Macromedia Flash Help

[HunterKiller_]

Hope it's ok to post this here.

What I would like to know is how to use Flash for classical animation.
I've searched for tutorials, but there aren't many in depth ones regarding the subject (only how to do tweening).

I've got the gist of the program, it's more of the little quirks I'm trying to figure out.
Things like, if I'm animating frame by frame, do I need to set every frame as a key frame (which logically doesn't make any sense in classical animation, lol)?

Whenever I set a new key frame, it duplicates the previous frame, how do I stop it from doing this?
EDIT: Oh, it says 'convert to blank keyframe' on the menu. Hehe.

If you have any other tips and tricks for animating in flash for me, they would be much appreciated.

Thanks!

[Dan!]

From the experience that I have had with Flash I can offer some knowledge:

The key frame feature is more important when using characters or other things which are broken into separate pieces i.e. torso-head-waist-thighs-etc. When working with those pieces the program acts as a tween animator in the classic sense. You set your key frames and program handles the rest. This is also useful for doing UI aniimation or movements such as rotation. Remember when creating these pieces to turn them into graphic symbols
<modify>make symbol>graphic
and name accordingly armBent,armStraight,faceSmile,etc
the level of breakdown is up to you as far as how detailed you want the character- do you want to make several eye symbols for blinking or surprise?
This is similar to the Hanna-Barbera technique.
This is an option which is very useful and popular for flash character animation or flash game type animations. This is where you create a set of pieces for each character- various faces- arm positions- leg positions- all of which cover the spectrum of movements that will be used- walking-jumping -talking-waving w/e

As a side note- this is why many of the old cartoon characters had bow-ties or colars as it makes it easy to switch the head or body out and not be noticable.


The frame by frame animation is similar to classic hand drawn animation and yes -a key frame should be used each change of movement- but tweening is unecessary and may cause strange things to happen when the program attempts to figure out the movement. If you just need an element to be present but unmoving( like a sky,table, tree- F5 -will insert a frame not a key frame. additionally, the timeline offers an onion skin feature which you can set to however many frames you wish to see. This is replicating a classic animation technique which allows the animator to see his previous drawings in order to create an accurate rendering of the movement.

Also remember that when creating and manipulating symbols in Flash you can adjust their rotation point to wherever you desire- just like in the photoshop transform option- this is particularly useful when dealing with shoulders-elbows- w/e


The first technique can be coupled with the tweening function to create smooth transitions between different symbols- here is a rough example-



I know there is more - I'll look for some links here soon- D

[yinteck]

For classical animation in flash, usually you just used F5, F6 and F7 along with onion skin. U dont use motion tween, unless it for backgroung and stuff.
First u draw the key poses. After that u add in in-between
F5 is for exposing ur keyframe
F6 is for inserting a new keyframe
F7 is for new blank keyframe


Try search through this web http://www.aniboom.com/

[HunterKiller_]

Dancing bear is awesome, haha.

Thanks for the tips guys!

Animating characters using different preset pieces is quite intriguing. I will have to give it a go sometime.

[Dan!]

heres a couple links the first two are really nicely done

http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flash/articles/animate_character.html


http://www.toddgallina.com/how/

not as good as the last two but was worth noting

http://www.kirupa.com/developer/mx/cartoon.htm

[Vijay parmar]

hi,
I love to make animation in flash. you just draw frame1 and press f7 that is next frame but blank, check onion skin you will get original frame which is drawn in frame1, in refference to 1 frame draw in next frame. countinue this method to get animation done.turn off onion skinning and watch your animation. hope you can understand a lot.