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I don't mean to offend, so please don't take it as such, but most of the time artists are not lacking in ideas. You will very rarely find someone wandering around saying "I'd like to make a game, but what would it be about?"

Your best bet is to keep practicing Flash and art and complete the project as you see it in your mind. Yes it will take a while, but you'd be better off in the end than just trying to hand it to someone else.

Um.

Okay.

Glad you enjoyed remaking it.

It's a good start, you just have a few things to tweak. First, you need more up and down movement. The character barely leaves the ground, but animation is about exaggeration so try to push it even more. Second, since he has no shoulders the entire body would need to rotate slightly with each step. Normally shoulders rotate, but your guy has none. I'd suggest perhaps trying with a character with arms and a torso. It sounds harder, but you'll learn a lot more.

Keep at it!

Ah, that's a really good idea, farfenwaffle. I'll add those extra age lines to the inked version I'm currently finishing up. Thanks!

Also I think I'm going to shorten his arm, because it's a little too gangly and long. If it was straight down, it would almost hit the ground. The proportion is off, I think.

I figured I'd post the rough sketch of my character here for feedback. I'm working on inking things in Flash now, so at least he'll be ready soon. I also have some background started but it isn't ready to be shown yet. Hopefully soon. I keep thinking "Oh, I still have a month" but I know how fast that goes from the other Shades collabs I've done...

At 11/2/09 12:04 PM, Johnny wrote: If you still have problems, contact adobe/macromedia. Their customer support is fairly decent.

Good idea, that's very true. If it is a simple problem like this they'll often walk you through it in no time.

Honestly your best bet is to continue to practice. No one online with great animations just started making great animations. They worked at it over and over until skills improved.

I'd suggest you upload one of the animations you did that didn't go so well, and then people can comment on how you can improve it. When you see first hand how you can make something you did better, you'll likely know for next time what to do from the start. Try that and it will help you a lot.

Sounds like the program files became corrupted or something. I'd try re-installing from your disc.

Squishing school sounds like a good idea, but in practice it often does more harm than good. Even the classes and things that seem useless have this funny way of coming back to help you at some random point. Weird, I know, but it's true.

As far as Flash as a career, if it helps you to achieve your goals then it's certainly a good starting point. If you want to get into animation, Flash can get you moving. You probably won't do everything in your whole career in Flash, but it is a great place to continue learning all the ins and outs of animation and for practicing.

Ha ha, I like it! Only thing is, you can't actually use purple you know! It's an extremely clever idea, though. I don't know how you could do it without the purple color, but hopefully there's a way.

www.Adobe.com

That's where you get it. It costs a lot, but the best programs often do. You can download a free trial there to see if you like it and want to spend the money on it. You can also get it online from some pirate sites, but that literally is stealing, and someone spent a CRAPLOAD of time to make the program, so you really should just save up and buy it. After all, if you made some amazing art and someone stole it from you you'd be pretty unhappy.

Anyway, hope that helps! If you're into Photoshop and things as well, they have packages that include several programs. That's a better deal if you want them all.

I like the style, that's pretty darn cool.

In my opinion no due date is rather dangerous. If other artists are anything like myself and the fellow designers I know, the deadline is the thing that gets us to FINISH rather than just putz around with an idea forever and ever and never get done.

I dunno, seems like a deadline does more good than harm. I know what you mean, though, no point in rushing it or anything. I just would hate to see the collab disappear into some void because people aren't motivated enough to finish.

How's your entry coming?

At 10/28/09 09:15 PM, NpPro93 wrote: Hey, here's the first 30 seconds of mine:
http://spamtheweb.com/ul/upload/3809/763 80_NpPro93--5_Shades_of_Orange.php
Its supposed to be a story taking place in the reflections on a ring around which the story revolves.
Don't be influenced by the simple animation so far; I plan to escalate it quite a bit. There will be many more characters on the ring, although the ring itself will not move until the end.

Let me know what you guys think and be honest so I don't sink more time into a video that no one likes, if that happens to be the case.

So far that's looking awesome, nice job! I love the concept. I never thought for a second about having an entire scene take place on the sides of a ring. So cool. I'm looking forward to seeing how it turns out when you escalate it all the way.

One suggestion (if you want any) would be to have some sort of shadow of the ring instead of a plain white background maybe. It would ground the object so it didn't just seem floating in nothingness. Or maybe you plan to do a background, I don't know. Can't wait to see more!

At 10/27/09 08:36 PM, funbie wrote: all right, sounds like a fun collab, count me in! it's still open right?

Yep, it's open until November 29th when it's due. You don't have to sign up or anything, just make a great animation following the guidelines and submit it before the deadline.

I've been out of town for the past week, so I hope no one thought I'd abandoned the collab here. I tried to log onto the internet from away, but much of my time was on a boat in the middle of the ocean. Anyway, hope everyone's projects are coming along well! I'm going to post some of my early art for this later in the week. Just finishing the storyboard now.

At 10/24/09 09:24 AM, CloudEater wrote: Hey JKR, Who gets to vote to decide which onces get in??

Once all animations are submitted I will put them up and link them from this thread. Then everyone who created one gets to vote for their top 5. (I think it's five, I'll go check the old thread when the deadline gets closer.) You can't vote for yourself. Anyone is allowed to chime in, but only the vote from those who enter are counted. And so far the best of the entries have ended up getting in the other Shades collabs, so make it fantastic! (I don't know the number of entries that will be included. It depends on the total number of submissions. Past ones were anywhere from 6 to 15 I think, with green being the most I think.)

At 10/23/09 07:43 PM, OnionsXD wrote: So it can be about anything right? I was thinking about my main character onions. and maybe about an orange ball bouncing acrooss a town or something....

Count me in! :D

It can be about anything, but the theme word is "Ring" so include something to do with any interpretation of that. Be it jewelery, a bell ringing, a ring around the bathtub... You could even do a scene with aliens set on the rings of Saturn or something. Sky's the limit.

At 10/24/09 01:13 AM, farfenwaffle wrote: Erf, I have the ring, I have the setup, but I just can't think of anyway to prograss the story farther.
Also, sorry for using gradient in the close-up I realize some people think that it is not in good taste for this kind of thing. BUT it is a gradient from one color in our pallet to another.
http://spamtheweb.com/ul/upload/3309/798 44_5ShadesOrange_farfenwaffle.php
if anyone has any Idea how I could progress the story, let me know.

Wow, that's looking great so far! Nice. Let's see, story ideas...

- He could go off and bring in a female ball-person and be all proud that he has the ring for her, and she could get irate and have a little word bubble that shows a hand and a NO sign, saying she doesn't have fingers, so he gets all upset and has to figure out a plan to make the ring work for her.
- He could take the ring and run off, and then have a bird land with his fiance looking for it and have to track him down.
- He could bring back a shovel and dig a hole and plant the ring, then you could have a montage of him watering it and tending to it over time, and then it grows into a ring tree, which explains where the original came from (a bigger ring tree next to it!)

You've got an awesome start with a million possibilities from there! Heck, I'm just having fun thinking up crazy places to go from that point.

Done and done. For the most part. Didn't get to those symbol names, except a few. And honestly there are a lot of unused symbols in there that were from the file I used as a template. Feel free to take them out, though they shouldn't interfere with the SWF size since they aren't actually on the stage at any point. It does make the FLA file rather... enormous. Oops.

Anyway, I just emailed the file so it should be ready to use now. If there's anything that needs fixed or changed or whatever, let me know, but I don't know how much I'll be able to get online in the coming few days because of that wedding I have to attend.

Thanks for the awesome collab! I had fun doing this.

At 10/23/09 02:24 AM, Nayhan wrote: Well... my laptop stopped working, when I turn it on the power light and everything comes on but the screen just stays blank!!!
I should be able to get the data off of the comp and finish my part in time though.

My laptop is an Acer Aspire one if anyone has any idea how I can fix it please tell me.

Hopefully since it's still a month to deadline you'll make it. I had some trouble with an old laptop that did similar things. It turns out a connection was just loose inside. It was fixed, but when it broke again it couldn't be repaired a second time. Sad face.

Does it make noises like an OS starting? Maybe just the screen came disconnected. If you have a monitor, you should try hooking it up to that to see if it might just be the laptop screen.

At 10/23/09 10:06 AM, ForNoReason wrote:

At 10/23/09 09:36 AM, JKR wrote:

If not, then unfortunately I doubt I'll be able to complete this. Sigh, I hate traveling...

Ill rename them for you.

Thanks, I really appreciate it. Next time I need to remember that destination wedding trips take up a stupidly large amount of time to get ready for. Alright, back to work. I'm pretty confident I'll be able to get done by mid afternoon, and if it's finished early I can at least start the renaming process.

I have a small problem. I have to catch a flight later today (going to a wedding) and will be working up until the last minute on this. Is there any chance I can be excused for not naming all my symbols with my name? I used symbols I already had and was planning to go back and rename them just for this file, but I'm really out of time. I'm trying really hard to get finished before I leave and that in itself is going to be cutting things close.

If not, then unfortunately I doubt I'll be able to complete this. Sigh, I hate traveling...

At 10/22/09 06:27 PM, turtleco wrote:

At 10/22/09 05:39 PM, JKR wrote: Not really as an excuse, since I flip them on when I'm at home too. Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends is one of my favorite shows these days. Good stuff.

it got canceled :'(

Boo. Well, at least it was awesome while it was on, and no one can take that away... I think shows shouldn't go on forever anyway, because they get stale.

Yeah, I read it the first time. Still a bunch of clever wording to make a point that ignores facts and reality. YES, it is correct to say it is not a disease like AIDs. YES it is correct that there is no magic pill to make it go away. But it is utter nonsense to lead people to believe that there are no alternatives other than natural prevention (which is very loosely proven at this point by the way) and that is exactly what that article is implying. It hides behind very choice words in order to make people clearly believe one thing while covering their butts if someone straight out calls them liars. That article is written in a style that if you were to try to use in marketing would get you sued for customer confusion. It's trying to trick people. And apparently succeeding.

I'm sorry, polym, but that is complete and utter Bull ****. I understand the idea they're trying to convey, but it's absolutely insane to think you can't cure cancer after it has already been found. Especially since treatments we currently USE are successful in putting the disease into remission. The author uses a keen understanding of loopholes in the English language to hide behind their hatred of non-natural medicine. By claiming there is no CHEMICAL cure in exact and repeated wording, they totally leave out the research that is really being done, namely through waves, not physical chemicals.

That is a very good article for an example as to why the internet can be a dangerous source of misinformation, though.

At 10/22/09 05:23 PM, fluffkomix wrote:

At 10/22/09 04:44 PM, Deadclever23 wrote: Up looks good but all my mates don't want to go and see a 'kids' film.

that is so lame. i really don't have too much respect for people who think they're too mature to watch a certain show or do a certain thing because they think it's only for kids. I don't think you should care about what other people think and just go do whatever you think is fun. Don't base what you do off of your age (unless it's like age restricted stuff).

Obviously there is a line for this kind of thing but me and my friends still watch spongebob. that is one badass show.

Yeah, my wife and I visit our younger cousins once a week and use them as an excuse to watch the Disney Channel and Cartoon Network sometimes. :)

Not really as an excuse, since I flip them on when I'm at home too. Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends is one of my favorite shows these days. Good stuff.

Pixar movies are great because they aren't just for "kids" or "adults" but have something for everyone. Besides, a lot of awesome stuff is technically for kids. It's still awesome. :P

And that crate looks identical to the other crate. Sorry, I don't see a difference. Did you post the same file twice?

I still need to see Up. I heard it was sad. I don't like sad movies...

Otherwise there's always Toy Story 3!

I wouldn't call it "too advanced" but it is different than traditional animation to a degree. You have to find the sprites and such, and the work isn't technically your own because you're using copyrighted images. If you care about that sort of thing. Also it's really REALLY hard to make a good sprite movie. Original art, even if it isn't terrific, is better accepted than just sprites.

I'm working on mine right now. Well, as soon as I'm done with this post.

I should have it ready by tomorrow, however I won't be available online for a few days, so if there's anything that needs changed... um... let me know as soon as I send it. :)

The best thing you can do is find some video tutorials on the basics and watch them. Good quality ones. Here, try some of these.

I did a tutorial for fun on some very basics, you can see that too.

Good luck!

I agree. Also nice: Having a Play button before it just starts playing on its own. Even some really popular artists don't do that, and it's rather annoying. I'm looking at you Weebles.

Nice crate, but the edges need toned down. They're too sharp. In real life even metal is rarely that sharp. Round off the squares just a tiny bit and you'll be set. Good job on it, looks really cool.