How I do Flash Animation

4 min read

Deviation Actions

SB99stuff's avatar
By
Published:
2.4K Views
This was going to be in my other account, but the images screwed up. lol There are a variety of ways to make animation, but how have I been doing it? I am NO professional, I've self-taught myself early on, and I'm still learning techniques with help from a few tutorial videos now. I thought of making a history and "tutorial" on how I make my animation. But warning, follow the steps of actual professionals so you can practice more superb animation than this kind of cheapness. =P

:bulletgreen: To BEGIN, I've always had an interest in animation throughout my life, and I used to make Stop-Motion movies with my Bionicles when I was younger. Since I don't have as much free time anymore (and no more certain camera and DVD recorder I use to make stop-motion), I wanted to do actual cartoons. So I began practicing Flash programs in 2011. I've made my first short in the summer of that year, and like many first things, it turned out very cheap and badly.

Vlcsnap-2014-05-18-16h03m24s11 by ScoBionicle99

:bulletred: This was "Shapes and Aliens", or rather an ATHF ripoff. Aside from the bad story, the animation is VERY limited. Mouths only moved up and down, the lip sync was bad in places, and the lines are very jagged. While I'm glad it's my first, it still has many problems. However, I'm not going to bore you on every single animation I've did, and I'll just tell you what I do, what I've improved on, and what I still have problems with. :shrug:

So what programs do I use? Ever since I made flash animations, the two major programs I used were Macromedia Flash 8, and GIMP. In summary, for GIMP I create the backgrounds and characters, and for MF8 I put both together.

:bulletyellow: Like many people will tell you, animation is a VERY complex progress, yet many people love doing it. Knowing this, I can honestly say I can be lazy and use "limited animation" on purpose. :XD: However, many cartoons do this. For example, a character can just stand there while only the mouth moves for dialogue, or when a cartoon tends to use a repeating animation cycle. As for me, I animate the character in a simple pose with little gestures and with the mouth (and occasionally the head and eyes) moving.



:bulletblue: These is an example of pieces I use for a typical character in animation. That's how simple I can be. When I put actual effort in my animation, I use FBF (frame-by-frame) animation. :) In Flash, you have the "Onion Skin" function so you can look at the previous frame while you're working on the next one. And actually, FBF turns out to be pretty fun if you want your stuff looking fluid. When I use more detailed animation on a character, I usually add more gestures, such as walking, moving their arms, or moving heads. In this example, As you can see, Pinkie's head and hoof, the right cymbal, and the arms are moving. Everything else is still.

Pony TV Girl Show by ScoBionicle99

I think that's about all I can say when it comes to me animating. I put it as short as possible so it won't drag out too long, so I apologize if you were expecting on how I use layers and junk. :XD: While I'm still learning animation, I still consider it to be a lifetime hobby of mine. I've been doing it since I was little, and I'd still like to continue making animation now. Who knows if I'm going to ever get a career on it or my art in general, but who knows? It's what I like to do. :D I got one coming soon, I hope to upload it Tuesday.
© 2014 - 2024 SB99stuff
Comments7
Join the community to add your comment. Already a deviant? Log In