Blog #4 - Animation

I was very excited to begin making an animation using flash. I have never used anything like flash and did not even know a program like this existed. The first day I made a five second animation about a man falling out of the sky, it took me twenty-five minutes. I realized then that I would definitely be time crunched if I wanted to finish my project in class. I downloaded a free thirty-day trial on Adobe’s webpage and got to work. I scrapped my original idea and decided to make a story about a flower and a butterfly. Overall it took me an entire weekend to make my fifty-second animation, but it was definitely worth it.

About a third of the time I spent on my animation was trial and error. I was trying to familiarize myself with the program. I never imagined making a cartoon would be so complex, time consuming, and tedious. Having a new appreciation for the art form is an understatement, animation artist are fantastic. My favorite part was seeing my vision come to life. To make the butterfly move I used two different symbols (one with the wings open and one closed) then I manually moved the picture and alternated the symbols. By not using a tween the butterfly had a more realistic and jagged approach.

The hardest part of the project was having the flower grow, I wish it would have looked a little more realistic. I had trouble with the shape tween, eventually I had to split up the flower into two parts, the result were decent, but it still looked like a ball expanding.

I have a basic understanding of Photoshop and that really helped in drawing the animation. The drawing of the animation took at least forty minutes to get perfect, I had many mishaps with the flowers.

I overall am very happy and excited to have finished my first flash project. Doing this assignment has increased my interest in the subject significantly and I one day when I have time I would like to just spend a day learning a little more about the programs capabilities.