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That's gonna be a really interesting project

I had tried to cover some tutorials on getting started in flash and have them up here on my blog

for starters, here is the pipeline that the industry generally follows

http://vectoranimation.blogspot.com/2006 /08/flash-pipeline.html

Here are more topics covering pipelines and other related topics

Hope these help

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When exporting an animation as a MOV or an AVI, if the symbol is a MC with animation inside it, Flash does not recognize those frames and only exports the first frame of that MC.
The simplest option is to convert the MC to a Graphic Symbol with a 'Play' from frame 1 option or loop (or whatever), Flash does understand Graphic symbols and exports the frames within Graphics.

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Very cool dude!
Good work.
You know you can embed a youtube video in the "news" section in your newgrounds homepage.

Keep the good work going

Cheers

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That is quiet a strange error. Something similar happens if one does some work on a new flash file and the FLA is not saved in the same folder.

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I had covered a good amount of links over in coldhardflash.com which can be accessed here.
http://bbs.coldhardflash.com/viewtopic.p hp?f=2&t=459

Tutorials covered are listed below:

Animation Process with Video
Effects Animation - Energy Fields (Video)
Effects Animation - Smoke (Video)
Effects Animation - Rain (Video)
Effects Animation - Basic Camera Move (Video)
Effects Animation - Basic Lens Focus (Video)
Effects Animation - Laser Proton (Video)
Effects Animation - Laser Beams and Sparks(Video)
Effects Animation - Lightsabers (Video)
Good For Understanding Flash and its use as a 2D software. Register free to see all Units (Video/Download)
Working from a Storyboard with Scanned Images
Learning the Basics of Flash (Downloadable Content)
Edit Multiple Frames (Video)
Understanding The Principles
Timing: Easing In and Out
Flash Shape Tweening Techniques (Breezer Presentation)
Squash and Stretch (FLA Included)
Creating Lifelike Motion
Preparing graphics for Animation (Video)
Lip-Syncing in Flash (Breezer Presentation)
Lip Sync Animation: Using an X sheet
Changing the Pivot Point of a Symbol
Synchronise Sound FX with Animation (Video)
Lip-Synching For Animation: Basic Phonemes
Animating Dialogue using the "Mouth Comp" system (Video Download)
Animating arm movements using speed lines (FLA Included)
Basic Character Animation
Designing and Animating Characters in Flash 8 ( FLA Included here )
Character Animation using Symbols (Video Download)
Advanced Character Animation in Macromedia Flash
8 Frame and 16 Frame Walk Cycle (Downloadable Content)
Rotoscoping in Flash
Designing 2D Smoke
Smoke Effect using Flash 8 (FLA Included)
Smoke Effect . Hot Cup of Coffee (Video)
Zoom Radial Blur Effect , Using Flash and Photoshop
Basic understanding on how to make a Vectorized character .
Tutorial of intermediate users on how to make a rectangular cube move in perspective.
Soften Fill Edges - a gentle glow or blur effect (Video)
Exporting an Image From Flash. Flash and Fireworks
Animating text to write itself
The PRINGLE
Few Basic Animation Principles in Flash
Using Adobe Illustrator's Live Trace to clean up art work
Kelli Davis's BG 101 for Flash tutorial
Staggering Tweens
Simple Lighting Effects
How to make a HUD (head-up display) with the vCam.
The Scribble Cel, water effects
DIY Flash Titlesafe Template (FLA Included)
Folder Organization for Flash Process
Rain Animation Tutorial (FLA Included)
Library Setup and Workflow Tips (49 min Video)
Looping Background Pans
Multiplaning Looping Panning Backgrounds
Effective multiplaning dolly shots
Adding Horizontal and Veritcal Movement to Dolly Shot
Water Cycle (Video)
Using Symbols to Clean up Traditional Animation
Walk Cycles
Deconstructing JibJab: Creating Talking Heads Video Tutorial
Flash Sound Sync Problem
RGB to CMYK trouble from Flash to Illustrator

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I have tried this method with mov files, Im pretty sure it works with avi files too, its just that if you are using an uncompressed version of the movie file, chances are that while working on it Flash could crash.
ok here is the deal

1. Hit File/Import and go to the specific path on your hdd which contains the file
2. Once you have selected the file, the 'Select Video' pops up. Choose the first option "On your Computer" which would already contain the file path. Hit 'Next".
3. In the next 'Deployment" popup, select "Embed Video in SWF and play in timeline". Hit 'Next'
4. in the next "Embedding" popup, from the "Symbol Type" drop down , select "Graphic"
make sure "place instance on stage" and " Expand Timeline if needed" is checked.
'Embed the entire video' will be selected by default. Hit Next
5. In the "Encoding" popup, if your trying to import the whole video file you can hit next. (skip to step 6)

if you want only a specific part of the imported video to play,, you can use the clipper just under the video box to select the in and out position so that that selection plays on the timeline.
by default you can choose "Flash 8 - medium quality" as the encoding
Hit next

6. in the "Finish Video Import" this shows you a summery of whats about to happen. so you can always go back and tweak around the import settings, cause after this step, . you wont be able to go back and edit your import movie settings without doing all the above steps.

Hit 'Finish'

The time taken to import, convert to symbol and encode depends on the length and quality of the movie imported.

Now that the movie is imported to the stage, you may have to expand your time line to see your movie frame by frame by scrubbing the timeline.

You can resize and move the graphic symbol and lock that layer and roto on a layer above.

Using this method, I had created this movie http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/49 7775

enjoy

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With respect to animation, I believe that what ever method you employ, it does not really matter as long as the outcome of the final movie looks good. Though I personally use Tweens and FramebyFrame for my animations.

I do most of the animation in Tweens, knock out the timing and convert which ever layer/symbol to FbF and go in and fine tune the animation

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Sounds like fun! would love to give this a shot.

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my quick contribution. Sent you a PM windowskiller

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Sweeet! a L4D Collab. I was not aware of this. I had actually posted a request last evening looking for story board artist, looks like Im gonna find me a spot right here.

http://www.newgrounds.com/bbs/topic/1126 875

BTW that's the smoker before he was pre-zombified

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Hey there peeps

Im looking for a storyboard artists for a short that I'm conceptualizing.
It a spin off on the Left 4 Dead Characters. Just finished drawing the smoker (before he was pre-zombified)

I am currently working on Bill and Francis.
Do check out my blog and my websitefor more of my works if you are interested in working with me.

Dont bother leaving a reply here in this thread, Instead PM me.

Cheers
Ajay

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That was a good example from Xeptic.

Though I would throw in one more for you.

Here is the Preview SWF and FLA file for you to mess around with.

And a frame breakdown is here for your reference.
Hope this helps too.

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damn,, here is the link

http://store.ovi.com/content/7361C869FF4 36FD2E040050A85320DBC?clickSource=browse &contentArea=games#/content/7361C869FF43 6FD2E040050A85320DBC/reviews

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Was on OVI.com, its Nokia's app store for its smartphone thingy.. and came across Alien Hominid for the Nokia! (Pretty excited cause I love that game) but realized this didn't look too legit. I had mailed Tom to find out more and he had mentioned that there might be a company in UK that somehow snagged the rights to the game, even though an upfront payment was made no royalties were paid to The Behemoth for each sale of this game. I personally think that that totally sucks..

I know everyone here is a BIG AH Fan, If interestehere

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my last option is to record them by myself. Will have a unique sound .. Have fun

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The audio compressions can be messed around here in this box (refer the image) Remember - dont keep it too low or too high, Lower values to really make your sound files suck , higher values can make your swf bloat in size.

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Here are two solutions for just checking to see if certain assets are causing this delay in exporting.

1. Sounds, In the 'Flash' tab, under the publish settings , change audio stream and audio event to the lowest quality (MP3 * bit, FAST)
2. Under the same tab, drop the JPEG quality to a very low value

These two settings should help you drastically reduce the time used to export your file for testing purposes. Change these back to the original or your preference

Cheers

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Sounds pretty ambitious to know you are gonna work on it for a year, Try Boarding out your animation before jumping right into it. Looks like you have most of the shots worked out, but its always good to have an establishing shot before concluding the animation. This always help even if it is a small gag or an elaborate scene.

Had roughed out some things quick, if this ever helps for reference
All the best

here is a higher res of the same board.

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Effin potential

Great work on that dude, got a good stride on it

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humm, to start off you have to define your character a bit more.. Stick figures work, but it always makes sense giving your character a little more volume. And the skip timing is a bit off, thus one is not too sure if the character is jumping or skipping.

I have created a quick animation test to illustrate how a sip cycle would work. Draw out the key frames and then work on dropping more Inbetween frames to make it more smooth.

All the best!

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Here are are bunch of animated arrows and two variations of the arrow flying through , feel free to use it or break it up to learn the way it moves

Preview of the animation can be seen here
Download from here
Cheers

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sent you a mail with a test logo for your group collaboration .

Cheers

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Here is an 8 frame and 16 frame walkcycle tutorial that I had created sometime back. Im sure it would be very helpful.. also includes FLA files to run though the whole thing once again

All the best

ref: http://vectoranimation.blogspot.com/2006 /08/simple-8-and-16-frame-walkcycle.html

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At 8/15/09 01:35 AM, ForNoReason wrote: Headshot 777 and thedevilsgarage I will coauthor you both as soon as you reply to my buddy request

Bhhaa I completely forgot! Happy clock day everyone :D

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Merry Trolling and a Very Happy Clock Day to all you folk!

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I agree with the person above, you have to keep hitting 'save' and make it a practice as Flash is still a pretty unpredictable software.

on the other hand, you can try this "Auto Save" Plugin (doesnt work for CS3) that might save you a load of work

http://www.flashguru.co.uk/blog/auto-sav e

Hoping you have not lost a lot of work.
All the best.

At 8/13/09 06:09 PM, RapRabbit wrote: I was in the middle of working on my flash animaion, when out of no where, I got this message that popped up on my screen that said "Flash 8 has stopped working" / Not responding.

Now this is nothing new, I've seen it before, but this time it just really pissed me off.
(Never before have I gotten so far in an animation w/out saving.) I was going to save it
but, the not responding thing doesn't give much of a warning before it screws you.

so I was wondering, If there was any way to still save an Animation when this is happening?
(sence I know there's no way to avoid this all together.) Please Help! <:(

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At 4/13/09 12:44 AM, Punisher33 wrote: I am having a problem with macromedia flash 8 it keeps telling me that i have low ram but i did everything recomended to fix the problem and its only getting worse if any one on here knows how to fix it can you please help thank you have a nice day

One other problem with flash is that it gets to be a memory hogger if you use a lot of 'brush strokes' in your art/animation. Since Flash is a vector tool, it creates coordinates for all those vectors drawn. Some times this can be tackled by use the pen tool to draw or the obvious.. upgrading your ram/processor to handle artwork of high vector coordinate counts.

well .. this is just an alternate way of reasoning out why Flash is giving you that error.

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Time and again, we all come across a lot of users who have this fantastic game idea to pitch and are looking out for programmers, artists or voice over actors. Most of the time these requests tend to be a bit vague and thus the person requesting may not be able to convey his or her idea clearly. This causes the whole process of collaborating or getting a good team together to totally falls apart.

So to make things simpler, here (below) is a format that one can use while pitching a project out or writing up a game schematic. I have also included an example file as a case study if you might find that useful. You can also download the pfd version here to print out or the editable word document here

________________________________________
________________________________________
_____________ Template ________________________________________
________________________________________
_____________
Title:

Overview:

Game Principals :

hunting
searching
aiming
timing
hiding
puzzle
patterns
learning
action
adventure
rpg
fps
third person
top down view
escape the room
point and click
tactile- strategy
defense
arcade
experimental
etc

Game Type:

Level based
Objective Based
Level-Objective based

Game Layout

Player Controllers
Mouse
Keyboard
Mouse and Keyboard

Total Number of Levels/Objectives

Points per level/objective

Power ups and Power downs

Physics of the game

Reaction of Player with
environment
power-ups
power-downs
NPC (non player class)
enemy

UI/Others

Cut Scene Animation.

________________________________________
________________________________________
__________

Case study: I picked a random game from my newgrounds favorite list and did a case study, thus to cover one example on how to create a game template. ________________________________________
________________________________________
____________

Title: Commie Cannon (ref: http://tinyurl.com/commiecannon by Ansel Lies and Tom Brein)

Overview: Kill enemies and their projectile from destroying your nuclear stockpile.

Game Principals:

defense game

Game Type:

Arcade style game (Level progression cannot be saved)

Game Layout

Pixel based, flat 2d view with 10 nuclear missiles, 5 on each side, with the turret base in the center. Enemies are flying in and out of the screen, dropping bombs from the top.

Player Controllers

Mouse
The Base turret follows the mouse with a slight delay and fires one missile at a time on each click of the mouse. There is a slight delay between each missile of 'x' amount of seconds, where 'x' can be a tweakable variable.

Total Number of Objectives/Enemies

There are three kinds of enemies

Chopper (1st tier)
Plane (1st tier)
Zeppelin (2nd tier)

There are two kinds of projectiles

Plane and Chopper Bombs
Zeppelin Bombs

Points per objective/enemy

Each time the players missile hits any enemy, the player gets 50 points.

Physics of the game

The player has to defend his base and his nuclear stock pile.

The number of nuclear stockpiles to defend are 10 in number

The nuclear stockpiles does not have any HP and can explode on being hit by a 1st tier or a 2nd tier enemy.

The base has a HP of 100

If the base is hit by a 1st tier enemy, it loses 10HP
If the base is hit be a 2nd tier ebemy, it loses 20HP

There are two ways a player can lose the game

When the player loses all the nuclear stockpile
when the hp of the player falls below 10HP.

Enemies:

Chopper (1st tier) : One hit to explodePlane (1st tier) : Two hits to explodeZeppelin (2nd tier) : Immortal. Plane and Chopper Bombs: One hit to explodeZeppelin Bombs

User Interface

Splash screen:

Title of the game
Buttons namely : Play and Instructions
Credits

Instructions screen:

Instructions
Buttons namely : Menu and Instructions

Game Over screen

Text
Score
Buttons namely : Menu and Instructions

Cut Scene Animation.

Transition on 'Splash' and 'Game Over' screen
Base exploding

________________________________________
________________________________________
_________

Feel free to modify and contribute.
Cheers

Ajay

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Hey ForNoReason, how are things coming along? Have you got enough submissions to make this collab happen?

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At 8/10/09 04:52 PM, Daps26 wrote: hey everyone... i know i look and sound like the biggest noob on the earth but i thought id reqeust a tutor. I really need help with flash and wanted to know if anyone was willing to be like a teacher for me. sorry 4 sounding like a noob agaian and understand if you dont have time to help

From a poll I had conducted on Coldhardflash.com, it shows that a majority of people learn flash on their own.. this is because of two thing , one flash being a very easy and intuitive software for anyone to learn and 2) the abundant amount of resources available to learn from

I would suggest your first stop should be at the community at coldhardflash and run through the bunch of tutorials on newgrounds as mentioned by mothballs

All the best!