Re: FLASH: Animation

[Chris de Deugd]

Hi Ellis,


I must have been sleeping while everybody was talking about animation! I

was tradionally trained in 2D animaton, and have been struggling with

flash since version 2; ( I have a very satifying love-hate relationship

with it.) I agree completely with all the techniques described. You have

to construct your animation in Flash bit by bit. Movie clips and motion

guides can make it easier, just use all the advantages Flash can give

you. I tend to build scenes out of many smaller movieclips, rather than

making many layers. As you will find, this is a great help to stay

organized.


There is one method I could add: if you draw very fast, a quicker way

can be to draw your animations by hand, import them into flash - you

could trace them with the line tool, to keep the filesize down.

A walking cycle takes only about 17 drawings, other movements may even

be shorter, if you turn these into movie clips, you might save time and

get a better result as well. The fish and the ostrich in my film "Love's

Philosophy" were done that way - the fish exists of 72 drawings, the

ostrich of 17.. The tulip however was done as was described on the list,

using a motion path to move the flower.


Another thing very important thing, that Marc has mentioned - the

illlusion of movement : use holds in which only the essentials move. If

one element moves, the rest can remain still. What also matters a lot:

the better your basic animation technique is, the easier it becomes to

create animations in Flash.


One book I'd like to add, the best resource I have ever found: The

lllusion of Life by Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston.


Good luck, if you need more specific help, just ask.


Chris de Deugd



The URL of "Love's Philosophy" is:

http://www.xs4all.nl/~aria



Ellis Creel wrote:


> hey- i'm pretty new on the message board, but I was

> wondering if someone could give me a couple hints on how to

> animate figures, specifically, humanoids with 2 legs, 2

> arms. i've been converting eyes/leg/leg/arm/arm/head/torso

> to symbols, but then if i want motion tweens it takes *so*

> many layers and so many keyframes just to get a small

> animation that i'm sure there has to be a better way.  so,

> if anyone could help me out, i'd really be appreciative.  I

> know this is kind've beneath the level of most of you guys,

> but I don't know any other way to learn it.

> thanks in advance,

> Ellis Creel

>


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