Creating 2D Animation

Steps to Creating 2D Animation with Macromedia Flash

1. Creating the concept and idea of ​​the story -> synopsis
2. Creating a Storyboard
3. Drawing Characters
4. Background Drawing and other objects
5. Coloration
6. The process of animation
7. Merger animation
8. Pengsian votes
9. Convert Flash animations (SWF) to VCD

The following is an explanation of the steps above
1. Creating the concept and story ideas
• Determine the theme of the story (can be obtained from daily life, the stories of existing animation, comics, etc.)
• Examples of the concept of story: entertainment, environment
For example: A mosquito / flies flew out of the trash that slums are flooded, then the mosquitoes fly and headed for a luxury home that all walls are made of glass.Mosquitoes are pesky because they can not enter through the glass wall.
Message: Keep clean in the neighborhood because of the danger threatening dengue fever regardless of social status.
• How to find story ideas
Positive imagination I wish I could fly like a bird
If I were president
Etc..
Negative imagination I wish I could destroy the world
If I could rob a bank
Etc..

2. Creating a Storyboard
• Why should the Storyboard?
a. if the movie is done 1 team, for the story line can be understood by team members.
b. In order for us not forget the storyline that we have planned (as a guide or reminder)
c. To facilitate the reading of the story visually (like comics)
• Like comics, storyboards, usually consisting of several scenes arranged and in which there is:
a. shape (plot)
b. forms of scenes
c. form the climax (the most culminating scene in the story)
d. forms of dramatization (a scene that contains a particular character scenes that contain romance, funny, terror, and fear)
• In making a storyboard there are some specific terms, such as:
a. Camera (for cameras capture ordinary filmmaking or animation)
b. Languages ​​news text (explaining the dialogue that must be spoken)
c. Language Audio and Special Effects (a language that describes the location of the sound that must be present in these scenes and special effects that should be used).
• Storyboard can be made in 2 ways:
a. Depictions of the story in the form of strips (the pieces of the picture) according to approximate the expected appearance on the screen (like comics), along with a full explanation of the story.

storyboard with a strip

b. Create a storyboard with a symbol, (intended for those who can not draw). So the form of storyboards can be created with symbols that can be understood by others.Example: The depiction of humans is made with a line and round head, or form a symbol that is meant is the human image. Storyboard of this model should be given an explanation purpose symbol.
• The point storyboard can be understood by us and others who read it.

3. Drawing Characters
• The process begins with character creation:
a. Observations directly to the object
b. hand sketches with pencil / pen / ink
c. scanned image
d. image files imported into Macromedia Flash
e. image is redrawn as a guide to using the tools available in Flash (such as: pencil tool)
• Editing images of characters in Flash should be broken perbagian which will be moved (eg head, hands, feet, etc.)
• Combine separate objects earlier
• Because the animation may take a few positions, then the characters that made should be made in several positions, such as side view, front view, looking back, and so on.
• To draw on different positions, break back characters that have been created previously, click Modify> Break Apart (Ctrl + B). Then rotate & slide a little object to the logic of appearance you want.

4. Background Drawing and other objects
• An animation will not be good if not given the environment. This environment gives the impression of animation to life.
• Draw the background should be in accordance with the scenario already determined earlier in the story board.
• To move is not too monotonous. Use your imagination to draw the background in a variety of viewpoints.
• To create a 3D background we can use the help of 3dsmax, but the easier is Swift3D, because it is more simple and results can be directly exported in formaf shockwave flash (swf).

5. Coloration
• In color theory known color distribution:
1. basic colors to produce lain.àWarna Primary colors
2. combination of 2 colors primeràWarna Secondary
3. combination of 2 colors sekunderàWarna Tertiary

• Then there is the intensity of color, the colors are affected by bright light or dark on an object, divided into 2 parts:
1. Hot colors
2. Cool colors

• With a good mastery of color theory that we can to acquire color object we can combine several colors to match.
• Staining also will be optimized if considering lighting techniques (dark-light) so that the color of objects is more interesting.
• To facilitate the staining character in Macromedia Flash, the following stages:
a. Object first character must be broken into sections, click Modify> Break Apart (Ctrl + B)
b. Objects used as a symbol, Modify> Convert to Symbol (F8)> give it a name (eg, head)> select the type of graphic symbol> click OK.
c. Give color to the object. Objects can be seen in the library (F11), to facilitate the search enter the group object in the library folder.
d. To rejoin. Insert> New Symbol> give the name of the combined object (eg, mosquitoes fly)> select the type of movie clips> click OK.
e. Drag the colored objects (from the library to the stage). We recommend that each part of the object / character placed in different layers)

6. The process of animation
• To perform the animation, once mastered penganimasian techniques in Flash:
a. animated motion, position, rotation of objects àTween Motion &
b. animation modification / change form objekàTween Shape
• Animation is done per character, per object, and background in accordance with the scenario.
• To facilitate, should we combine all the objects first.
• To facilitate the animation should be done per object, not per character directly. For example to objects the bird / mosquito do perbagian animation (animation wing alone, animated head only, etc.) and then incorporated into movie clips.
• Flash lets make a movie clip that contains a lot of movie animation clip for easy management becomes much simpler.

Explanation:
In the movie clip there are 3 movie clips bird (wings, head, body). In the movie clip the wings there are 2 kinds of images in motion (motion tween), the tween images tween images right wing and left wing. So on to other characters.
To move the bird then, we just do the motion tween movie clips on the object burung_mc wing, head and body will follow "fly" with birds.

• If the animation is made only in 1 movie clip, then the process will be more difficult penganimasiannya
• To move the characters more life we ​​can read the article penganimasian from the book Cartoon Animation by Preston Blair mouth movement is an image expression when saying the phrase or words to that described in the form of oral expression picture per letter.

Tips Penganimasian
• If you are having difficulty in penganimasian look back and make more detailed storyboard
• To enrich penganimasian, many-many are seeing scenes of movies, video clips or anything else about the shooting.
• To create an animated character in the character, make sure the animation was made in the movie clip consisting of a few movie clips and graphic symbols on it.
• For an animation using actionscript, do not use an action that is too complicated.Use a simple action, such as play () or stop (); or no actionscript at all. It is intended for processing into Video CD (VCD) becomes easier.


7. Merger animation
• Merging animation means:
Combining some animation on some movie clips, which in the movie clip there is also a few movie clips. Each movie clip contains a scene or cutscene is then combined with another scene that it becomes an animation (story / movie).
• Scenes are composed of several movie clips can be put in one scene alone (main timeline) or any change of scenes included in the new scene. Do I click Insert> Scene.
• By default the film will play an animated sequence Scene 1> Scene 2> Scene 3> and so on. To change the sequence. We can arrange it by clicking Window> Other Panels> Scene (Shift + F2). In the window we could Scene sliding sequence scene from top to bottom or vice versa.
• We can also change the name of the scene in accordance with our wishes in the Scene window.

8. Charging vote
• Animation will be more alive if there is a sound that accompanies the animated storyline.
• Vote for the animation can be obtained by recording your own or edit sound files with sound-editing software (audio editor).
• We can also download the sound files that we want from the internet such as flash www.flashkit.com resource site.
• To edit a sound additional software that can be used including: Fruityloops, Sound Forge, Cool Edit 2000, and so on.
• sound format that can be incorporated into Flash, among others, wav and mp3.
• To insert a sound into Flash: click Import> to Library. In the file type switch All Sound Formats (for selecting which appear only all the supported sound files flash). > Click OK
• To enter into the timeline, simply drag sound files into the frame as desired.
• Sound files do not have to be placed on the main timeline, but quite the movie clip in it. The sound will be displayed at the time it plays the movie clip.
• In the properties window will display information about the voice used:


Sound: The name of the file that has been imported into library
Effect: None: no effect
Left Channel: sound in left channel only
Right Channel: sound on right channel only
Fade Left to Right: left to right channel gradient
Fade Right to Left: gradations of right to left channel
Fade In: silent-hard gradation
Fade Out: gradations of loud-quiet Custom:
Securities that can be set free on the edit button.
Sync: Event: Used for sound that is played does not affect the amount of frame rate in movie
> Usually done for filling sound that does not follow the motion animation, such as background noise.
Stream: Should be used for sound effects, like the sound of falling, the sound of gunfire, and other sound effects, because it is more appropriate to follow the motion animation.
> Lipsync or charging better voice conversations using sync stream.

9. Convert Flash animations (SWF) to VCD
• In order for an animated film can be shown on television, it must be converted into VCD format. Stage should be published into Flash files SWF> converted to AVI> menjuadi converted VCD (. DAT) to be played in VCD player.
• Untu SWF to AVI conversion in Macromedia Flash MX is required additional software that is SWF2Video. But for Macromedia Flash 8 has been equipped with Windows AVI converter facilities. However, these files can only be played by the program VCD Player on Windows, not in real VCD Player. This AVI file will be processed again with QuickTime and TMPGe program that can produce real AVI file format.

Source:
Animation, Nyamok. 2005. Membuat Film Kartun dengan Flash MX. Jakarta: Elex Media Komputindo dengan modifikasi.

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