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Foundation Flash Cartoon Animation Foundation Flash Cartoon Animation Tim Jones Barry J. Kelly Allan S. Rosson David Wolfe Foundation Flash Cartoon Animation Copyright © 2007 by Tim Jones, Barry J. Kelly, Allan S. Rosson, David Wolfe All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner and the publisher. ISBN-13 (pbk): 978-1-59059-912-9 ISBN-10 (pbk): 159059-912-8 Printed and bound in the United States of America 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Trademarked names may appear in this book. Rather than use a trademark symbol with every occurrence of a trademarked name, we use the names only in an editorial fashion and to the benefit of the trademark owner, with no intention of infringement of the trademark. Distributed to the book trade worldwide by Springer-Verlag New York, Inc., 233 Spring Street, 6th Floor, New York, NY 10013. Phone 1-800-SPRINGER, fax 201-348-4505, e-mail [email protected], or visit www.springeronline.com. For information on translations, please contact Apress directly at 2855 Telegraph Avenue, Suite 600, Berkeley, CA 94705. Phone 510-549-5930, fax 510-549-5939, e-mail [email protected], or visit www.apress.com. The information in this book is distributed on an “as is” basis, without warranty. Although every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this work, neither the author(s) nor Apress shall have any liability to any person or entity with respect to any loss or damage caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by the information contained in this work. The source code for this book is freely available to readers at www.friendsofed.com in the Downloads section. Credits Lead Editors Senior Production Editor Chris Mills, Ben Renow-Clarke Laura Cheu Technical Reviewer Compositor Tiago Dias Dina Quan Editorial Board Artist Steve Anglin, Ewan Buckingham, April Milne Tony Campbell, Gary Cornell, Jonathan Gennick, Jason Gilmore, Proofreader Kevin Goff, Jonathan Hassell, Elizabeth Berry Matthew Moodie, Joseph Ottinger, Jeffrey Pepper, Ben Renow-Clarke, Indexer Dominic Shakeshaft, Matt Wade, John Collin Tom Welsh Cover Illustrator Project Manager Jerry Richardson Kylie Johnston Cover Image Designers Copy Editor Tim Jones, Barry J. Kelly, Heather Lang Allan S. Rosson, David Wolfe Associate Production Director Interior and Cover Designer Kari Brooks-Copony Kurt Krames Manufacturing Director Tom Debolski To my wife, Julie, for picking up all the slack while I worked on this book. And for my daughter, Bea, who makes all sacrifices seem worthwhile. —Tim To my parents, Richard and Denis Kelly, for their never-ending support, love, and care. And for letting me stay up late to watch more cartoons and scary movies. —Barry My portion of this book is dedicated to my Father, William Daniel Rosson M.D., for being my first and best art teacher, for his ever-present encouragement and support, and for setting me on the path to success with an artistic career. —Al CONTENTS AT A GLANCE About the Authors ........................................xiv About the Technical Reviewer ................................xvi Acknowledgments ........................................xviii Introduction .............................................xix Chapter 1 The Project Plan ...................................1 Chapter 2 Character Libraries ................................29 Chapter 3 Storyboards and Animatics ..........................59 Chapter 4 Setting Up Your FLA ...............................73 Chapter 5 Plug-ins and Extensions............................105 Chapter 6 Frame by Frame Animation.........................121 Chapter 7 Animating With Tweens ...........................145 Chapter 8 Animation Special Effects ..........................177 Chapter 9 Why Use After Effects? ............................205 Chapter 10 After Effects and Camera Mechanics ................225 Chapter 11 Making Flash Not Look Like Flash ...................265 Chapter 12 Tips and Tricks .................................287 Index ..................................................321 v CONTENTS About the Authors ........................................xiv About the Technical Reviewer ................................xvi Acknowledgments ........................................xviii Introduction .............................................xix Chapter 1 The Project Plan ...................................1 Outline your goals . 1 What are you trying to accomplish? ...............................2 Using Flash for delivery ......................................2 Delivery as a SWF . 2 How a SWF works .......................................3 How SWFs affect your animation. 5 The size of your SWF . 5 The playback of your SWF . 9 Delivery as something other than a SWF. 10 Using Flash for creation .....................................10 The Flash library system . 10 Backgrounds . 12 Compositing and editing ..................................13 Sound .............................................15 Planning your Flash animation. 15 Script................................................16 Design ...............................................17 Storyboards ............................................17 Animatics . 19 Animation . 20 Animation method ......................................20 Animation efficiencies . 21 Compositing and editing .....................................21 Postproduction . 22 vii CONTENTS Making your project plan. 22 Delivery specifications . 22 Format . 22 Dimensions . 22 Frame rate . 23 Aspect ratio . 23 Schedule . 24 Script . 25 Designs . 25 Storyboards . 26 Animatics . 26 Animation . 26 Compositing and editing...................................26 Postproduction . 26 Sample schedule . 26 Summary . 27 Chapter 2 Character Libraries ................................29 An overview of the character library process. 29 Size (and weight) are important. 32 Size recommendations. 33 Weight recommendations . 33 Converting lines to fills......................................33 A nose by any other name . 34 Viewing angle ...........................................35 Creating new symbols during animation. 37 Creating the head comp .......................................38 Mouth charts . 40 Creating a movable jaw ...................................40 Eye comps and lid charts. 45 The rest of the head comp . 47 The body ................................................47 Articulation . 47 Nonarticulated joints .......................................52 Hand charts . 53 Putting it all together. 54 Summary . 57 Chapter 3 Storyboards and Animatics ..........................59 Storyboards ..............................................60 Drawing storyboards on paper (traditional) . 61 Acting . 61 Drawing digitally............................................63 Drawing directly into Flash. 64 Animatics .............................................66 Acting in digital boards . 66 viii CONTENTS Building animatics. 67 Building an animatic in Flash . 67 Building an animatic in other applications . 69 Implementing animatics in your Flash animation file . 69 Using an animatic from a different format. 69 Summary . 71 Chapter 4 Setting Up Your FLA ...............................73 Technical issues . 74 Aspect ratio . 74 Film . 75 TV . 75 Internet ............................................75 Pixel aspect ratio . 76 Image size .............................................82 Frame rate. 83 Action safe and title safe . 84 Organizational issues .........................................85 Working in a master FLA. 85 Splitting up your animatic . 90 Exporting from After Effects . 90 Importing into Flash . 94 The 100 percent rule .......................................98 Camera mechanics . 100 Summary ...............................................102 Chapter 5 Plug-ins and Extensions............................105 Introducing our favorite extensions . 106 Panel extensions .........................................106 AnimSlider .........................................106 Autocolor full . 107 Timing chart .........................................107 Command extensions. 108 Break Into Layers ......................................108 Create Masking Layer. 108 Enter Graphic at Current Frame. ..
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