New Flash Thread

Glunnator · Posted: Tue Jan 27, 2009 7:07 pm Post subject:

Success!
I've been helpful!

[img]http://achievements.schrankmonster.de/Achievement.aspx?text=Made%20a%20(positive)%20difference[/img]
_________________
"Sometimes the only way to be truly angry is to be so happy, everyone within a 5 mile radius is creeped out." -Invertin

Psycho Romeo · Posted: Wed Jan 28, 2009 3:46 am Post subject:

Next problem:
I have a layer for a person's head.
On it is a person's head.
I've finished the movie (or at least finished any part concerning the head).
But now, I think I want the head to be a little smaller.
Do I have to go to each (key)frame and change the size of the person's head?
I've tried using the "edit multiple frames" tool, but I don't think it works like that...
Any suggesstions? It's not a huge problem, so no biggie.
Thankx.
_________________
Currently rockin' out to the CAVESTORY REMIX PROJECT

Glunnator · Posted: Thu Jan 29, 2009 4:39 pm Post subject:

Yeah, Edit Multiple Frames would be my choice.

If these heads are the only things on the appropriate layers, then:
How I'd do it:
Drag the onion-layer-marker things straight against the cursor/marker/red bar thing which shows where you are.

Drag One side (!) of the onion markers as far out as you want it, making the total enveloped frames equal to the total number of frames you want to edit.

Click the frame on the side you dragging the onion layer to, (for example, if you dragged the right marker right, then click the right-most frame you want to edit) and drag your cursor along to the last (left-most) frame you want to edit.

You should now have all frames and their contents selected.
Select the Free Transform Tool and engage reshapement.
(I'm not sure, but you may have to slightly adjust the location of some of the newly shrunken heads)
_________________
"Sometimes the only way to be truly angry is to be so happy, everyone within a 5 mile radius is creeped out." -Invertin

Psycho Romeo · Posted: Fri Jan 30, 2009 1:35 am Post subject:

The more I look at it, the less of a problem it is. Thanks for the help though.

Guh, either I'm really stupid or image shack won't upload my videos anymore...
_________________
Currently rockin' out to the CAVESTORY REMIX PROJECT

Glunnator · Posted: Fri Jan 30, 2009 6:19 pm Post subject:

Yeah, I think Imgshack stopped accepting .swfs for some reason...
Dunno why.
It sucks, though.
_________________
"Sometimes the only way to be truly angry is to be so happy, everyone within a 5 mile radius is creeped out." -Invertin

Psycho Romeo · Posted: Wed Feb 04, 2009 2:07 am Post subject:

I think I'm not being very efficient... I animate with a folder of all the groups of body part in their own layer right on the stage... Should I put all my figures in symbols and edit them within the symbol for each keyframe?

Edit: Nevermind, I tried it and it's incredibly difficult. I can't see what's going on back in scene one and for all that I know, symbols are static.
_________________
Currently rockin' out to the CAVESTORY REMIX PROJECT

Glunnator · Posted: Wed Feb 04, 2009 2:14 pm Post subject:

Graphic symbols are static. Buttons go to next frame when you move your mouse over them or click them, and Movie Clips appear static in Flash but actually are continuous loops that start playing once you export your dot swf.

If you change the content of a symbol, you're changing the content of all duplicates of that symbol. I.E: You have two [sun] Movie clips, each in a different scene.
Go into one, turn it green, and voila! Both are green. Huh? o.0

Yes. If you want a symbols duplicated to be a different thing altogether, right click it and go 'duplicate symbol'. You will now have [sun2] or something to that effect, which can be edited loosely from [sun].

Confusing? Experience is the best teacher.
_________________
"Sometimes the only way to be truly angry is to be so happy, everyone within a 5 mile radius is creeped out." -Invertin

Psycho Romeo · Posted: Thu Feb 05, 2009 3:53 am Post subject:

Is it better to just animate right onto the stage though? Or have another [sun#] for every keyframe? I'd think the former..
_________________
Currently rockin' out to the CAVESTORY REMIX PROJECT

Glunnator · Posted: Thu Feb 05, 2009 7:47 am Post subject:

Depends what you're after. Movie clips are handy for such things as a looping animation that you want do tween across the screen, or that you want to have continuing its loop even after you pause.

Examples:
I want a sunrise, and I have my grounds and layouts in the appropriate layer.
[sun] I use in a tween on a layer behind the ground layer as going up from below it.
Considering I want the sun to sparkle and flare a bit, I go into it (double click the symbol, either on-stage or in the library) and animate a small loop of solar flares. (I dunno. This particular planet I'm animating has a very small and close sun.)
When back on stage, I won't see these flares animate. The solution? Either export or test movie. This will create a .swf file of what was in the .fla, and I shalt see a sun with looping solar flares tweening upwards from under the ground.

[sun2] I could then use as a different colour sun with different flare animations for a sunset, or something like that.
Also handy to know: If you only want to change the colour/alpha of a symbol, that's easy! There's a dropdown menu in the properties when you select it, called "Color:" You can then choose different tints, or change the alpha (transparency), or brightness.

Tweening the movie clips may also be handy for I.E. a running loop for a stickman when you want to pull some interesting camera tricks without using a scripted camera.
An example of this, ironically, is already currently present in what's made of W/E 9, but I don't think you'd get to see that too soon...
*ahem*

Often enough, though, when I want to be precise, I shun movie clips for the copy-drag keyframes technique, so I can butt in at the desired moment to correctly continue with a different animation of the same character.

Movie clips CAN be used in keyframe-to-keyframe animation, but I forget how that's supposed to work exactly and using tweens for such purpose is much easier anyway.

It simply depends on what your goal is, and in which way you're going after it. There are many ways to each goal, in flash.
Keep practising Wink

Maybe, if you're shy on ideas, I've got an assignment for you:
Make a fluent-as-possible frame-by-frame animation of one stickman punching another stickman, set on a treeless valley at dawn. Maybe one tree, then, if you're feeling artistic. Or a lake, or something.
Requirements are to have at least one correctly used Movie clip, and at least 10 frames of fbf.
Send me the .fla for inspection afterwards.
Good luck! =p
_________________
"Sometimes the only way to be truly angry is to be so happy, everyone within a 5 mile radius is creeped out." -Invertin

Psycho Romeo · Posted: Sat Feb 07, 2009 8:46 pm Post subject:

Okay.... TIME!! 10:45AM. GO!

annnnnndd TIME!! 2:30 PM

Edit: I suppose I can send it to you tonight when you're on. Just MSN me. I'll stay up. It actually turned out pretty good. O_O It's the first time I used the Explosion timeline effect... Man that thing is laggy. I started out with dymanmic quality but halfway through I got lazy. I wanted to do something with the sword, but the world explosion won over a combo kill. I left the layer by accedent. I made it in 20 fps, I realized that didn't work so well with the last scene (that part is in 10 fps, spaced out with normal frames). It can easily be reduced to 15 or lower (if you take out the spaces in the last scene). 9.3 seconds long.

Edit 2: A whoops, I totaly forgot the Movie Clip. I'ma put that in now.
_________________
Currently rockin' out to the CAVESTORY REMIX PROJECT

Glunnator · Posted: Mon Feb 09, 2009 5:34 pm Post subject:

Lolzez. That's no probs, a'llongas you're having fun exploring and learning Flash. From what I see and hear that part's been a success =3
Hurrah!
_________________
"Sometimes the only way to be truly angry is to be so happy, everyone within a 5 mile radius is creeped out." -Invertin

Psycho Romeo · Posted: Tue Feb 10, 2009 4:31 am Post subject:

Should I try uploading it to filefront or something like that? Dunno where I can host downloads.
_________________
Currently rockin' out to the CAVESTORY REMIX PROJECT

Glunnator · Posted: Tue Feb 10, 2009 8:45 pm Post subject:

Me neither. Newgrounds is only an option once you start making 'bigger' thing that they won't blam, and I've been pretty lost since imageshack stopped accepting .swfs...
I guess we'll need a do a little adventureing with, indeed, filfront and the likes...

Some guy at my school reccomended Rapidshare, although I'm not sure how trustworthy his advice is.
Ah, well, heck, some advice is better than none.
_________________
"Sometimes the only way to be truly angry is to be so happy, everyone within a 5 mile radius is creeped out." -Invertin

Psycho Romeo · Posted: Thu Feb 12, 2009 4:36 pm Post subject:

You can only submit stuff on NG if you're 18 or older. :\
_________________
Currently rockin' out to the CAVESTORY REMIX PROJECT

Glunnator · Posted: Thu Feb 12, 2009 6:55 pm Post subject:

Lolwtf really?
That's nuts.
They know I'm not 18, and I've been submitting stuff for years.

You sure about that?
_________________
"Sometimes the only way to be truly angry is to be so happy, everyone within a 5 mile radius is creeped out." -Invertin