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I was - many a moon ago - a 3d computer animator. Now the nature of that profession is very...niche, and so it's hard to find a job for it if you 1) don't live in the right place and 2) don't know the right people. I have access to neither, but I went into 3d animation specifically because at the time it seemed the most wide-reaching form of animation job-wise, because Flash wasn't what it is now. Well Flash is what it is now and I recently got wind to some tutorials that'll help me learn it so maybe I can be an animator again!

Animation is a lot about doing the same thing over 'n over again with refinements as you go. I took an audio sample and did 'passes' of the animation, refining as time went on. I've gone through 8 passes so far. Wanna see?! Too bad! Cause the forums don't allow video embedding! But it allows linkage!!!

1st Pass

2nd Pass

3rd Pass

4th Pass

5th Pass

6th Pass

7th Pass

8th Pass

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Oh, that's really cool... not what I expected this thread to be about though!

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Looks good! Are you using a lip syncing plugin? They seem like they could really help with efficiency.

I avoid plugins like the plague. I have a hard enough time dealing with vanilla programs, the last thing I need on my plate is a plugin juggling act!

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Geez, that is really neat! Is Flash a 'big' thing in the market now (totally oblivious)?

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Quote (Death Penalty @ 17th February 2013 15:22)

Geez, that is really neat! Is Flash a 'big' thing in the market now (totally oblivious)?

In the web development world, it dominated for a long time as one of the best ways to add heavy-duty animation/interaction capabilities to a website design or to add streaming media, especially given the great tools such as Adobe Flash. With HTML5's canvas and video capabilities, along with all the powerful javascript frameworks out there now, that's changing, but it's still very relevant and will be for years to come, probably.

As for 2D animation for the sake of animation rather than for the sake of a webpage, I wouldn't know how it ranks compared to other media, but a ton of cartoons these days use vector animation, which is what flash animations usually use. And flash software such as Adobe Flash and ToonBoom are very very powerful.

This post has been edited by finalalias on 18th February 2013 04:46

I've recently begun to learn the back-end stuff in Flash (flex framework). Let me know if you ever want to collab on something interactive.

I used to be really into flash back when it was still using AS2. AS3 drove me away until recently.

Quote (finalalias @ 4th March 2013 18:45)

I've recently begun to learn the back-end stuff in Flash (flex framework). Let me know if you ever want to collab on something interactive.

I used to be really into flash back when it was still using AS2. AS3 drove me away until recently.

Not to hijack from NP, but how are you finding that, finalalias? Most of the things I've ever had to deal with with Flash are things that could have been done just as easily with ajax/j, but that is partially a function of where I come from as a developer. What sorts of projects are you using Flash with Flex for?

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A new month with a new bit of audio from The 11 Second Club and I'm starting out with another bit of animation. Kinda got the bug now, so I'm less learning Flash and more learning just 2D animation in general, which is what I'm about anyway. So far I've got two passes done:

1st Pass

2nd Pass

This post has been edited by Narratorway on 6th March 2013 07:09

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Well, I wrote up a huge answer, but decided to spare you from it and instead just say that I'd like to get into a specific kind of game development (as a hobby) to which flash/Air would lend itself well, and I also am looking to buff up my resume and job skills. So far, I do find it extremely complicated and I do get frustrated with its attempts at doing things which are simple in html/javascript (a frustration I also experienced when I learned how to create interactive PDFs with Adobe LiveCycle).

Some articles I found helpful were:

This one about how Flex is Thriving at Apache These Days, and how it's not really just about flash

and

This one that compares html5 and Flash
(The comparison, I feel, needs a few footnotes: Flash has 3d graphics acceleration and multithreading, while javascript doesn't. And the main focus of flash is video and gaming while html5 is focused on being the front-end for web apps although flash can do that too.)

and

The tutorial I've been using to learn flex/Actionscript3

This post has been edited by finalalias on 6th March 2013 07:44

Not to go off-topic or anything, but yeah...still going at it.

3rd Pass

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I posted so soon after your last post that I didn't see it, sorry about that! Otherwise I would have commented earlier. I like your choices in sound clips so far; I've always enjoyed movies and plays with witty dialog. I recently read and watched some of Oscar Wilde's plays for the first time, and loved them. You've got a real talent for facial expressions and gestures. Good posing too- very fluid.

Well the older audio provides a lot of meat to chew on. The newest one's a little more subtle, so it's hard to get proper poses for it. I decided to post a 'final' pass of the earlier one, just to get it out of the way:

Final Pass

Looks less and less likely I'll finish the other one.

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