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greko · Posted: Mon Dec 03, 2001 1:28 pm

I've been working in flash for a bit now and was wondering what is the best way to go about vetorizing ( if that is a word) coloring and animating in flash. should I do it all in flash or should I import the stuff from Freehand. should I use raw animaion or make the limbs into sybols and move them around. And are there any tutorials out there on colorign, inking, and/or animating characteris in freehand 'cus I can't find a one.

thanks
Your Freindly neighborhood Greko

Quasar · member Member # Joined: 01 Oct 2001 Posts: 355

The way I do it is I draw all my animation on paper then scan them in and then import them and then ink over them in flash using the line tool program ( Paper drawing on bottom layer inking on layer above )then I color it using flash ..use the line tool make section shading ..its nice because the lines bend and you can make good clean sections of shading. It is really a pain in the ass but it is the best way to get small files but really you can you freehand or illustrator to do the same thing and they have better drawing tools.

[ December 03, 2001: Message edited by: Quasar ]

synj · Posted: Mon Dec 03, 2001 5:32 pm

i prefer drawing it directly in flash. you can edit your work alot easier that way - at least with my experiences.

napalm · Posted: Mon Dec 03, 2001 6:45 pm

Freehand, Illustrator, whatever you want to do. Drawing right in flash is best of course if you are concerened about file size, as these will most likely be the cleanest and most optimized drawings. But Illustrator SWF export works too.. no matter WHERE you draw you're going to have to optimize and redo some things, so don't sweat that part too much. Wherever you are most comfortable.

And HOW you animate it is totally up to you. At Nickelodeon I did a few shorts using the 'paper cutout' kinda style, where a character is broken up and symboled with joints having the appropriate centerpoint allowing for easy assembly and animation. This can make animation faster and easier with a smaller file size, but can end up looking cheaper and be challenging to break up without weird seams and whatnot.

Of course you can always draw keyframes in the traditional manner which often leads to much nicer animation but higher file sizes. With a little creative cutting up and keyframing you can get a similar feel with the above mentioned cutout style, but nothing feels quite as smooth as some good ole' keyframes (see synj's wonderful work

I'd say the best is a combination of the two. Break up your characters into re-usable symbols for the basics, and draw custom keyframes where needed.

Remember there is no RIGHT way to do this! Its a matter of style, constraints of time/budget, and personal preference. Good luck!

strata · Posted: Wed Dec 05, 2001 5:48 am

How many frames per second do you guys usually run your animations in?

Gort · Posted: Wed Dec 05, 2001 6:17 am

FPS:
It's really better determined by the target audience and what kind of machines they're using. If you create projects with 24 fps, then the processor overhead will be demanding - very demanding (this of course depending on the complexity of your project); anything less than 800 mhz will crawl. SO then you have to wonder; how many users will have an 800 mhz + machine?

It's typically best to go with 12 fps - for me anyway. Whether it's for the web or CDROM, I usually use go with 12 fps.

Now I haven't done any Flash projects in a while, so things may have changed a bit; some other folks may have more updated and better info than I have provided.

strata · Posted: Wed Dec 05, 2001 8:52 am

and you guys can still get things that smooth? Impressive...

personally I don't do much character animation, but the sites and stuff I do is usually in 40fps, but that's mostly because I'm a vindictive bastard and like to feck with peoples machines =)

Gort · Posted: Wed Dec 05, 2001 3:03 pm

Aww buddy!!

I'm sorry dude - you have to understand that my earlier comments are targeted towards a broader, consumer based audience. My influence comes from usability studies and focus group testing - things I had to adhere to when developing for BellSouth. Ugh - it really hampers going full blown on the creative stuff.

If you're a creative and you want to push the envelope, then by all means do! Just make sure you preface the overhead ("This site uses Flash and is best suited for the following setup...blah blah blah")- don't force it on people.

Jiggy?