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Curious to know if anyone is planning to use XXPro for character animation. Over the years I've assembled a few characters and done a few simple animations in Xara and Flash. I don't imagine, from what I've seen that Pro is going to manage inbetweening a walk cycle by any chance.....
Ooops, just noticed the animation forum.......duh - ohhh. Think I need another cup of coffee.
Best,
Fraser
Hello Fraser,
I guess that if you want to create a long animation then Xara Xtreme Pro will still not be enought. It is best for small banners and a few frames animation. Creating a cartoon would be tought work, so, back to flash :)
I use it to design my characters, then bring them into Flash or Anime Studio (just learning AS). There are a few conversion issues to get past but Xara's drawing tools are so much better it's worth the hassle.
For the actual animation I highly recommend Anime Studio (formerly MOHO). It's quirky but powerful.
Best of luck,
J
Yes I am familiar with moho, though it is a bit different in it's use and not very intuitive, so I have yet to get a grasp of it.
Alas, it is not very possible to combine between flash and moho. Moho is excellent with it's bone animation characteristics, but flash can create symbols and movie clips which can be reused over and over again.
AIR, Moho had that capability. I never used it, but I remember it from the tutorial.Quote:
Originally Posted by Availor
I've tried looking in old tutorials, symbols were never mentioned there. Please post a link if you find one.
I dont' think they're reffered to as symbols, but in essence it allows you to create a library of characters/items/props/etc, each with it's own associated actions, and then import them into what you're currently working on.
I'm not overly familiar with either Flash or Moho (or AnimeStudio) but I think the ideas remain the same.
Yes, Flash does have symbols, typically movieclips are used. A movieclip has it's own timeline, so you can have a man character and animate the man on the timeline, so you'd animate a walk, animate a turn, animate a jump and animate sitting down, etc. You can the import this movieclip to the stage and by controlling the movieclip timeline (simple actionscript), you can animate the man on the stage without having to animate the individual parts all the time.
It's not the bee-all and end-all because you still will have to animate other movements besides thos in the man movieclip.
Does that help?
www.cartoonsmart.com is agood place for this kind of thing..
Paul
Odat is right. I don't believe they were called 'symbols', but I definitely remember the principle being included in the tutorial. I'm pretty sure the beach ball in the scene with Frank and the tree was the sort of thing you're talking about.Quote:
Originally Posted by Odat
http://livedocs.macromedia.com/flash...=00000438.htmlQuote:
Originally Posted by amoore
"
Flash 8 Documentation
Using Flash > Using Symbols, Instances, and Library Assets > Creating symbols
Creating symbols
You can create a symbol from selected objects on the Stage, or you can create an empty symbol and make or import the content in symbol-editing mode. You can also create font symbols in Flash. See Creating font symbols. Symbols can have all the functionality that you can create with Flash, including animation.
By using symbols that contain animation, you can create Flash applications with a lot of movement while minimizing file size. Consider creating animation in a symbol when there is a repetitive or cyclic action--the up-and-down motion of a bird's wings, for example.
You can also add symbols to your document by using shared library assets during authoring or at runtime. See Using shared library assets."
Generally it is a combination of characters and actions that take on a similar role as symbols in Flash. AS and Flash are completely different animals and as such there is no direct correlation.
I work in Flash on a daily basis as an interactive tool, I don't however use it for animation, especially in the case of character work. I've just started learning it myself and while I HATE the drawing tools, the animation tools really are powerful once you get your head around the concepts.
I was recently playing with the lipsyncing capabilities and came up with this (some of you will recognize the slightly modified plasma boy image, drawn in Xara)
http://capefearwriters.org/images/test.mov
Not exactly high art but it was a good intro for me into lipsyncing and importing xara files into AS (via ai format)
Agreed, so long as by "Flash" you're strictly referring to the Adobe/Macromedia app. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Joe Skeesick
The drawing tools in AS are pretty clunky, too. But then, just about any drawing tools are clunky if you're used to Xara.
Not too shabby, Joe. :)Quote:
http://capefearwriters.org/images/test.mov
Not exactly high art but it was a good intro for me into lipsyncing and importing xara files into AS (via ai format)
I just get a broken Quicktime movie.
Works for Jim (Scotty) but I have Quicktime altrnative I believe.
Jim
Quote:
Originally Posted by Egg Bramhill
Hmmm.. just checked it again and it works for me. Not to worry you're not missing much. Just a lip sync based of the AS tutorials but using a Xara/AI import. It does take a bit of finagling to get Xara/AI files in there... (if fact the movie posted was an earlier one with some anomalies still in place as well as some sloppy lip sync, but it was handy, so..)
That I am.Quote:
Originally Posted by amoore
Yes they are. Makes ya wish Xara could license a subset of their drawing tools to apps like AS so they could just plug in the Xara goodness. There are some additional AS script drawing tools that improve upon the basic ones. They still aren't great but it is an improvement.Quote:
Originally Posted by amoore
Personally I'd be just fine with them being complete junk, IF they pulled in exported vectors without butchering them. Hopefully now that it is in teh e frontier family they will use some of the drawing app knowledge they have to makes the creation part of AS as nice as the animation aspect of it.
I can hope.
J