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.