animation techniques, tips, tricks?

[WheelsJM]

I've been reading these forums for a while, but have never posted. I wanted to say how impressive the wealth of knowledge that is here. Also I wanted to say that this site is home to a mind-boggling number of awesome animators! You guys kick ass. Everything I have learned about flash (which I'm still pretty basic at) I learned from here.

As I am pretty solid on the basics I consider myself like a middle-ground flash animator, but by no means an expert. I have a bunch of questions that are a little more in depth than generic n00b questions, and I couldn't really find answers surfing the posts, so I thought I'd dump them all in one place. I know all these can be answered by "Whatever you think works the best for you..." but I thought I'd put the question to all those rock-solid animators out there that have been amusing the shit out of me since high school. I'd love to know what specifically works for you, so if you want to respond with your opinions I would uberly appreciate it.

1) About how many layers are standard for your main timeline? I heard too many slows down the animation or makes it choppy.

2) For cartoons does anyone use scenes? I did once for part of my website and it kept driving the sound out of sync unless I stored the lip sync and sound in movie clips. Do people still use them?

3) Do people prefer to do lip sync in movie clips with the entire head or even entire body, or do you do lip sync in the main timeline?

4) Does the pen tool have any benefit? Do people find it useful for characters? Backgrounds?

5) Is everyone using those actionscript cameras? Or just moving the layers? Are there any deficits anyone knows of for actionscript cameras?

6) What is the preferred frame rate? I've heard mixed things about 24fps vs 30fps. I know it can go either way, any thoughts on the benefits or the look of one vs the other?

7) Is it good to add blur or other effects to movie clips? Or does it slow the animation down? Is that the way people usually blur backgrounds?

8) Motion tween for movement or moving body parts, or frame by frame?

9) Animate on the main timeline or animate in symbols and put them on the main timeline?

10) Is there a rule of thumb for what people should use movie clips for vs graphic symbols or is it preference?

11) In my project library I have all the characters body parts broken into symbols which I assemble in the main timeline usually, unless I need like a canned walk cycle. Do people keep lots of assembled views of their characters assembled in the library or usually assemble them in the timeline? Do you find the layers unwieldy when having to move everything from limbs to eyebrows?

12) Do people use Actionscript in their cartoons, like for example having a movie clip where each frame is a different character position with a nested movie clip, then using like 'gotoAndStop("LEFT"); or whatever?

I guess that's sort of a lot, but I just wanted to know what other people did and found to be good practices.

Thanks!

[Blain-The-Pain]

At 2/11/09 09:30 AM, WheelsJM wrote: 1) About how many layers are standard for your main timeline? I heard too many slows down the animation or makes it choppy.

Really, use as many as you need. I've never heard about having too many slowing your flash down, though having too many things on the screen at the same time may.

2) For cartoons does anyone use scenes? I did once for part of my website and it kept driving the sound out of sync unless I stored the lip sync and sound in movie clips. Do people still use them?

If it helps you, do it, but I don't, personally.

3) Do people prefer to do lip sync in movie clips with the entire head or even entire body, or do you do lip sync in the main timeline?

I think the majority of people lip sync with MCs because it saves a lot of time, but if you aren't going to have your characters talking a lot and you want to make it look good when they do, you could do it frame by frame on the main timeline.

4) Does the pen tool have any benefit? Do people find it useful for characters? Backgrounds?

Some people use it for drawing smooth geometric shapes and characters/backgrounds made out of shapes, but most people don't.

5) Is everyone using those actionscript cameras? Or just moving the layers? Are there any deficits anyone knows of for actionscript cameras?

Most people who use camera effects use the VCam. It can't do anything, but it saves a lot of time and you can do some pretty cool effects with it.

6) What is the preferred frame rate? I've heard mixed things about 24fps vs 30fps. I know it can go either way, any thoughts on the benefits or the look of one vs the other?

Either way is fine. I usually animate around 24, but I dabble in 30 sometimes. 30 FPS will almost always look smoother and (sometimes) better, but it'll take a lot more work (because it'll take a lot more keyframes).

7) Is it good to add blur or other effects to movie clips? Or does it slow the animation down? Is that the way people usually blur backgrounds?

It may slow down your animation a little if you have a lot of things going on, but that's how most people do blur effects. Most people don't like it when you overdo filters, though. I really just use glow and blur, and adjust color.

8) Motion tween for movement or moving body parts, or frame by frame?

I'd suggest FBF, but if you can get away with tweening and it looks good, then go for it.

9) Animate on the main timeline or animate in symbols and put them on the main timeline?

I do a little of both myself. If I have an action that I would want to have repeated over and over again, I'd have it in an MC, but if I'm only going to have it happen once in the whole movie, I'd do it on the main timeline.

10) Is there a rule of thumb for what people should use movie clips for vs graphic symbols or is it preference?

I almost always use MCs, because in my opinion they're easier to work with, and you can do some cool things with them. It's mostly preference though.

Skipped the rest, somebody else will answer them. I'm feeling lazy. Hopefully I helped you, and hopefully I'm not like the third person to answer (I was the first when I started five minutes ago!)