Shadowing & Light Sources

[Josh-B]

Animation: Main

This is a tutorial on making proper shadowing and light sources. This is a commonly unused tool by beginners to Flash. Shadowing can make your movies look more professional when used properly. Anyway, on to the tutorial.

Before you make shadows, you need to determine where the light source will be. Where the light source is, determines how long and what direction the shadow will point. For example, if the light is high up, the shadow will be shorter, while if the light is down low, the shadow will be longer.

Note: To make the shadow, I usually use a medium gray color with an alpha of 50%.

You also need to determine the shape of the object, which will also determine the shape of the shadow.

And finally the direction of the light source to the object determines the direction of the shadow.

As you have or have not noticed, some of the sides of each shape were different colors. Basically, a lighter shade of the color is put on the sides of the shape that are closer to the the light source and vice versa for darker shades.

Experiment around with it and figure more things out for yourself.

[Trunks]

A little short, but to the point. Pretty good, but I didn't learn anything :o

That's because, as you know, I'm the best at flash.

uberjoke

[Nuggs]

the only thing that I would add, is that the shadow changes depending on the texture below it and the slopes/ hills the shadow passes over

[Josh-B]

At 8/31/06 09:42 PM, -Nuggs- wrote: the only thing that I would add, is that the shadow changes depending on the texture below it and the slopes/ hills the shadow passes over

Yeah, but this is mainly just the basics to it.

[Mogly]

A shadow like what your talking about can look good to add depth to the object too, as not seen here.

If you look to the left of the shadow, if there was more there, it would make the object look thicker. As it is, it looks a bit like a 2d image with a weird thing on top.

Make sure to actually show the thing is in shadow, make sure you colour the object appropriately on that side too.. as in 'Make it a likkle-bit darker on one side yeh?'.