How to make a scrolling background! And how to do Swap Symbols!

Here are Miles' videos for making a scrolling background for your walk cycles. Enjoy.

Video 1
Video 2
Video 3
Video 4
Video 5

Here's a simplified Symbol swap video too -- useful for setting up a character for lip synch.

Jeff File for Animation Class-- lip synch with phonemes and flash symbols

Animation students, click here to download the Jeff.FLA file (if you dare). It's a 9 mb zip file, so it might take a bit to download. Patience and all that. Anyhow, you can analyze to see how I worked with nested symbols and "swapping" for the phonemes. Quality. Regular folk, can click the picture to see the swf file.

How to loop a SWF

1. Create a new layer, call it "Actions" and insert a blank keyframe on the last frame. See below--click on the images for higher res.

2. Make sure you are on the timeline on the blank keyframe you just made. Click Window > Actions
and then type:

gotoAndPlay(1);

Yer done.

Enbed Code For Your SWFs

Here is the embed code for putting up your own swf files:

<object height="230" width="395"> <param value="yourfilename.swf" name="movie">
<embed src="http://yourremotesite.com/yourfilename.swf" height="230" width="395"></embed></object>

DON"T COPY AND PASTE THIS CODE. IT WON'T WORK!!!!

Do download this .rtf that has the code for you to copy and paste!

Enter the correct height and width fit your actual movie size! (look under Modify > Document in Flash to get the dimensions. I've also found it works to make a copy of your movie and make a shrunken version that's under 400 pixels wide.

Walk Assignment

For Tuesday, October 27 have the following up on your blog.

1. A walk cycle including arms and legs.

2. A walk cycle with a panning background.

Remember:

1) Pans look better on ones (24 fps or 30 fps).

2) Arms tend to hit their extremes at different keys than the feet. For example, feet hit extremes on 1 and arms hit extremes on 3.

“Faster Than a Speeding Bullet: The Art of the Superhero” at U of O!

Beg, borrow or steal a ride up to Eugene to check out “Faster Than a Speeding Bullet: The Art of the Superhero” up at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art at the University of Oregon. It's up until January 3rd, so see it; it could change your life. . .

Walk Cycle Demo Videos

Here are the step by step videos on creating a 9 frame stick figure walk cycle in Flash. Enjoy.

Video 1: Contact and Passing keys.

Video 2: Up and Down keys.

Video 3: In-Betweens.

Video 4: Converting the step to a cycle.

Click here to download the .fla file of the stick figure walk before it is converted to a cycle.
Click here to download the .fla file of the stick figure walk converted to a cycle.

New Tween Demo Videos

Classic Architecture, Classic Rock, & Classic Tweens. Here's how to do some ball bouncin' with ease control classic tweens in Flash CS4.

Tween Video 1: How to set up the basic classic tween.

Tween Video 2: Adding easing (adjusting spacing).

Tween Video 3: Adding funky strokes n' blurs. Creating a shadow.

Tween Video 4: Easing the shadow scale tween.

Icycle & A Good Intro To Easing Video

Icycle by Damp Gnat Games - Excellent-looking nude tricycle riding post-apocalyptic side-scroller! That's entertainment.

Here's a good intro video on using the Flash CS4 Motion Editor to control your easing. Turns out the Flash Motion Editor is different from Maya and Max. Irritating. Irritating. Irritating.

Jill Bruhn Time

Here's a link to SOU Art Alum Jill Bruhn's stuff she did for the animation class. Nifty! While you're at it, check out her blog too.

Comics & Animation: Look No Further Than Brad Neely

Brad Neely is fantastic. Absolutely wonderful. Love love love his stuff. Free Love. Short sentence fragments.

Makin' Love with Kenny Winker:


Role Playin' with BABY CAKE!!!!! BE AGGRESSIVE!!!!! Marry me.

Flash Ball Bounce Video How-to!

I'm posting nine videos that take you through each step of the ball bounce assignment. I'll post as they upload.

Video 1: Setting up a new file and creating a ground layer, how to extend a frame (6 min 8 secs)

Video 2: Onion skinning & setting initial keys for timing, turning off snap, looping playback (5 min 42 sec)

Video 3: Moving frames on the timeline to adjust timing. How to keep the timeline cleaned up by removing unnecessary frames (2 min 49 seconds)

Video 4: Quick review of moving frames on the timeline. Adding keys and initial spacing pass. (6 min 13 sec)

Video 5: Polonius says SAVE YOUR WORK, adding keys and adjusting spacing (6 min 44 sec)

Video 6: Spacing above and beyond (5 min 35 sec)

Video 7: Squash and Stretch!!! (3 min 37 sec)

Video 8: Final inbetweens and spacing (5 min 08 sec)

Video 9: Cleaning up the loop, deleting guides (3 min 41 sec)

Art 352 Animation Assignment 3 - Bouncin'

Yes, it's time for the infamous bouncing ball. Live it & love it. It's actually pretty fun. Here's the deal.

1. Create a looping animation of a ball bouncing in place.

2. Create an animation of a ball bouncing twice and off stage.

3. Create a looped animation of a character doing some kind of bouncing related activity.

* These will be due on Thursday, October 15
* The first 2 animations must use frame by frame; no copy and paste, and no tweening.
* The third animation can be done however you'd like. Some folks might want to experiment with the IK tool.

Simplify!

Compare Durer vs. Clowes (above) & Inada vs. Michelangelo (below)

Sleazy Comic Page Template

Hey kids, get yours today! Click on the picture for the full size version, then right click and download. Loads of laffs! Fool your friends! Also, here's a link to Scott McCloud's pyramid of comic styles which we'll discuss today.

Art 349 Comics Assignments & Schedule

Let 'em rip. For Wednesday, October 6, do one of the following:

1. A 4 panel strip.
2. A 1 page comic.
3. A free-form narrative drawing (a la Maurice Sendak). This can be multi-page if you want.

For class, we'll discuss developing an approach to the visual side of things (I think the technical term for this is "art"). We'll check out Scott McCloud's pyramid, page templates, and thumbnails.

For Monday, October 11, we'll talk about lettering, typography, page layout, speech bubbles and the like.

For Wednesday, October 13 you'll present your project proposals to the class. Use the guidelines for the Art 450/496 projects. Make sure your proposal is entirely on your blog as that's what I'll be evaluating. Bonus: it'll be much harder for you to lose or forget to bring with you once it's on line. The only thing that could stop us would be some kind of computer/network outage, but that will never happen.

Good Resources on Clowes & Comics Simpsons!

Eightball fans, head on over to Warren's Wiki for some good links to Dan Clowes interviews and such. Damn, I have to see this Simpsons episode. That's Clowes, Art Spiegelman, and Alan Moore--shirtless!!

Treatment Bound

For an example of some rough treatment examples (har har), check out Inadaville for a couple of recent posts on the Jefferson project. Here are some specific links:
Writing and Spiritual Fathers
A rough character concept by Miles
A rough concept by Miles

Chris Ware: A spiritual brother (I think he's younger than me). A harder-working, more talented better musician than me brother. Check out this excellent database of his work, The Acme Novelty Archive by Adam Kempa. If you're interested in further Ware reading, dig the lucidly titled book, Chris Ware, by Daniel Raeburn.

Art 352 Assignment 2-Abstract Animation

Create an abstract animation using tweening, symbols and whatever else you want to use.
100-300 frames.
Think about the films shown by Steven Mayerson. Here are some stills from Oskar Fischinger's work that might help get you going.
Due Thursday, October 8 at beginning of class.

Art 352 Tweening In Flash CS4

Here's a link to a video tutorial on tweening in Flash CS 4. Dig it.

Art 349 Comics Assignment

Here's your weekend assignment. Enjoy!
1) Create the folder where you'll be keeping a hold of all your stuff (sketches, notes, source material, research, breakdowns, writing, etc) related to your project. Make it portable so you can bring it to class.

2) Take a first stab at a treatment for your project. What's a treatment? I use the term to refer to any kind of rough first stab at developing your project. A treatment can include some early attempts at the basic components of a book project: writing, illustration, layout and design. It could include a plot sketch or outline. You could write a description of the setting or world your book takes place in. What kind of characters live there? It can also be more abstract--something relating to the feeling or vibe you're trying to achieve, but not yet settled into any kind of final form. One of my favorite treatment examples (possibly apocryphal) is David Lynch being obsessed with a piece of blue velvet (the material) for a long time before making the film Blue Velvet.

3) On your blog, visually analyze a page of a book that you like. Look at type choice and size, use of white space, relation of pictures to images and the like. If you're doing a comic, note the lettering and gutter choices, panel breakdown, etc. Approach this not as a critic, but on a functional "how does this tick?" level.

4) Blog a bit about your creative process. How are you going to get this project done? Some things you might think about: Where do you like to work? Do you have a ritual? A schedule? What distracts you? How can you deal with those distractions?

Git yer blogs going and bring all of this good stuff into class on Monday for show and tell. Looking forward to seeing what's cookin'!