Traditional Animation in Flash

[Meg]

Next semester, I'll be animating a story that we're developing right now. My animation will be done traditionally, and I refuse to do it on paper because 1) our animation cameras suck, and 2) I want a nice clean piece for a demo reel. Now, the only other way I'm aware of animating traditionally is in Flash (if you know any other ways, please tell me).

Anyway, I've been trying here and there to do traditional animation in Flash with a Wacom tablet, but it's hard to get the lines at the same width and smoothness, as well as in the correct position (not only relative to the other frames, but to the lines in its own frame). In short, I can't imagine trying to animate this way for a whole semester. I'm aware of Cintiq tablets where you draw on the screen, but I just don't have that kind of money. I also tried to animate on paper, attach the registration on the tablet, then draw that way, but (as well as being very big), I had to press down hard, and would still have problems with the line thickness and everything.

So if anyone has any tips, links to tutorials, telling me what I'm doing wrong, or other methods of easier digital/clean animation, I'd be eternally grateful. As of right now, I'm not looking forward to getting past production on this. =\

[yinteck]

You cant zoom in our zoom out when using a brush. Although the size of the brush is the same. That one thing i dont like with flash. So when drawing with the brush do not zoom in or zoom out.

For me, to solve this problem ill draw a rough sketch with the brush and after that create a new layer above the rough one and outline it with line or pencil. This is how animator work in flash. Yes it involve a lot of work cause u need to draw and then outline. Not to mention u need to apply color at that end for EACH frame.

Hope this help.

[Meg]

Yeah, it helps. Now I know there's no easy way to do Flash. ;_;

[Mindflaw]

Try this application, might suit you ???

http://www.les-stooges.org/pascal/pencil/index.php?id=Home

[Onir]

You cant zoom in our zoom out when using a brush. Although the size of the brush is the same. That one thing i dont like with flash. So when drawing with the brush do not zoom in or zoom out.


I've actually found that if you zoom in while using the brush in flash and then switch the brush size to a larger/smaller brush (depending on the zoom distance) you can maintain a pretty similar line size. It takes some experimenting with and it might not be exact, but it seems to work well enough. I agree though, doing roughs with the brush then going over it with the pencil or line tool is a very good way to keep a very consistent line.

If you do like doing it on paper, you could do roughs on paper then digitally ink the drawings in Flash, Photoshop, Painter, etc. That way the resulting work is digitally clean and you don't have to worry about the quality of the camera you're shooting with as much. Flash can also trace bitmap images, so that might help cut down on time if done right (I haven't messed with it a whole lot, so I'm not 100% sure on the results you can get with it).

Best of luck to ya!