I heard (rumors) that macromedia was working on a new version of flash that would be geared toward animators and digital illustrators as oposed to programmers...
Anyone heard anything about that??
or is just a runor???
P.
I heard (rumors) that macromedia was working on a new version of flash that would be geared toward animators and digital illustrators as oposed to programmers...
Anyone heard anything about that??
or is just a runor???
P.
Also, if you'd like to see the sneaks of 8ball, Josh Dura video taped the demonstration and posted to his weblog.
http://www.joshdura.com/sneakpeek/SneakPeeks_320x240.mov
Pat Hacker, Visit Scooter's World.
Hey, thanks for posting that link, Phacker. I'll go check it out!
Wade's right. It's not that the upcoming version has drop shadows. It's that drop shadows was the biggest thing they could come up with and they pitched it like it would cure cancer.
How about hierarchies? We've been asking for that since day one.
Actually most of the stuff that character animators use Flash for seems to have been discovered accidentally by animators using the software intensively. I could be wrong but all the techniques I know about broadcast animation have been discovered in isolation; a lot by my students once they went out and started working as directors at Bardel, Studio B, Atomic Cartoons and Pork and Beans as well as some people at Nelvana during production of "Quads!" I never saw a manual or CD with that stuff in it. In fact, each studio I worked with claimed their production process with Flash was top secret and unique to their studio. I was a Flash fanatic for years and still use it for absolutely everything, but it doesn't sound like Macromedia has ever tried to push it's broadcast animation capabilities...unless it also served motion graphics users.
http://www.gradshow.com/gallery.html
Hey DON !!
You are a teacher right??
do you teach flash?
or animation in general..
the link to your site shows mostly three d stuff..
But what do you teach.. and..more exactly.. if you're using flash.. which version or you using???
P.
Hi, Yes, I was an animator and director in the industry, but my goal has always been to teach animation. Schools never taught the right stuff for character animation and when I started, the goal was always to get people doing real animation, (not inbetweening or clean up, well...just enough to know what the job entailed) and it's been going really well. I never learned to animate at animation school and colleagues from other schools didn't either. They learned from their friends usually, slowly. So I've been experimenting in character animation training since I started teaching, changing assignments and making things more intensive each year (15 years now). I still work in the industry as an animator because I never wanted to become one of those old farts who couldn't do it anymore.
When I tried Flash 3 out with a graphics tablet I was hooked. It was the first real time that someone could create full animation without the help of a studio and forced it on my reluctant classical animation students ever since. Reluctantly, they learned it and moved into the Vancouver studios where they taught the studio people how to use Flash (of course there were some people out there in the studios learning it too...).
You don't see Flash on our website (there's a little) because unless it's REALLY good, it's usually crappy, so we focus on drawn animation to get the jobs, but all the grads have a good working knowledge of Flash, if that's the job they're going for. A lot of schools have cut back on the drawn classical animation, but we're not doing that. How can you design for animation if you don't know how to animate?? It's the backbone of the program.
My students use Flash, but just as a tool to create animation. Some assignments are classical, some are Flash and some, like our special effects segment is the student's choice, they can do their effects either way.
I have an educational version of 2004 Pro for demonstration purposes, but in the lab we use MX (version 6). I have a commercial version of MX for my freelance work (mostly do work for ad agencies) and haven't needed to upgrade yet. MX was a nice upgrade from 5, but 2004 wasn't a necessary upgrade for us. There's some talk in the industry (in Ottawa) about Toon Boom and they've been trying to sell it to us, but locally they're sticking with MX due to the low cost so we will too.
I think that was probably more than you wanted in an answer! Sorry. Anyway, here's a link to a Flash Christmas card by one of my students who was in second year when he made it. It shows a good understanding of classical and is better than most Flash internet cards you'll find....he was hired by EA Games last I heard.
http://www.desktopanimator.com/tonycliffcard.swf
http://www.gradshow.com/gallery.html
Windbag...
Teehee
"Don't want to end up a cartoon in a cartoon graveyard" - Paul Simon
I have no facts or inside information, but I'm sure Macromedia is working on a new version of Flash, and it'll be released very soon.
Why am I so positive?
Because I just had to upgrade to MX 2004 for a freelance job, and if history is any indication, the new version will be out any day now... ;)
Thanks DON.
That's actually a lot of very good insights!
Flash is the only way i ever got acquainted with animation.
Nevr thought of using it with symbols untill i started working in a web company.
But , when I discovered it , about four years ago.. I was very impressed by the fact that you could draw and see your drawings come to life so simply.
Now , i'm full time in the animtion world.
Without Flash, i'd never done that!
Interesting E card by the way..lol
Hey wade.. Nice to hear from you ..'s been a while!
P.
It would figure that Macromedia would release a new version so soon. I JUST bought MX 2004. I actually wanted MX but couldn't find it anywhere so settled for MX 2004. At least I had a general idea of where actionscripting was located in MX, I'm baffled by in in 2004. Not that I ever understood it to begin with. :confused:
2-D animation will never die. The invention of photography did not kill painting. Why would animation be any different?
Dancing Cavy Productions
http://dancingcavy.deviantart.com
The audience goes buck wild for bar graphs.... DORKS! lol
The movie clip drop shadow thing and the gradient tween is pretty cool!
I noticed Mudbubble's animation is used for the demo. Do you work for Macromedia, Chris?
Ignore Wade, Pascal.....
..the only student to make me consider getting back into the industry FULL time!
http://www.gradshow.com/gallery.html
Jeez... If I ever start hooting or hollering and whistling over a new gradient fill tool, please someone shoot me in the head. I cannot believe how excited these people were getting over this small stuff...
"Don't want to end up a cartoon in a cartoon graveyard" - Paul Simon
I prefer to work on Flash MX than the 2004 version. I use Ctrl+Alt+S a lot. Its like a built in xerox machine with reducer and enlarger. Hope they bring it back in their newer version.
No problem DON, I'm starting to get used to the wade beast.
lol!!!
So.. Wade.. Don, was your teacher??
Interesting!!!
P.
Sometimes it's the small stuff that makes your work flow easier that get's you excited. I bet it takes a whole lot more to get Wade excited.
Pat Hacker, Visit Scooter's World.
I kind of like the drop shadow thing.
I wasn't thinking about that..
it's a first step in the direction i'm looking for!!!
The main thing is...
are they going to have some sort of camera motion in there??
You know, something that coul simulate the depth of field automatically instead of having to rely on tricks !!
Nevertheless...
it seems macromedia is working in the good direction.
Wade.
from what I get, flash was never suposed to be that widely used for animation.
So.. i think I can understand why the small steps seems to come first..it's sort of going against the flow of what they have already established in a sense...
But.
have faith, it'll come together !
Cheers
p.
Actually the first version of Flash was based on a small scale graphics program, and it was touted as an animators tool from the beginning, but somehow it lost it's roots. Maybe it will find them now.
Pat Hacker, Visit Scooter's World.
Here are the links to some of Flash's history for those that are interested.
http://www.macromedia.com/macromedia/events/john_gay/
http://www.flashmagazine.com/html/413.htm
Pat Hacker, Visit Scooter's World.
Ex-student, Don... EX-student. ;)
Yes, Pascal, DOn was my teacher 15 years ago... At a time that animation was being flipped with paper and shot under a huge camera. Most people would have been tramatized, but somehow I got through it unscathed.
All kidding aside, yes, Don was a good teacher. I learned a lot from him. I can't believe I am admitting it...
Teehee
Cheers
"Don't want to end up a cartoon in a cartoon graveyard" - Paul Simon
The worst part is, in most of the videos, there -isn't- a whole lot dedicated to what would seem like a workflow enhancement or something to an animator's benefit. All those special effects have only so much functionality, and you KNOW they're gonna be abused.
welcome to the world of human hood Wade, where people live and learn from each other, share and inspire, greet and gate angry at one another.
lol
Oh yeah..
And it's a world wher we joke a lot too!!
Lol.
(It's actually a lot like teh world of animation too, isn't it??)
P.
Does anyone know if you can still get the free 30 day trial for flash????
i heard from a normally very reliable source that this project got 86'ed...
As with everything they may roll the "features" and upgrades into the normal release.
for the 30 day
Try this
http://www.macromedia.com/downloads/
There's a lot of discussion out there right now, that the new version will address issues animators have brought up for quite a while.
I'll look through my links and try to provide some. I didn't buy this last update. It didn't offer anything new for me, and the loss of normal actionscripting was a real bummer for animators, but I may fork over the bucks for this new version. They lost money on MX2004. A lot of animators didn't upgrade. So maybe now they will take us seriously. I've had Flash since version 3, which was pretty basic. But I just couldn't justify upgrading to 2004.
Pat Hacker, Visit Scooter's World.
Yeah..
that's what I heard also..they lost a lot of money on the latest version(i haven't been usinh it either, and I use FLASH ALL the time!)
I 'd heard rumors about the new version of flash that is suposed to be called something like eight ball or Odd ball, and should have stuff like a three D camera ?(like toon boom, maybe??), different brushes??, and who knows what..
Iwas actually curious to find some links to real info as oposed to just rumors!
Thanks Phacker!
Here's some of the links I could find.
http://www.klynch.com/archives/000073.html
http://www.xanga.com/item.aspx?tab=weblogs&user=fwak&uid=130664522
Pat Hacker, Visit Scooter's World.
Here's a quote from the second link to get you guys excited:
"... I'm happy to tell you that we're in the early stages of defining the next version of Flash, code-named "8ball", and will be focusing the release on animators, multimedia designers, and digital artists."
Pat Hacker, Visit Scooter's World.
Oh great!!
Thanks for the links Phacker!!
P.
Yeah, Macromedia is working on Project 8-Ball, to be released sometime in the future. They asked for in-put from all types of animators, from web, to broadcast. The problem is everyone wants different things. All I want is for them to keep the exact same layout as MX2004 but revert the undos the way they were in past versions. I'm not holding my breath for this version.
Aloha,
the Ape
...we must all face a choice, between what is right... and what is easy."
Well that's a switch for Macromedia after years of ignoring us. I've been fanatical about Flash since v.3 and use it to do everything from exposure sheets for dialogue breakdown to hand outs on how to animate. My classical animation class (in a computer lab with Wacom tablets and a projector) can learn how to create a quadruped walk (in perspective) successfully in less than an hour whereas it would take a week in a typical animation classroom.
I'm looking forward to the new version, but I hope they won't increase the price to what other ink and paint systems cost.
By the way, none of the cartoon studios here in Vancouver using Flash for broadcast production have upgraded to 2004, at least as far as I know.
http://www.gradshow.com/gallery.html
I just found a link to a Quicktime of a demo of the new version. It was probably just because the audience was drunk (or close buddies of the presenter) but they didn't go into any "cartoon" apps. The cheering and whistles that erupted after every burp and hiccup from the presenter didn't relate to what they showed: drop shadows for movie clips and another option for gradient fill. Whoopiee! Where do I sign up for my beta?!?!?
Here's the link: http://www.joshdura.com/sneakpeek/SneakPeeks_320x240.mov
http://www.gradshow.com/gallery.html
cool.
that looks interesting.
thanks guys.
P.