planning for an animation short€¦ · animation short – planning cast members ... clicking and...
TRANSCRIPT
Planning for an Animation Short
Inspired by actual events, a storyboard was produced for an animation short film. Depending on the
confidence of using Adobe Flash will decide if the commitment to producing the whole animation or
to practice by producing a simpler flash project first.
From the storyboard a list of different cast members can be produced and to start research on the
different animation methods needed.
Animation Short – Planning
Cast Members
Before attempted the animation, producing the cast members meant that it would speed up the
animation process.
This way importing objects from the libary should ease the amount of time for producing the whole
project. Preparation is essential.
Creating an Interactive Flash Page
The aim of this project is to produce a interactive world, where when items are pressed, certain
things happen. Ideas include as shown above: linking previous work, Animation on Click, Play clips on
click.
Button Planning
Symbol Planning
Adobe Flash ‘symbols‘ forms a group of objects together into one object called a symbol. To
manupulate a group of objects at the same time, the creation of symbols makes it possible. Symbols
within a symbol means that things can be animationed in more than one way. For example bills
arms moving as he ‘bobs’ up and down as he walks.
Collaboration of work
I decided to collaborate my work with Athena Brown, as we both worked together in another
project featuring Bill in the first year of university. The idea is that I will produce one side of the
earth and Athena Brown will produce the other half. This means that hopefully we can work
separately and combine the work at a later date.
Changing the project Idea
Instead of featuring a lot of external material, removing them from the world, I have decided to
produce an interact page solely about the user interacting with the world, clicking and exploring.
This world itself rebels from the social norm of a standard website but hopefully, user guides and
clues of what they can explore and click objects by experimentation.
Preparing the world
Thecast members were produced in separate files before importing it to the final stage. The final
stage had to combatable with all computer monitors so I went for the standard 1024x768 as it is
now the most common size screen for computer systems. It still will be compatable with the 800 x
600 monitors however, shrinking is required and may distort some of the images slightly.
Producing the Interactive Page
Once the cast members are drawn, a back-up was made of all original drawings. This meant it
something irreversible goes wrong the back-up could be used. This maybe, not a necessary step
however, it would save time during the production process if something goes wrong.
Masking in Flash
Masking is a way of creating an ’invisible
layer’ to hide objects if they pass a certain
point during the animation.
This was used for the Iris Button, to stop the
‘teeth’ from becoming visible after passing
the casing of the button.
Action Script 3.0
stop(); addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, fl_ClickToGoToNextFrame); function fl_ClickToGoToNextFrame(event:MouseEvent):void { nextFrame(); }
stage.addChild(movieClip_4);
movieClip_4.mouseEnabled = false;
movieClip_4.addEventListener(Event.ENTER_FRAME,
fl_CustomMouseCursor_4);
function fl_CustomMouseCursor_4(event:Event)
{
movieClip_4.x = stage.mouseX;
movieClip_4.y = stage.mouseY;
}
Mouse.hide();
Stops at this frame
‘Listens’ for mouse click
Responds by going to next frame
“stage.” Coding relates to whole stage
‘Listens’ for when mouse enters frame
movieClip_4 tracks cursor movement
Hides actual mouse
stop();
movieClip_5.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK,
fl_ClickToGoToAndPlayFromFrame_5);
function
fl_ClickToGoToAndPlayFromFrame_5(event:MouseEvent):voi
d
{
gotoAndPlay(2);
}
Glow.addEventListener(Event.ENTER_FRAME,
fl_FadeSymbolOut);
Glow.alpha = 1;
function fl_FadeSymbolOut(event:Event)
{
Glow.alpha -= 0.01;
if(Glow.alpha <= 0)
{
Glow.removeEventListener(Event.ENTER_FRAME,
fl_FadeSymbolOut);
}
}
Once clicked goes to frame 2 and plays
Coding is not just for mouse
commands, using action script
you can manipulate objects.
This coding gives a glow to a
hidden circle in the Iris Button
Fading it in about out while
increasing/decreasing in
intensity.
Stop Motion Animatio
Altering Keyframes frame by frame can sometimes be the easiest and quickest option of animating a
subject. When the sun burns the earth a quickstop motionfire beam from his mouthwas created. The
stop motion effect turned out to be quite effective.
It was also used during the bomb explosion.
Motion Tweening Vs Classic Tweening
Classic Tweening
The classic tweening tool is an old popular feature on the Adobe Flash software and is sometimes
still the best to use within motion. It works by one keyframe to another on a straight of curvy path.
The distance between the two keyframes is tweened.
For the Iris Effect I had to use a Classic Tween for each tooth to move out, converting them into a
symbol and rotating that as a motion tween.
Motion Tween
Motion tweening has a lot more features include: Scale size, rotation and position. These could be
all applied one key frame. It is also possible to tween to more than one keyframe, instead of using
the layering option of different animated symbols. Using this new technique allows a lot of time
spared.