Flash
 

I really wanna start learning flash but I'm lost already. It seems extremely time consuming to even animate one basic vector character.
Even things Demented Carrtoon movie looks quite complex on closer observation.

I really need some help =(

I took about 3 weeks in a Flash class at UT over the summer... believe me, man, if you dont have Flash already or cant find it for free you dont really want to bother. For school editions, Flash costs 400$. For professional or home use, it costs 500$. However if you can get it free its an entirely different ballgame.

From what I could... understand from the class, Flash is based off of Frames. Usually a movie plays these frames at a certain speed, called Frames per second (or FPS) but Im sure you already knew that.

What you do, is you take your character and you get him to move across these frames, as well as make text and sounds that play during these frames. While it seems very complex at first after you get used to it it seems a lot like second nature.

I cant really tell you more than that, but you might want to find a tutorial because Ive pretty much forgot the rest...

I have flash... Not good with it, but basically, it is all frames. You can make a simple movie just out of hand making everything, even the movements, frame by frame, just that would take a long time...

I have Flash I need to know how to use it =)

I'm used to a program called Multimedia Fusion which is similair in some ways, but Flash is much better for carttons solely because of the Vectors. What i don't get is how to move things like fingers, it looks so complex.

Flash is a very complex program, although knowledge of all of its intrcate details aren't necessary. I taught myself how to use it way back when they were still on version 2 (I think the're on 6 or 7 now).

Although you can do frame-by-frame animation with Flash, it's not the software's strong point. The main gist of the program is that you create a library of symbols. These symbols are then manipulated around the stage over time using the timeline to create animation.

Animation can consist of positional movement, rotation, scale, tint, brightness, transparency, just about anything. As you learn to use symbols and the timeline, you can learn to combine many symbols to create whole characters.

A typical character may consist of several symbols... for instance, a head, body, upper arm x2, lower arm x2, hands x2, eyes x2, pupils x x2, mouths, upper legs x2, lower legs x2, feet x2... You can go on and on.

My first recommendation would be the infamous RTFM! If you're unfamiliar with this saying... hit F1 and read all the documents. Macromedia does a FANTASTIC job of documenting their software. You can learn everything you need to know about the basics by reading the help docs (which are fully illustrated). If you catch on to the basics, chances are you'll slowly develop a style and technique as you go.

NOTE: If you cannot draw or cannot animate, then chances are Flash isn't for you. I know everyone and their mother wants to make the next cool Flash series, but Flash requires a LARGE TIME INVESTMENT, much more than your basic webcomic. So please make sure you're absolutely positively sure it's something you want to do, before you try to learn it.

learn layers. Like Needle said about the diffrent body parts, do layers. Then save each body part under it's name in the little file storing...box...I forget whats it's called but just save them. Also check if there is a tutorial that came with the site. Thats how I learned what I was doing, then I put things together and taught myself how to do the rest. It's not that hard, just time consuming.

Well, before you try going all out on Flash (which is 100% evil, because it's definately not easy to use), have you tried using a Flash-Clone?

A good one is SWiSH. It's much simpler to use, and has heaps of features. If you want, start with SWiSHlite to get a good grip on it, then goto SWiSH 2 to learn the more fancy stuff, then goto SWiSHmax for all the techy stuff and fancier stuff.

Oh, um, you might want to find a registration patch for SWiSH though. SWiSHlite garbles text and converts pictures to black and white when exporting.
SWiSH 2 only gives a 15 day trial.
And SWiSHmax has a huge splashscreen that somes up at the start. Plus it has a... um, either a 15 day trial, or a 30 day trial. One of the two.


Two things though, SWiSH can't do shape morphing, but y`know, big whoop.
And, it doesn't sync sound to animation when watching the movie in the program, or in a browser (to my experience, at least). Although, if enough time is used, with tweaking and stuff, you can get the animation in time with the sound in Macromedia Flash Player 6, and possibly RealOne Player. ;)



But anyway, I think, after you get everything down for SWiSH, you should be ready to make some good stuff in Flash, if you can make the transition. :p

i tried flash once. tough stuff...I was kinda starting to get the hang of it (quick learner) but we formatted. but yeah, all in the frames, man.

I made a Flash film once. I was extremely bored, and I'd been playing around with the program. It's up on Newgrounds (under Bezo!) and despite it's rampant sucking, it still hasn't been blammed. :D

Just to add something simple to this conversation -

I SEVERELY disencourage the use of Flash-Clones like SWiSH. To this day, I have NEVER seen anything good come out of that program. It does a poor job of compression, and you're cheating yourself by wasting time learning an irrelevant program. Trash your Swish immediately and get Flash. You may not know why now, but five years later you'll thank me for this.

I cannot reiterate enough how important it is to take the time and learn Flash properly. It's almost exactly like Photoshop. Any dumb klutz with no clue can take Photoshop, apply a few Filters to an image and pretend like he's a digital graphics diety. But you know what? People like me, who have bonifed COLLEGE DEGREES in these fields, we see how silly you look. Lately, this realization of silliness has expanded to the common computer user. I bring this up, because Flash is the SAME WAY.

Anyone can pick up Flash and make a turd. It takes YEARS of experience to gain a level of proficiency in Flash that will gain you the respect of people. I bring this up not to sound like an UBAR-1337 D00D, but to keep you from releasing more Flash garbage into the world. I did it once; I learned my lesson. I'm trying to do you a favor, believe it or not.

If taking years of your time to become proficient in a computer application is daunting, then you're in the wrong business. If you're going into college, spare yourself the pain - drink lots of beer and go into Finance instead. You'll do yourself a great favor, and probably make more money anyway.

I'm all for people exploring their abilities. I did it once too. But there comes a point in time when you need to cut your losses and move on. I did that as well.