Hi all, I just registered to this site and thought that this is the perfect place to ask this simple question that I can't answer myself. I’m totally confused about the term flash animation. Could someone please explain me what does it exactly mean? Does it mean all the animations made purely with Macromedia Flash, vector based, poor quality, flat colors or all of those things? Seems like all the vector based animation is called flash.. if hand drawn pictures are converted to vectors in Flash does it become flash animation? What if the frames are exported from Flash image by image to other program, edited as bitmaps and exported to for example AfterFx...is it still flash animation? What is the exact didderence to traditional animation. If I draw every frame with pen and paper, scan ‘em and import them to Flash and make an animation is it traditional or Flash animation (I think traditional)? Somebody told me that it’s flash animation when animator reuse the movie clips over and over again and in traditional every frame is drawed separately. In cel-animation it’s very common to reuse the cels over and over again... but it’s still traditional. If every frame is drawed separately with Wacom and edited in Flash, Potoshop and AfterFx is it flash or traditional? I’ve seen the rates that people charge from their animations per minute and the difference in prices between cel-animation and flash animation is usually ramarkable...however I don’t see that big difference in amount of work (if the quality is kept at the same level). To me it seems like there is only a thin red line between traditional and flash animation but there must be something that I haven’t understood right. Right?
:confused:
What is flash animation
What is flash animation
Hey - first off, welcome!
You might be overthinking this a bit. Flash is a tool for web animation and website creation (although it's used more frequently for TV animation as well). It's also the engine that plays the finished animation (Flash Player).
Flash is generally regarded as web-based, though the previous caveat still applies. How you work in Flash is up to you, as are the elements you create and/or bring into the tool.
Flash's strength is in the reuse of assets, which creates smaller files that are preferable for web playback. You can draw each and every frame by hand if you wish, or you can use Flash's tool suite to repurpose existing symbols.
Welcome to the forums amk75.
I think you hit the nail right on the head Amk. There isn't that big a difference in the amount of work. But a lot of studios and CEO's just know this buzz word "Flash" and right away think, fast turn around, cheap price, and cheap quality. Flash will save you time and money in the long run, but there is still a lot of work that needs to go into it, esspecially up front with creating all the assets.
Sorry, off on a rant :P I would think in the strictest terms, Flash animation is any animation animated using Macromedia Flash, be it symbol based, or more traditional work like Pascal's shorts with the brush pen and line tool. But more and more, the term "Flash Animation" is starting to refer to a style of animation, like a lower quality version of most of the show's on Cartoon Network. So yes, it is really all those things that you mentioned. I work a lot with Flash and so I do quite a bit of stuff with it, hell I even do page layouts in Flash. It's a very versital tool, but it is what you make of it.
Aloha,
the Ape
...we must all face a choice, between what is right... and what is easy."
I like the way you put that.
Anyway did you mention that traditional animation must pay for cells to cameras, to larger workspace, to probably things I don't know about. I would imagine using such takes training and experience beyond what a computer user needs.
I won't name them, but my understanding is that the major animated shows all use or incorperate vectors now, though I would think they are superior technologies to flash.
Have to agree with Ape. You could say that anything created in the program from animation to drawing on the stage with a tablet is Flash animation. Personally I don't think scanning a drawing into Flash and coloring it, then using Flash to assemble a film is animation though. That would be traditional animation with Flash assistance. There's a lot of great Flash animation out there, it's really more about who's weilding the mouse. As ironic as it sounds, I find Flash animation the most appealing when it resembles the smoothness and fluidity of traditional animation.
Cereal And Pajamas New Anthology : August 2007
http://www.comicspace.com/cerealandpajamas/
Or digital ink and paint. Yep, it can do that too. :)
Just out of curiosity Danimation, what Flash animation are you talking about that is smooth like traditional animation?
Aloha,
the Ape
...we must all face a choice, between what is right... and what is easy."
Why, Fosters of course! ;)
Splatman
SPLAT digital
Thanks for your replys! I have to admit that I may have overthought this a bit, but I wanted to know your opinions. There is a lot of sites/ festivals where 2D animations are categorized to flash animations/ traditional animations and I've always wondered are these animations only divided to cg animations/hand drawn animations or are there other issues too. But as Danimation wrote every animation that has been done from animation to drawing with tablet can be called flash and scanned drawings painted and inked in flash are still traditional. I agree with that.
:)
First off, thanks! :D
There are very few traditional animators still using cels and stand cameras these days. The convenience and speed offered by digital tools is just too attractive to ignore. I go back far enough to have painted cels, shot on a stand, edited on a Steenbeck, and dubbed 8-track analog sound to mag. And I wouldn't use any of these tools again if a digital solution were available. You are right, however, in that it is a unique skill set.
If you want an idea of what the workflow was like before digital tools, pick up a copy of "Animation: The Whole Story" by Howard Beckerman. He does an excellent job of describing a non-digital production flow.