Flash Animation Overview Part 2: Symbols

So, we've gone over what Flash is, and what it's been used for. Now it's time for how it's used.
Flash can be used to make frame by frame animation, but what makes it so efficient is the ability to use symbols.

Titmouse Animation's "Superjail" is done in Flash

Symbols are similar to animating on cels. Cels, short for celluloids, are transparent overlays that are painted on, producing parts of animation. Cells allow for pieces of a character or scene to be animated, while other pieces are kept the same. They're like layers.

Symbols are like cels. They're vectors stored in Flash that when put together, form a character or object, or whatever you're animating. How the symbols fit and move together is called a rig.

Each individual piece of the rig is a symbol. Animating with symbols allows for jointed movement, which is much faster and streamlined than drawing the same bit over and over again. How well this works can depend on the skill of the animator, the rig itself, or even the design of the character and how it translates to being a flash puppet.

For example, the show El Tigre: The Adventures of Manny Rivera uses Flash well. All the characters are rigged well and are expressive.

However, more often than not, Flash is used more as a crutch as opposed to a tool. Canadian-American show Johnny Test has dull character designs that barely move much. Things are static and dull in the show, with the same animation popping up often.

Flash Animation Overview Part 1: The History

Adobe Flash is a powerful animation, vector graphic and games/software creating tool. The first version of Flash was created in 1996 by a company called FutureWave Software. It was released as FutureSplash Animator, before it was sold to Macromedia, who released the product as Macromedia Flash.

Flash was widely used on the internet, for many applications such as playing music, games, and video. Flash was used to make many of the 'classic' internet toons we love today, such as That badger thing, The Demented Cartoon movie, and the great Homestar Runner.com  

Homestar Runner's creative cast

Flash stayed on the internet until 2002, when Warner Bros. Animation debuted the first animated TV show done in Flash: Mucha Lucha 

In 2005 Adobe purchased Macromedia, bringing Flash into Adobe's army of creative evil: The Creative Suite. 

Next Week: How do Flash do? A look into how Flash works, symbols and actionscript. 

EXIT 73 Studios: Coin

     Recently I was scrolling along our blog page and stumbled upon the link to the site Motionographer. I found a short little animation called "Coin" created by a small animation and motion graphics company in James-port, NY that specializes in animation production and graphic design. "Coin" was directed and animated by Chris Burns with music, sound design and composition by Bob Fox. "Coin" is a 2D 8-bit animation that plays homage to games from the past. The animation takes the viewer on  a nostalgic journey through many environments such as underwater and outer space that include references to many of the games in our early childhood which inevitably faded out due to better technology. While only a team of two EXIT 73 Studios stands tall among its peers with its precise animation, overwhelming creativity and lastly experience to keep the company moving in the right direction. Chris Burns has been an animator for over 10 years working for prestigious clients such as Disney, Fox, Adult Swim, Comedy Central, MTV and Nickelodeon. Additionally Bob Fox partner of Burns has worked for such clients as Disney, Nickelodeon, MTV and IFC. Enjoy as "Coin" takes you through some of the most memorable video games of all time.

Exit 73 Studios

                 


A few other examples of EXIT 73 Studios notable works:

                  

                    

Quick & Simple Flash Tutorials

We have been focusing on working with AE mostly in class but I've been playing around with some of the other programs such as Flash.  I came across this series of demo videos on Reddit that were clean, simple, and informative. 

Check 'em out here if you're interested...

Blog Post 1: Interest in Animation

In high school I took a computer class where we learned about tons of different adobe programs. We mostly learned about Photoshop, Dreamweaver, and Flash.  Messing around and learning to use Adobe Flash was the coolest thing to me. Getting to make a stick figure come to life, or a car drive off the screen was awesome to 15 year old me.  I convinced my teacher to let me have a copy for home so I could work on school projects and teach myself how to use the program better.

That was my first experience with animation, and even though they were very short and rough around the edges, I was very happy that I found something that I actually really liked to do.  Last semester I took a Flash Animation class and found that I still loved doing homework in that class and would spend much longer than I had to perfecting my animations.  While other people had stick figures that would glide across the screen, mine would walk.  If I cut corners and did the bare minimum, I could have still gotten an A. But I would know that I could have done better.  I wouldn't be proud to show it to anyone if it wasn't the best I could do. That led to a lot of late nights and extra effort that I tended to not put into  my other classes.

I'm not sure if I really like doing animation, or if I just can't stand when it looks bad.  Either way, there is a passion there that I don't have with a lot of other things that I do, and the way I look at it, that is something I need to pursue further. The first day of class I said that I didn't know what I wanted to do yet for my career.  This Motion Graphics and Animation class is the next step for me in narrowing down what I want to do. Since I am a TVR major, I am hoping that one way or another, I will be closer to figuring out what I want be when I grow up.