Introduction

I spoke with Anastasia Spruill – an exceptionally talented and skilled rig artist and animator, who lives in South Carolina, USA. Stasia is an EDAPT friend, beta tester and has made some significant contributions to the development of EDAP Tools v.7.

It was extremely enjoyable to learn more about her animation journey and hear her thoughts about a wide range of topics of common interest. Below is part two of our conversation. (For part one click here.)

Interview with Anastasia Spruill (part 2)

Hi again, Stasia!
Let's talk about rigging, EDAP Tools and your amazing contributions to this project.
When you discovered EDAP Tools a few years ago, what were your first impressions?

At first I was quite impressed! I had already had some experience in Toon Boom at the time, and the IK controls along with the welding features caught my eye. I had tried to pitch these tools at a different place I was working at but sadly they had declined it. I was so lucky to be able to pitch your tools years later to Sunlight Entertainment. It was so revolutionary to our rigs.

You experienced some serious technical fault and that was the lucky incident that got us acquainted. Not knowing anything about you, I remember that at the time I was very impressed by your level of knowledge of SMR. You were designing multi-angle rigs and were digging deep into how to better control the consistency of metadata across multiple Magnet Targets.
You did rigorous testing and managed to successfully pitch EDAPT Premium to your team, which has since switched to SMR.
What were the challenges and concerns during the pitch and the transitional period?

It was quite funny how we met! During that time I had pitched a video that had showcased EDAPT versus plain vanilla Animate. I had recorded myself doing multiple actions/posing out characters/animating short shots. I had found that EDAPT was between 50% and 90% faster. During that time my power had gone out and I had encountered a weird glitch. It kept saying my tools weren’t activated. I had tried to troubleshoot on my end for hours till I finally gave up and messaged you. Obviously we got it back up and running, but to answer your question…

By the time I joined Sunlight Entertainment there was about 5+ years of assets already made. Since we had a humongous backlog of assets/rigs, it was quite challenging to determine whether to rework older rigs or basically remake them from scratch. Due to the inconsistencies of the rigs throughout the years and changing standards, it was better to redo them 9 times out of 10 to make them up to my standards. Another concern was to train others to the rigging standard we needed for the production. I personally feel 2D rig artists are a rare breed in the art field. Most artists usually prefer the more visual creative side rather than the technical creative side. Not only was training artists to become rig artists a concern, but training the animators to learn this new way of animating was a challenge as well. I needed to give small changes over each production. Since we had very little downtime between each project most of the learning was during the projects. So in order to not overwhelm animators I would teach a handful of concepts for each project to build upon the previous ones.

I wanted to share the work I did on Ryan's World: Red Titan Superhero Dance Battle! I was the Lead Rig Artist. I also animated these shots! Here are all the animations I was responsible for! pic.twitter.com/NqIK6D3tzi

— Stasia (@ASK_Animator) August 13, 2024

Did you need to fundamentally change the rig architecture of the existing character assets in your production?
How did your co-workers feel about the changes?

Most of the time we did have to change the rig architecture. Nearly all the characters did not have proper circle joints when I joined. So a lot of work needed to be done to fix the foundations of the rigs. Once I got those changes fixed my co-workers were so happy. As each change came the crew loved the advances in our rigs as we updated them. I remember the reactions of my parented faces aka pegs technique, and when we had gotten IKs on the characters. The crew was in awe. They are so excited for the next updates in 7.0!

Apart from the obvious benefits of IK posing and magnetic joints, what do you think are the most popular and useful tools?

Personally I love to use Stagger Tween, SGC, Punch Current Frame, Symbol Palette Control, TransPoser, RC Sliders, and Transformers. 

I know that at some point you were using Symbol Palette Control. What applications did you find for it?

Yes! We actually use it a lot in our productions now. Our first time using it was in Red Titan Superhero Dance Battle! and we recently used it in Trick or Treating at a Haunted HOUSE!. We use it to build night palettes so we can swap colors depending on the lighting.

Around the time when you were reworking a large number of existing assets, you shared with us a video of a head rig which you had made – Aang, the last Airbender – using Layer Parenting 'pegs' to control groups of facial features. The concept was brilliant!
At the time we already had RC Sliders completed and were working on TransPoser. Your idea came just in the right moment. It fit in so well with the whole workflow which we were designing and became the conceptual basis of Transformers.
Thanks to your short demo, all Flash animators will have much better head rig controls.
How did you come up with the LP 'pegs'?

Well, as they say… all great artists steal! Sorta… Well, to be honest, I had learned a similar concept in Toon Boom Harmony. One day I was just playing around in Animate with the parenting capabilities and it dawned on me that I could use parenting to make Animate work more like Toon Boom. 

You have been a v.7 Beta user for about 6 weeks. I know it is still early days, and there will be more to explore, but what do you think of Transformers, compared the the original LP 'pegs', the TransPoser workflow and the possibilities that they will open?

I absolutely adore them! I had used my freelance project GG Animateds to fill The Void™ to test the tools and it was insane how much time it saved me during animation. It was so nice to be able to access all the poses I had made with a click of a button and manipulate the faces with no glitches from parenting. The pegs I had made before worked well enough but it was still parenting… Parenting will always have glitches. Don’t even get me started on how copy and pasting would mess up the positioning of a majority of the symbols or how using Set Reg Point To Transform Point with a parented asset will ruin it… I digress. I could rant about Animate’s issues for a long time. The only positive thing I could say regarding the parented pegs is that it was nice that I only had to key and tween one layer rather than all layers to move certain pieces.

Personally I feel these tools are a game changer for Flash/Animate. After last year’s poor excuse for an update from Adobe and this year’s lack of an update, it shows how you guys really care for Flash/Animate and want it to be up to par with other animation software. Maybe it’ll be a blessing in disguise, maybe Adobe won’t mess it up anymore and you guys can work in peace to try to fix as much as you can. But back to the possibilities… I genuinely think there could be so much more to develop on top of the TransPoser workflow. I think taking some more inspiration from Toon Boom and Moho would be the way to go in order to advance it. Right now I feel it would be amazing to figure out a way to retain the tweening-like quality on one layer versus all the layers. Another path I feel that could be explored is to somehow mass guide all facial assets for better arcs on facial turns.

We love seeing your creative use of the tools and how you sometimes push them to an extreme. It is a pity that Animate's performance is so much worse than Flash's.
Personally for you, what are the highlights in v.7, and what specific goals do you expect to be able to achieve with the new features?

Definitely Transformers, RC Sliders/Visibility Switches and TransPoser. Obviously, I love all the tools like Create Motion Guide, Sound Sync panel, Create Frame Range, etc. but Transformers, RC Sliders/Visibility Switches and TransPoser are the game changers. I definitely want to perfect making a complex full 360 rig! At the moment, I was able to make a nice front to profile turn as seen in my most recent work GG Animateds to fill The Void™.

Vlad and I are very proud of the fact that for 14 years since the start of this project, we have not yet pushed ourselves into a corner without room to maneuver with any of the released tools and features. The UX follows logical developmental arcs and one thing often leads to another.
This doesn't mean that we don't have small regrets here and there for not anticipating some developments and naming UI elements more permissively. But all in all, our track record is absolutely stellar compared to Adobe's.
Just yesterday we were discussing another one of your ideas and it seems that there is a very good chance that it will be implemented in a v.7 update in the following months.
So on that note, what do you think are the major current deficiencies in Animate and EDAP Tools?

In terms of Flash/Animate, I feel there could be better ways to use guides and masks. Right now they aren’t optimized in the best way possible. In many other puppeting programs seem to find success by making controls more stage based meaning not having to do unnecessary clicks. For example, let's say I wanted to mask the eyes to the face, but I also wanted to mask the pupils to the eyes. I would need to do a complex setup of symbols within symbols in order to achieve the look I want. However, it is such a pain for the animator to navigate all those timelines within each symbol clicking in and out. Even the workaround of duplicating your window is a bit tedious. In, let's say, Moho or Toon Boom I could just go in and manipulate the pieces along with other pieces with masking intact and no problems. Along with that I feel other programs allow for guide-like structures better than Flash/Animate. But to be honest I could potentially overlook that if some core fundamentals were fixed like the amount of crashes I have by just masking an object or making a keyframe or even just leaving it idle. Another feature we’ve needed fixed for a long time in my opinion is the copy and paste from symbol to symbol. Trick or Script does have a plugin to fix it but it is quite a pain to get that plugin setup from the beginning but once that was set up I was good to go. It is just sad that copy and paste in place, a core function of all art programs, does not work well in this one. Also it is crucial to have this to expedite overlapping circle joints! Also Trick or Script’s incremental Autosave has literally saved me in the past. I can never rely on Flash/Animate’s autosave.

In terms of deficiencies to EDAPT there really aren’t many to be honest! Most of the time if I find a glitch or potential error I report it to you guys and you are on it! But if I did have to nitpick… The peg system I had presented does have one key feature I do like… It can mimic the function of moving a symbol without exiting the symbol. Connecting all the pieces of a rig structure to a null/peg object then keyframing on that layer different positions to move the character up down left or right while maintaining the independent motions of the rest of the body. Doing this could make it easier to put characters in the same scene and making it easier for characters to interact with each other like putting a hand on a shoulder or hugging etc. But trust me if I find anything major I’ll report it to you ASAP.

As you know, our audience is strictly professional and they crave technical specifics. I've been encouraging you to start making video tutorials at some point as you have a lot to say and show.
What do you think? Is this likely to happen in the next 6 to 12 months?

Funny you mention that. I have been starting to upload my work to YouTube, and Tic Tok now… So, ideally I want to start sprinkling in some tutorials here and there for the general audience because I feel there really is a need for good quality Flash/Animate tutorials, and I think I can provide them. So I’m aiming for 2025 to be my year for popping out tutorials!

I feel that there are so many topics of interest that we did not even touch upon, but I hope that we will be able to do another interview in the future.
To wrap it up, what do you think are the personal qualities which make you a successful rig artist and animator?
What advice would you give to young people who are dreaming of starting this journey and breaking into the industry?

I think you need to have a drive to problem solve and have a never-give-up attitude. I would struggle with Flash/Animate sometimes for weeks in order to figure out why a rig isn’t working. Obviously, there are times during production where you need to find a temporary solution if a permanent one can’t be found at that moment, but the key is to not give up. I also think you kind of need to be a “lazy animator” but a very productive rig artist. I try to rig for as many scenarios as I can, so I can be kinder to myself when I have to animate. So I truly believe every rig artist must have some knowledge in animating and have a general grasp on anatomy/physics. This will only make your rigs better and better. One last key thing I can say to be a successful rig artist… is to try every idea, even the dumb ones! You have no idea how many times I’d be in a call with my director troubleshooting something, and I said… “OK, I have a dumb idea… I doubt it will work but it’s the only thing I can think of”… then – Bam! – it works.

Aside from some of my loose advice above, my advice for young rig artists would be to try to learn as many rigging programs as you can. Each has their own quirks, that you can transfer and rework into each other. Without my knowledge of Toon Boom Transformers may have never been a tool for Flash/Animate.

Thank you again, Stasia!
This was a fascinating conversation.

Dear readers, if you've missed it, part 1 is available here. ∎

Follow Stasia's work