As previously stated, drawing by hand first is always good. Plan out your animations this way too, the end result will be better.
I just practiced with flash and got better and better with time. You pick up things by playing around in flash and watching other animations. It's pretty common for me to think "Oh! So that's how you do that!" after figuring out something from an animation here on NG.

I use the line tool almost exclusively now adays. My older animations were all brush, but brush can be very sloppy. If you can pull off brush without it looking like hell (look at the Awesome series) then it's worth doing, especially if you're a frame by frame kinda guy. Line is much cleaner, although a little stiffer.

Sorry, Pirates is taken by CiDiC - if you want another letter, you're welcome to it.

I've begun work on one of my segments, and posted a bulletin on the front page hoping we can get some more people onboard -
right here

Also, I sent PMs to everybody concerning bios. Everybody has to get em in to MADSOFT if they want to have a bio segment in the collab.
How's everybody/anybody doing?

At 5/15/08 02:55 PM, Cojones893 wrote:

At 5/15/08 02:50 PM, Kio-Xion wrote: what makes you say they are evil?

Lack of compression

Compression is good for file size, bad for image quality. You've gotta take what you can.
Also, you can set the sound quality lower in the publish settings menu. If they're already at the default low setting and you're over 10 megs... well, that's just unfortunate.

The best advice I can give is seriously just to use the program. Use it, learn the processes and the guys of it, and practice. There's a really helpful Help menu (at least in Flash 8) that can get you started rather well.
Second piece of advice I can give is not to give up. Even after my first few flashes got blammed, I kept making more, determined to get them out there. Now I've had 2 flashes on the front page. Persistence is key!

I know from an interview with Jackson Publick, creator of Venture Bros. that at least some shows use a program called Animo. It's apparently somewhere between flash and photoshop. I know Venture Bros is made in it, not sure what other cartoons are.
I know some shows on adult swim are flash based though. Home Movies was for sure, after the squigglevision era at least.

This is because sound quality in flash defaults to an abysmal 16k. Go to file > publish settings > and go to the flash tab. There you can change the audio quality - just make sure to uncheck the "convert stereo to mono" button.
Hope that helps!

Also - one more thing - once you have your submissions done, put them as movie clips taking up one frame, as is typical procedure for these kinds of things. Sorry I didn't post all these things earlier, but I'm kinda new to the collab thing.
Good luck!

Sure thing! I'll mark you two guys down for Quickies and Female Wrestling!
Remember, MADSOFT is in control of author bios (and made a kickass menu) so feel free to send him those once you've sent your parts to me!
13, possibly 14 letters down, 12/13 to go!

I know it's not flash, but shows like Futurama run at 12fps, with the CG parts running around 22 or 30.

At 5/12/08 06:09 AM, CiDiC wrote: okay well... than gimme P for pirates. ARRrrrr! ;)

You got it man!
11 letters, 9 different authors - things are really coming together here!

Mr. Ballistic claimed H for Hot Sauce just before I got to this thread... anything else in there you'd like to do? It's pretty open ended :)

I play a Hamer Monaco Elite for my primary guitar - these things are handmade in Connecticut, cost as much as Gibsons, but blow them out of the fucking water.

My secondary (for songs in drop-C tuning) is an ESP EC-500, which is a really solid guitar for the price.

I play through a Marshall DFX-100, which is a really solid combo amp. 100 watts, 12 inch speaker, nice built in distortion and effects.

Of course this is gear I spent 4 years amassing and practicing my ass off with. If you're just starting, go for a Squier Strat-Pack, where you get everything you'll need for under 200 bucks. It's not mind blowing quality, but it's enough to get started. Alternatively, find a cheap amp for under 100 and grab a used guitar from a pawn shop. You can get great deals there.

Well, you could always do a few segments for my Alphabet of Manliness collab :)
Linkage
I'm sure there's a letter or two on that list you could put your talents to.
My profile, with the updated list

If you want to have a bio for the menu of the collab, send a PM to MADSOFT
Everyone will be credited either way, but if you want a bio to put in there, there's your chance.

FaltaViva (well known here for Resident Evil FOAR and Resident Evil WUN) has signed on for R for Road Rage - Arcansi, would you be willing to do something else?

UPDATED LIST:
A - Ass kicking
B - Boners
C - Copping a feel
D - Taking a Dump (Jamboreen)
E - Enlightenment
F - Female Wrestling
G - Gas (MADSOFT)
H - Hot Sauce
I - Irate
J - Jerky, beef (battosai810)
K - Knockers
L - Lumberjacks
M - Metal (xander1062)
N - Norris, Chuck (RighteousFlare)
O - Obedience
P - Pirates
Q - Quickies
R - Road Rage (FaltaViva)
S - Sneaking a Peek
T - Taunting
U - Urinal Etiquette
V - Violence (Superlineman01)
W - Winner
X - XXX
Y - Yelling (Superlineman01)
Z - Zombies (battosai810)

MADSOFT, I'll put you down for Gas. As far as menus go, if you could just put down one with the option to play and some kind of artist bio/credits kind of thing, that would be pretty slick. Link to maddox's site or what have you. I'm not totally sure how that would work, since I know nothing of menus, but a menu would be greatly appreciated.

Jamboreen - you can make it pretty vulgar, just remember there's only 5 seconds to work with.

Arcansi - You're welcome to take Road Rage, just wanna know if you've worked on any flash before. I won't mark you down for just yet until I see something from you - I don't want people signing on just to back out later or never submit anything.

At 5/8/08 07:59 PM, MADSOFT wrote: Holy Shit! I own that book and it's AWESOME!
I'll do any letter, N for Chuck Norris if it's still available, if not then I'll pic another one in a sec.

N for Chuck Norris has just filled up - aside from the ones up there already taken, D for taking a dump is taken up too. So far pretty much everything else is fair game though!

At 5/8/08 07:22 PM, Battosai810 wrote:

At 5/8/08 06:36 PM, DreamworX wrote: I can't believe nobody took N - Norris, Chuck yet ;)

Well, if you're interested, it's open!

Actually, nevermind, it just closed up lol
Still a whole alphabet and over a month to go!

At 5/8/08 06:36 PM, DreamworX wrote: I can't believe nobody took N - Norris, Chuck yet ;)

Well, if you're interested, it's open!

At 5/8/08 05:42 PM, El-Presidente wrote: Rah, I love this book. I actually would happen to have it, so if anyone wants some information about what any of the chapters say, please PM me and I'd love to send you some of the headers and what Maddox talks about. I wish you had made this a bit later. I'm trying to get a tablet and I'd love to join, but I'm not 100% sure. If I do get one, I'd love to though.

Well, I'm a mouse-drawing guy, but that's just me. There's a long time for you to make it though!
Fill me in with any updates you get!

At 5/8/08 04:57 PM, jamboreen wrote:

At 5/8/08 04:52 PM, Battosai810 wrote:

At 5/8/08 04:44 PM, Swordsbite wrote: Can i join, id like to try sneaking a peak or metal

You're welcome in, but I'd like to see some actual flash work from people before accepting people on the first whim. I'm not doubting yours or anyone else's abilities, I just want some idea what people's flash skills look like.

I can Give you some small examples of my work if you would like?
i have some work i did a long time ago, But i want my fist actualy submission to Newgrounds to be very good. That is why I am going to work really hard on this, a 5 second clip will work extremely well for me to begin with my Career, im not going to up and disapear, i see this as my step forward into the FLash world.

Very noble, I can see you really want in on this. You're marked in on my bulletin of this on my profile - if you want to send me some old work just for kicks that would be fine. If not, that's fine. I trust you'll make something good with the time and effort.

At 5/8/08 04:44 PM, Swordsbite wrote: Can i join, id like to try sneaking a peak or metal

You're welcome in, but I'd like to see some actual flash work from people before accepting people on the first whim. I'm not doubting yours or anyone else's abilities, I just want some idea what people's flash skills look like.

I thought my segment was actually pretty decent, but I never even got a response telling me if it sucked or not. I would really like to see this collaboration come through though, as the Metal Gear Series has always been one of my favorites, and I love a good collab.

On another note, if anyone needs voice actors, I'm pretty good. I can do a decent Snake, and a lot of my own voices that I use in my cartoons.

Alright, I'll mark you down for Taking a Dump, but I'll leave B for Boners open until you're sure you can do both in time.
There's plenty of time until the due date, so feel free to send me parts anytime in varied state of completion even.

I don't post here often, so bear with me.
I want to create a new collab based on Maddox's Alphabet of Manliness, one of the most ball-stompingly good books ever written.
Of course, there's 26 letters in it, and I'm hoping to make a collab with different authors doing each one.
A - Ass kicking
B - Boners
C - Copping a feel
D - Taking a Dump
E - Enlightenment
F - Female Wrestling
G - Gas
H - Hot Sauce
I - Irate
J - Jerky, beef (battosai810)
K - Knockers
L - Lumberjacks
M - Metal
N - Norris, Chuck
O - Obedience
P - Pirates
Q - Quickies
R - Road Rage
S - Sneaking a Peek
T - Taunting
U - Urinal Etiquette
V - Violence (Superlineman01)
W - Winner
X - XXX
Y - Yelling (Superlineman01)
Z - Zombies (battosai810)

Each segment will be 5 seconds long (no less than 5 seconds, but under 6) and will be set to the song "Now You're a Man" by DVDA (was used in the Trey Parker movie Orgazmo - Youtube vid with the song)
I'm aiming to have the content be funny, and of course with topics like XXX porn and violence, this is gonna be more adult oriented, so feel free to let loose with blood and tits.
So here's the specs:

5 seconds (slightly longer but under 6 is alright)
Standard size
16fps
Author's name and their letter/definition (ex: J is for Jerky, Beef)

If you're interested, reply in this thread with what letter(s) you would like to do. The only real criteria is for submissions to be of decent quality, reflecting at least marginal effort. Not looking for Swain quality stuff here (awesome as that would be) but I don't want to see any lousy stick movie done by someone in Windows movie maker. The projected due date is for late June or early July, not totally concrete yet, but should give you people time to make some decent submissions for it.

email submissions in .fla form to me at battosai810@yahoo.com and feel free to PM me with any questions! Good luck!

Damn, I didn't even get in the top 20 and I had 2 flashes on the frontpage...
Oh well. Better luck next month.

Count me in. Expect Jeb or SRM to have some place in this collab.
Also, when is a projected due date?

Woo! Daily second ftw.
Chances of getting on front page like the last two SRM Transformers?
Thanks to everyone who watched the toon!