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That should fix it.

The program Flash itself is a fully contained animation program. You can draw, color, add sound, etc. and make a basic and simple animated cartoon. Having additional programs and tools (like a tablet input device) can be helpful, but really all you'll need is a mouse, keyboard, and Flash.

Check out the trial on adobe.com (Flash CS6) and look around youtube or google for some simple tutorials.

At 5/8/12 05:05 PM, Thaxy wrote: How do I make music play across multiple scenes, whitout making a separate SWF file?

I'd strongly recommend not using scenes if you want to use a single sound file. But you CAN change the start and stop points of a sound file directly in flash without using AS code.

If you select a frame with the sound and look at your properties window, you'll see an edit button next to where you select the sound. Click it and this this'll bring up a window with the left and right speaker outputs. Between the two boxes is a timeline that shows you the time/frames the sound plays over. At each end of the timeline is a slider, one for a start point and another for the stop point.

You can use this to start the next scene's music where the last one left off. It's not perfect and will be a little tedious, but it's one way to do it within Flash.

Your basic story structure is as such: Exposition (who, what, where?), Predicament (starts the plot), Rising Action, Climax, Resolution. (See this chart for example.)

A random character breaking in and stealing something isn't much of an engaging story, since we're just watching some events unfold. Why should the audience care about the main character? What's his opposition or who is his antagonist? Etc. Etc.

If you want this particular character to be memorable, you'll probably have to ask these questions and answer them to the audience without being boringly blatant about it.

But if you just want to animate a simple little action scene, then go for it. And don't worry too much about how your unique character fits in because we'll probably be more focused on the events unfolding.

At 5/1/12 06:13 PM, ScelesticFish wrote: Hello! I have a question regarding the use of vCam in one's cartoons and then uploading these cartoons to Youtube.

When exporting a finished cartoon into the avi format, in order to be able to upload it to youtube, the finished avi format cartoon is unable to support movieclips.

Since the vCam is a movieclip, it doesn't work when you export the cartoon, and it just kind of shows up on the screen and moves around and such instead of being invisible and zooming in and out of the cartoon. Does anyone know any sort of solution to this? I use Flash 8, so the vCam is scripted in action script 2 (sorry about that). How can I get around the problem of vCam not working? Should I just somehow do the zooming in and out of things (like in a scene transition) manually? If so, you have any advice on doing that?

Thanks!

Movieclips and ActionScript export to video when exported using CS4 and up. Download a trial version of CS5.5 and you should be able to export it to video no problem.

To animate pans, zooms, etc. without a vCam, place your animation into individual movieclips/graphics rather than animate on the main timeline. Then you can tween the movie clip to simulate zooms and pans. It also allows you to separate each layer and tween them differently which will let you add in parallax effects.

I move the 'camera' constantly in my animations and I never use any AS camera.

At 4/28/12 01:13 PM, somescreamokid wrote: Just so you know, I put the audio for my animation in a new layer and all of that. The problem, however, is when I want to playback the audio with the animation. When I want to stop the playback by pressing enter for the second time, the audio will keep going and wont stop, but the animation will. Is there a way to stop both of them when I want to? This is a huge problem considering I'm lip syncing right now.
Also since I'm here already, is there a way to make the audio quality better once it's in Flash? It kinda sucks when I watch a preview of the animation.

Click on a frame with the audio and look over at the properties window/bar. Look for a drop down box that should be set to "Event". Change it to "Stream". This will sync the playback audio with how you see it on your timeline.

I still think it could be the AS camera. Try removing it and exporting the flash as a test.

At 4/24/12 12:19 AM, seeamtplay wrote: there's no 'sync' at the pop up, i have tried using stream wich i presume to be the equivalent and i noticed that plays the same way in timeline as in the SWF and i even get the control of monitoring the audio better because that way i can stop the audio by just pressing enter. but for some reason when a select a sound to play as 'stream' it speeds up the animation.

is there a reason for this to be occuring ?

thanks for your time

I apologize, I meant STREAM not SYNC.

I've never encountered my animation speeding up, only audio desyncing after time (when sent to stream). Maybe if you post the SWF we can see what your issue is?

At 4/23/12 05:20 PM, seeamtplay wrote: Hey everyone.

I'm a music producer and a composer, it's been two weeks since i started to learn flash to make an animation music video for one of my songs, i think i've evolved pretty fast, i'm also a digital artist and know how to draw

the thing is, i started with a method of creating mutiple files for each take and then my idea was export the SWF convert to AVI and then edit with the song on after effects. but it turned quite impossible since the conversion (in HD AVI 720p) was lame and the exported file was missing some then i end up with serious syncronization problems.

then i tried importing the second part of the video into a scene of the first i managed to import things properly and even made the music continue playing in the second scene (wich is obviously important) but still i'm having synchronization problems the audio preview in timeline happens in a timming (wich is important to sync perfectly music and frame), the timming from SWF export is another, and even when i open the SWF in the folder of the flash file it is different.

i've heard about the 'sync' option on sound keyframe, i tried everything to see what would change but eitherway o couldn't figure out what was happening.

please some one help me, i'm willing to assist anyone with audio related problem, i'm a graduated composer and music producer and collabs would be very apreciated

i'm posting a snapshot of the mentioned project so people would know my style. thanks to all !

1) Click on a frame with audio in your timeline
2) Go to your properties window
3) There will be a drop down box that contains: "Event", "Start", "Stop", "Sync". Select sync.

This will force the audio to play as it's heard in flash. Additionally, you should go to your export settings and change the bit rate of your Stream audio export from 16kbs to at least 64kbs, and export quality from "Fast" to "Best"

At 4/21/12 10:10 PM, Dino-Mario wrote: I'd like to make my own flash animations but all that coding is hard as heck!!!Is there any program that is a visual flash animator,or at least,close to it???

You don't have to code to make flash animations. Usually only code is needed for preloaders (which Newgrounds provides for free) and some simple (but optional) Stop and Play commands.

At 4/19/12 11:06 PM, Ghost7231 wrote: Okay, thanks! I got a replay button to work by switching my settings to action scrip 2, so now I just need to put in a tank loader and a play button. To put in the tank loader thingy, do I just put it in like the first frame with a stop action, or does newgrounds take care of that for me? I haven't fully grasped the concept of how the loading thing actually works yet.

You'll have to put it in the first frame of your movie. Newgrounds does nothing to the .swf except give it a webpage to view it on. If you can stop, play, replay, and preload (or simulate preload) with your exported movie, it should be fine for Newgrounds.

You should also be able to upload it to the NG dump or upload it on your project page before publishing it to the portal. Then you can test everything you need.

At 4/18/12 11:39 PM, canuckboy wrote: What would make my computer not handle it? It seems like a lot of work to copy frames, thats a ton of frames to paste and I could see it getting confusing with 20 scenes. Couldn't I get a swf to mov. converter and give him the mov. file and then he could give me the audio track and I could insert it in flash and have my cartoon in swf form and quicktime? Thanks for the help, just wish this was smooth and I would have my cartoon done .

Did you try exporting to a low quality version? If you're just going to put the audio back into flash then it doesn't need to be too high of a quality.

I place graphic symbols, inside graphic symbols, inside graphic symbols all the time. You just need to make sure they're all synced up and set to loop. This way you'll see all of the animation, no matter how deep, on the main timeline.

To sync symbols, highlight all of the keyframes on a layer (with the symbol on it), then right click and select Synchronize Symbols. This will set the keyframed graphic symbols to start on the correct frame. Just make sure your first keyframe has the graphic set to "loop" or "play once" and to start on frame "1".

Sounds like your computer can't handle the export load.

I believe new versions of After Effects or Premiere let you copy and paste frames from flash into them, allowing for a smooth export. Try downloading the free trial and see if you can paste from flash CS3 into them?

No, I meant that the TEXT itself wasn't showing up correctly on my computer and was enlarged to the point where the words were pushed off the page. The masking script/animation was synced to the audio no problem. I'm assuming this is because you're using a custom font that's not installed on my computer and it's being changed to the default sans-serif font.

If you want to contribute writing, why not check out the Writing forum? Or at least put an option to read faster than the voice over does.

At 4/4/12 03:57 PM, ottokolo wrote: evryone says that tweening makes your animation better
but why is that

No way is "better".

Whatever way you are able to best tell your story/make your game/animate your character/whatever is the way you should use.

I'm going to assume that you didn't embed your fonts because the text displaying for me is not uncovered evenly and way behind the narration. It also doesn't fit on the page.

Break your fonts to fills (ctrl+B twice) so you don't have to worry about other computers not having the fonts you use.

Also, is this whole thing just an audio book? I don't think submitting a written work to a Portal that's designed for visual mediums is the best idea. If you want to go ahead, just doesn't seemâEU¦ fitting?

At 3/28/12 06:02 PM, Iznvm wrote: as 3 cam

I guess that might be the problem then. I suggest not using AS cam in the future, especially if you're only using it for pans and zooms. There are other ways to do that without AS (e.g. placing the 'shot' in it's own Symbol and tweening that).

At 3/28/12 04:31 PM, Iznvm wrote: Ive tried all that in last couple hours and its still lagging on slower computers... I think I'll just have to sacrifice a bit of the quality and embed it as an flv into flash so that flash doesnt have to calculate any of the AS during playback from the original... Ive tried this flv theory and its playing fine on other computers.. just lacking visual quality here and there, but its nothing that is too serious...
what do you think?

It didn't desync for me, though I am on a higher quality machine. What AS are you using? Is it an AS camera?

I won't be able to view it until later today, but I wouldn't think that choppy frame-loading causes Streamed audio to desync, especially after 2:45.

In the meantime, try changing Fast to Best. Or even better, use ADPCM instead of MP3.

At 3/27/12 04:43 PM, Iznvm wrote: had the movie removed until I can sync up all the audio correctly

Well we can't see the problem anymore so we can't be of much help. What's the export quality of the streamed audio and how long is the flash?

Newer versions of flash (I think since CS4) are able to export to .mov with ActionScript. This means that movie clips and a Vcam should play correctly when exported.

The flip side is that you'll need to take out any preloader, replay, and/or stop(); related code, otherwise the export will just freeze on those frames/export forever.

Change the export type from MP3 to ADPCM. This'll keep longer movies in sync but will increase the file size a lot faster.

I think I understand. You're asking why, when you have a nested symbol and you make a keyframe on the main timeline, it doesn't make a keyframe inside the symbol's timeline, correct?

If so, then that's normal, because it doesn't do that. The main timeline and the symbol's timeline (as well as any nested symbols in that) are independent of each other. You'll need to make the keyframes on each and keep track of what frame each movement is on.

Ha, joke's on them, I'd still be a number!

At 22 minutes ago, jqzjqz wrote: The music starts (stream sync) and matches the frames early on, but the music is starts to go out of sync at about 4000 frames.

I'm just wondering if this is a common problem and if there's a way to fix it.

Thank you for your help.

Go into the movie's Publish Settings and increase the bit rate and quality of the streamed audio, as seen here. Raise the bit rate and change quality to "Best".

Alternatively, for longer movies, just change the compression to ADPCM. This syncs better but raises the file size a lot.

One way people do it is with an ActionScript camera. It's code that lets you move a frame-like symbol and, on export, the other symbols and objects will move opposite, simulating an actual camera. Very practical if you've done everything on the main timeline.

Personally, I don't like using this though because it only mimics an animation camera; I prefer to mimic real camera movements with parallax effects. (Maybe they are more advanced AS cams now that do this; I haven't used one in years.)

To do this, I have every separate object (full character body, background, set pieces, etc.) animated each within a Graphic or Movie Clip symbol. With all of these on separate layers on the main timeline, I can tween them at my will.

Mimicking camera pans is as simple as moving the background objects smaller distances (slower) than foreground objects. Using custom easing graphs fixes scaling issues and lets you finesse start and stops. Filters can let you simulate focus pulls with blurring. And some cleverly drawn fisheye-like backgrounds, you can simulate a camera tilting to new a angle.

That was a very good interview, nice find! I'm also surprised that his voice is naturally that high because it was an awesome fit for Flapjack.

Ah okay, well if you want it to fade out after 5 seconds do this:

1) Create (by clicking) a box at the 5-second point in each audio bar (where the audio wave lines are). Place it at the top of each box, this will make it volume = 100%
2) Go a little past that and create a new box. Drag this one to the bottom of each audio bar. This will make volume = 0%.

If you mess up, drag one of the boxes out of the window to delete it.

You can also create a blank keyframe and place it on the audio layer of you flash after 5 seconds and this will stop the audio (if it's set to sync).

A good free software for audio recording and editing would be Audacity.

To fade out a sound, select a frame with the sound in it. In the properties window, there should be an edit button (might be a symbol and not the word "edit") that will open a new window with two sets of audio wave lines. Here you can click on the wave lines and add boxes to change the volume of the audio for each speaker.

You'll also want to make sure the audio file is set to Stream and not Event in the properties window if you want it to stay synced with the animation.