and export them all as if it were one frame. Sorry if that's a bit confusing, I'm not to good at explaining stuff but basically you wouldn't have to check and un-check visible for each frame and export them hand by hand but rather let firealpaca do it for you, that way you don't have to go through the hassle of trying to export them with onion and ending up with a bunch of separate frames that are supposed to be combined!

[@isabellap.8830]

This was painful to watch I also have a new appreciation for your work

[@HOLIDAYGIRL1225]

OMG!! I'm a beginner artist and animator learning how to use firealpaca, and theres a tutorial by none other than one of my favorite artists Northflowo ! :DD

[@GilbertFeathers]

I also recommend taking advantage of the wonderful folder features more, each frame being a folder makes it better for using Autoplay to see the animation hahah

[@chickennuggetpaw]

Note about drawing with a mouse: some people seem to be better at it than others. I’m sure practice makes anyone better at it, but I have a friend who draws on her computer in class and her mouse drawings look AMAZING; on par with her regular style, and super smooth and nice looking. Meanwhile, anything I try to write or draw with a mouse looks like a toddler wrote it with their non-dominant hand 💀 (to the best of my knowledge, my friend hasn’t been drawing with a mouse for years or anything either.)

[@CHESShireCat]

This is kind of how I was planning to animate with Autodesk Sketchbook and a video editing app, it’s good to know I‘m not completely crazy. I’m not going to try it though until I’ve finished the thing I’m making in FlipaClip.

[@METHYLENEDlOXYMETHAMPHETAMINE]

people who like tall somali bois especially when they are in maid outfits 👇

[@magipup7698]

but also doing animation in a drawing program is simply inefficient, it's not good to promote it because a lot of time is lost on just exporting frames

[@mcytfan1415]

@@magipup7698 ^^

[@Hyacinth-Blue]

I use FlipAClip, and as someone used to drawing on IbisPaint X I feel like it would be much easier in some cases to use Ibis just because of all the options it gives you and how much easier it is to shade. If you're a quick drawer, of course.

[@haveagoodmourning]

Literally nobody praises flipaclippers. I'm a flipaclipper and all I see anywhere ever is people crapping on it. I get that it's a super-awkward program but dude. And a lot of us actually draw with the program, and using it as an editor is super tedious and not exactly easy-peasy (have tried), but go off I guess. TL;DR: annoyed rant from a flipaclipper

[@clawthe]

It annoys me that people are like “omg you’re a flipaclip master” and even one person commented on a video of mine “that’s good for flipaclip” those are just really annoying and rude things to say in my opinion. I don’t use flipaclip anymore though

[@xquenda275]

I got an ad at the beginning: “begin your future as an animator”

[@KJ_Draws]

Me who still uses flipaclip Yes i should know this

[@unripelemon1142]

This just really shows how much work North puts into her vids

[@spookyrahhh]

I’m an actual idiot. I literally only just found out you could change the paint bucket settings on firealpaca from this video I’ve been using firealpaca for 6 years.

[@audge-audge]

Me too! XD Not the 6 years part though Probably not even one year o.O

[@sfmwolfproductions]

And I thought it was hard to animate on FlipaClip

[@quilt4115]

this was the funniest thing ive watched in a while lmao

[@bluesteno64]

THE MUSIC OML🤣 fantastic video

[@cuqiidheart]

I didn't realize firealpaca had an autoplay feature !! I've been downloading the animation everytime I wanted to see how it looked

[@audge-audge]

Wow I use Firealpaca too :D I use onion skin to animate, so I just draw all my frames using onion skin mode and whatnot, then when I'm done use autoplay to see how slow or fast I want it or how it looks good, then I export it as a whole animated GIF :D

[@locomotivefaox]

You press the buttons on the thing, draw that thing, click that thing, do the other thing, bam you have animation.

[@chicken_noodle_soup30]

Me who uses FlipaClip without the pass: *Laughs In Pain*

[@hneycloud7997]

Honestly, I understood none of that I respect ur work so much om- How do u do that thats amazing-

[@SpottyMcNugget]

I mean we can all agree this is not the most efficient way to do it, but We all started/still do it that way

[@SmokysAlwaysAwake]

Omg you made part of Cell Block Tango? That’s my favorite MAP!

[@kal9728]

north if you want the autoplay to work use folders, every folder counts as 1 frame- I discovered this by accident but it helps

[@sassyfever7994]

Wow, someone who actually animates like me. Except my reason is because I am too cheap to afford anything XD

[@carlastudios]

watching your animation tutorial I can now see that 55 video scenes for three minutes is way better than 500png

[@MilkChai_X]

Thank you for making this, I learned so many things about fire alpaca I didn't know before even though I've been using it for 4 years 😅

[@BeautifullyCharli]

Okay- so I use Firealpaca and this is SO HELPFUL NOW AH

[@smol_chortle_turtle6238]

Another title: Northflower slowly losing her sanity with layers and editing -wheezing warning-

[@coffeekat-]

did you know theres an option to export all frames at once? File- Export Layers (onion skin mode) then you can select if you want the background transparent or not

[@coffeekat-]

please see this I use firealpaca and you are suffering

[@elliestringer3658]

I use fire alpaca, and it’s nice to see someone who goes through my same struggles XD. But for organizing layers for certain frames (I usually use like three layers per frame for colors lines and shading), I use the folder feature, because it keeps everything concise.

[@Adeloye1000]

You're insane and I'm subbing

[@briarrose8631]

RESPECT. Lol seriously this takes patience, like twice more than the average to make animation. 👏👍😁

[@CaptainBulbasaur]

I just need to know how you draw so well

[@o5-redacted0]

I use Procreate ( yes thats the name ) to draw the thing then edit on Capcut. I use the Animation Assist feature on Procreate to preview the animation and then when it's finished, I either export all the frames individually or just export the thing as a gif then add it to capcut. I animate strangely :)

[@goldnamaterasu]

Hey, using folders really helps me, you can export folders instead of each layer, it makes it so that you can edit each layer of any frame after you've exported them so you can come back to edit it after. The only downside to this is that it can cause lag if you have too many layers total.

[@lizzypeer8709]

Very helpful, and it seems actually more friendly. I've been trying so many apps. I think I'll like this better than borrowing my sister's photoshop plan to animate when I'm not doing yard sign templates. Pencil 2D and Paint 3D are great, but it's tedious doing one after another and saving one pic one at a time in order for it to look animated. I like that I can do this straight into a pain and layer program. Thanks!

[@Chameleonade]

Opentoonz? Could be perfect! Because it's another free and simple software (with one or two tutorials on youtube I mean) and because I am also using Firealpaca to animate and it's kind of a long way to make that happen, right? By the way, in Firealpaca, you can export all your layers at once by clicing on "Export layers...", than it ask "make the background transparent?" than it ask if you want to open Douga wich doesn't work anymore and you say no but anyway, you got all yours layers at once in one folder name by 001...002...to the end. Thank you for your tuto, that was fun to watch, you are talented!

[@dreamflopper1882]

You mentioned something about not being able to export multiple frames at the same time, right? So... there's a function in which you could count a folder as a single frame, and there you could group all your layers and make it part of the folder. When you export the frames then, it'll export the end result of each folder- background, shading, colors and all.

[@RECTRONSTREAMS]

"i am eating soup with a fork over here" (says in the desc) me: i do that too-

[@Le-xy]

North I do the same thing except i use davinci resolve instead of whatever editing program u use finally someone else who animates like me

[@Blossommoon64]

i made like an actual animated gif in fire aplaca once, it was like 50ish layers ;w;

[@BrightlyCloudy]

Leafpool is back with the misspelled questions

[@catsup4540]

Starts using fire alpaca cutely *

[@SketchUT]

“I have hundreds of frames at times” wow,, I personally use onion skin mode and the frames are folders and I export all at once but that’s because I get impatient ngl and also when I hit New (new drawing), I go to Animation and select the thing that makes a folder for each frame (I stick to setting it to either 7 or 8) and just,, make a loop lol Also also,, I just make still frames as normal drawings. Man I need to figure out a better way to animate lol Oh and firealpaca has a lot of good features (am biased, is the only program I’ve used lol) like Reference and stuff. I’m poor so yknow there’s def better ways but hey I’m barely 16 what am I gonna do with a computer than tries to crash firealpaca when I close a drawing or open my editor or have more than 3 applications running (I always have disc and firealpaca up which is a struggle lol)

[@breannawalker2487]

"Buff Ivypool/Ashfur has a nice body" XD

[@clare-sv3do]

Lol I need to re watch all of your animations now and appreciate how hard you worked Can we address the buff ivypool folder lmao How tf did I not know you could adjust the paintbucket tool... I literally would go around the entire drawing and trace over the little white pixels 😭

[@RuthGT]

This was really helpful! But they made an update where you can use folders as frames and you can have all the layers in the folder

[@Koala____]

Why northflowo takes so long Animations: no Exaporting: YES

[@artsyryder]

Oh nice! A fellow firealpaca animator

[@Anonymous2627]

This very helpful, mate. Thanks a lot.

[@wanderingdumbass]

This is literally how I animate... excpet I do it on an old, laggy tablet with Ibispaint X and I assemble on dumb flipaclip, and because I'm cheap, I just screen record my animation off of it instead of paying to remove the logo. Many of these methods are familiar :O I relate very much okay enough about me your animation is beautiful(Not that Northflower will ever actually read this T-T why am I even posting this)

[@DESTRUCTOR12500]

I think this video is about the slow fall into madness of an animator with an inefficient animating method

[@waterbat95]

I animate almost exactly the same way 😯 (Except I sketch traditionally, then line, color, and make in-betweens digitally.)

[@lepreking]

3:30 if that's the case you can use folders to do the colors and lineart on seperate layers and just make the colors invisible when drawing additional frames? You can also keep seperate elements in their own folders too, and if you want to view them while using onion skin mode you can place them within the folders you're already working in. Idk if this makes much sense but I think there's a way to reduce your workload and the tedium here

[@mahself1114]

thank you for the video! i just have one more question, what is the name of the editing software you used in this video, and does it cost money? i would love an answer soon!

[@babybearlovinia]

If you have layers in one frame you can put them all in a folder and that folder becomes the frame.