Flash MX Character Animation
Duration 3 days
Objectives
This is an introductory to intermediate course that will take you from beginner to being able to create and animate your own characters within Flash MX. You will also learn how to use ActionScript for simple navigation initially, then move on to more sophisticated techniques for generating both automated and event-based character behaviours.
This course also covers the use of sound extensively, from special effects and background sounds, moving on to best practice streaming techniques for better download times and playback performance.
The course finishes by bringing together all the techniques delivered during the course into a project of your own choosing. In building your project, you will be assisted at all times by the course leader, who brings hard-won industry expertise to bear, enabling you to get the best result from our course. Requirements
Knowledge of one or more drawing packages such as Photoshop, Freehand or Illustrator; introductory knowledge of Flash MX and advantage but not essential.
Course Outline
The Flash MX workspace
• The Flash MX Interface
• The Tool Bar
• The Timeline
• The Library
• Scenes
Using the Flash MX Drawing tools
• Understanding Flash MX Drawing tools
• Drawing tools best practice
• Sketching techniques
• Layering and grouping
• Working with multiple keyframes
Using Colour in Flash MX
• Color useage and best practice
• Using the Flash Colour Palette
• Using the Flash Colour Mixer
Working with Libraries and Symbols
• Graphic Symbols
• Button Symbols
• MovieClip Symbols
• Using Libraries
• The Movie Explorer
Simple Interactivity: Navigation
• Labelling the timeline
• Creating and Using buttons
• About actionscript and interactivity
• Adding Actionscript to the timeline
• Adding Actionscript to a Button
• Linking to Labels and a URLs
Importing Sound to your Movie
• About Sound in Flash
• Streaming and Event Sounds
• Importing and Trimming Sound
• Starting and stopping sounds
Animation Techniques
• Fames, Keyframes and Tweening
• Shape Tweens
• Library Symbols and Instances
• Motion Tweens
Using Movie clips vs Graphic Symbols
• Differences between Movie Clips and Graphic Symbols
• Benefits of using Graphic symbols
• Benefits of using Movie Clips
• Applying Movie Clips to Character Animation
• Embedding Graphic Symbols
Introduction to Character Animation
• Overview of traditional Character Animation
• Character design and initial planning
• Constructing characters using graphics
Advanced Character Animation
• Getting to grips with Lip Synching
• Constructing scrolling backgrounds
• Adding Sound and SFX to character animations
Using Actionscript for Interactive Animation
• Overview of Interactive animation
• Using ActionScript to automate animation
• Using ActionScript to react to events
Publishing Movies to the Internet
• Publish settings in Flash MX
• Previewing in a browser
• Using the bandwidth profiler
• Flash MX file formats
• Optimisation techniques
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