seems like everyone decides to learn flash cold..that's what I did..maybe it's worth starting a thread about short cuts, best practice etc. and save the horrendus work practices some people have.
Anyway, here's my first tip:
Know the final dimensions of your final draft flash movie first!!!!
there, that just saved you three hours of needless work.
yeah, good points phacker...I still have library clashes because I'm always going back and raiding old work.
Just to make stress the point: you can't import a symbol from another .fla if it has the same name as an existing symbol in the current movie without a clash. So best practice is to manually name everything (which I still don't always do!)
BTW:
The only recurring bug in flash, (esp. flash mx prof) - I've found - is when you try to bucket fill complicated linework from a distance. Even with 'close large gaps' flash can freeze and and crash and there goes all your unsaved work.
Usual story of saving work as you go - Whenever I start to colour I try and save reguarly.
Flash 8 has occaisional (spell check plz) trouble when you try and paint with complicated aplha level paint sometimes.
( but the new glow and blur effects are nice )
Develop your own naming conventions for symbols and keep your library organized. This will minimize any conflicts when reusing or importing symbols from other projects.
Pat Hacker, Visit Scooter's World.
Know the difference between 'graphic' and 'movie clip' symbols and know how and where they should be used!
Flash Character Packs, Video Tutorials and more: www.CartoonSolutions.com
Take the time to learn how to construct and implement a preloader for web delivery. And properly embed flash material in html documents. There is nothing more irritating than linking to a raw swf document for viewing. Macromedia and Adobe have made these factors easy to implement. To not do so is just sloppy.
Pat Hacker, Visit Scooter's World.
Listen to the Ape.
Grouped elements in imported Illustrator assets DRIVE ME UP THE WALL!! Why would you use a group? What can it do that a symbol can't do better?
Actually, Illustrator assets drive me up the wall.
The difference between a Movie Clip and a Graphic was a big sticking point when I was starting out.
My big tip would be to learn how to animate with tweens, and then move beyond them. When people say they don't want it to look like Flash (which they do 50% of Flash projects) they mean those really smooth tweens that just look all wrong.
Use tweens as a timesaver, but really animate things on twos. And remember your arcs people.
showreel: http://www.bentosanimation.co.uk/
blog: http://bentosanimation.blogspot.com/
Actually if your design aspect/ratio isn't too far off, if you are working in vector, you can resize. If you are bringing in bitmaps yeah you better be aware of your final publishing dimension.
Pat Hacker, Visit Scooter's World.
I think something that we sometimes lose sight of after a while, but something that really drove my learning curve, was to keep it fun. Each new project that I worked on I learned something from, and continue to have fun with the Flash program.
So Keep it fun!
Pat Hacker, Visit Scooter's World.
Sort of extending Phacker's comments:
Yes, do have fun--doodle and experiment, etc. but try to get disciplined about organization.
Plan your project out ahead of time:
- Format / aspect ratio
- frame rate (very important to know this up front)
- naming convention (for scenes, symbols, everything, etc.)
A good naming convention is important, especially as a project grows and you've got hundreds of graphics in your library. (use of folders is recommended). It's even more important if you are working with someone else on a single project and will be sharing resources.
Other helpful tidbits:
- break scenes/shots up as much as you can stand into indiv. flas. This makes publishing tests go faster.
- make everything a library symbol (e.g. Scene 1 will be a movieclip/graphic, "scene01_mc" on the main timeline. Inside of scene01_mc's timeline will be all the elements/characters/graphics.
- library symbols continued: make EVERYTHING a library symbol. If you are going to make a flapping cape for your superhero using a shape tween, make a movieclip (or graphic) called "cape_mc" then create the shape tween inside of that. Esp. if you use shape hints, since they won't carry over if you created them first on the main timeline then decided to copy/paste the frames into a symbol after the fact.
Ted Nunes - www.tedtoons.com
Graphics goooooood. Groups, baaaaad!
Aloha,
the Ape
...we must all face a choice, between what is right... and what is easy."