How did you get started in flash?

[Vinstigator]

Well I remember I happened to stumble upon this thread and some guy by the name of Angry-Duckling made a flash about a duck rapping. I just found it so damn hilarious because there was really no animation at all but the fact that he insulted the topic creator using a rapping duck was just fuckin' hilarious to me! So anyway, that inspired me to make a movie of my own entitled Strawberry Clock Rap.For some reason the reviews aren't there anymore.

Some praised me (mostly clocks) some gave me some good flash advice and others... wished death upon me (no joke). It had NO animation whatsoever. Just a picture of some clocks with the speakonia voice. So as you can guess, it got blammed. I then made a "better version" of it. This time the characters actually moved! It almost passed judgement with a score of 1.59 but it was eventually blammed. Of course I was pretty upset because to me I thought it was the greatest thing in the world and I felt like I did my best (at that time). Anyway I got even more hateful reviews and fact that it was blammed again just killed my inspiration to make anymore movies.

So a few days later I decide to give it one more chance. To my surprise, it got some pretty good positive feedback! So obviously that made me want to continue animating. Eventually I started winning awards, getting into collections, and eventually, I made front page! I went from making movies that got blammed to making movies like this. I am trying to improve on every movie that I make and I will only get better as I learn more. The moral of the story? Never give up on flash, no matter how bad you think you are. Because with practice you can actually become a decent flash animator.

So... what's your guy's story about how you got into making flash?

[Vinstigator]

At 6/7/08 02:54 PM, Davidzx wrote: well, I had a grade 10 media arts class which introduced me to flash in the proffessional way. I was learning the basics of tweening and objects.

so I literally have 2 years of flash experience.

Damn so you have an advantage overmost flash animators, eh? That's pretty cool. Wish I took a class before I submitted those movies that got blammed :P

[DevourerJay]

i just watch it...

[yurgenburgen]

I've always liked animation and I wanted to make some of my own. A friend of mine who I sat next to in German lessons had Flash 5. Because he wasn't as good at German as I was, he asked me to help him with his homework for that night. We had to write a paragraph or so about something, in German. Can't remember. Anyway, I told him I'd write his paragraph for him (took me less than five minutes) in exchange for a copy of Flash 5. So we done the deal

[Deadchick]

Haven't gotten in to the whole flash business, but now I'm really tempted since I like to draw a lot and I would love to see my creations come to life.

[WilliWowza]

This would be a lot better suited for the Flash section.

But I started flash around the age of 14, making really shit animations (not like stick figures but still bad). I had such grand ideas and such little talent I would just start animation after animation and quit them because I was never happy. Eventually one night I was drunk and recorded the lines for my first flash 'Headache Man', which I hastily animated and submitted.
After positive reviews I was inspired to keep improving myself and trying so hard to get better and live up to my idols. I've spent countless hours watching flash movies and series such as Bonus Stage and Space Tree and want so badly to be as good as them, I have so many artists on NG I admire and want to aspire to. Hopefully when I move soon I'll have more time for Flash again, I really want to get that Daily 1st eventually.

[BlueHippo]

After watching HomestarRunner in 8th grade I just knew I needed whatever program that they were using to make those cartoons! Before that, I was using a program called Jasc Animation Shop, a very basic gif animating program. My friend got a copy of flash near the end 8th grade, and I would go over to his house and practice making animations and stuff. I kinda played with it in 9th grade, but it wasn't till 10th grade that I really got into it. I took a class called Web Mastering, where they had flash on the school computers. Whenever I would finish my assignment, I would immediately play with flash. The class was a joke, HTML/photothop/flash. (I actually ended up teaching the class the second semester because I knew more about flash then the teacher did at that point, haha). It was also in 10th grade that I joined the weebls-stuff forums, where I learned a lot of great flash techniques, and learned other artistic styles as well. Then in 11th grade I joined Newgrounds, and everything after that is documented on my profile as I learned more and more about flash. Now I have a career out of Flash and Photoshop, doing web work and some animations and whatnot. It's been a great run, and hope to keep it up for the future!

[Vinstigator]

At 6/7/08 03:05 PM, WilliWowza wrote: This would be a lot better suited for the Flash section.

I decided to post it here because I assumed that the flash section was for flash help and this is more of a "storytelling" thread :)

After positive reviews I was inspired to keep improving myself and trying so hard to get better and live up to my idols. I've spent countless hours watching flash movies and series such as Bonus Stage and Space Tree and want so badly to be as good as them, I have so many artists on NG I admire and want to aspire to. Hopefully when I move soon I'll have more time for Flash again, I really want to get that Daily 1st eventually.

That's exactly what motivated me, positive reviews and feedback! And don't worry you'll eventually get 1st one day. When I first started flash I never dreamed I would achieve a daily feature, but I did. If you put your mind to it, you can do it. That's what I did ;)

At 6/7/08 03:08 PM, BlueHippo wrote: Now I have a career out of Flash and Photoshop, doing web work and some animations and whatnot. It's been a great run, and hope to keep it up for the future!

That's awesome to hear! You got a lot of flash talent and you'll only get better with time. Just keep at it :P

[creepyboy]

Around ´05 I got a trial version of Flash 5 and I started doing sticky and tweeny animations just for fun, but a year later a friend of mine who was into flash too, show me Newgrounds and he borrowed me a full version of Flash MX 2004, and I watched some kick ass animations and I said to myself "I wanna do some like that" so I started to look around for tutorials and I began to animate more decent stuff and submmiting here, and the rest is history....

[Jesus-Owns-X]

It kinda just happened for me.

But some jackass votes 0 on all my stuff iv'e submitted everyday

[Vinstigator]

At 6/7/08 03:28 PM, Jesus-Owns-X wrote: It kinda just happened for me.

But some jackass votes 0 on all my stuff iv'e submitted everyday

I used to have people daily blamming me back in the day. But they got tired of it I guess. Don't worry once they get a life and find something better to do they'll stop ;)

[LordZeebmork]

I saw some of Rubberninja's shit back in '05, thought it was the greatest thing ever, and decided to get Flash. Sometime in late '06, I managed to get $200, so I bought (I was an idiot back then) Flash 8 and started making shitty animutation things. I didn't post anything anywhere (or even have any accounts on any sites) until around January '07. I signed up on Newgrounds to submit this, which I had worked for about a month on, but it got blammed. After a while, I managed to get something to pass, probably because it was the first thing I submitted that had a shiny preloader. I got sick of making animutations and shat this out in about 25 minutes, then I made this for the Kitty Krew's Portal Splode Day (I liked the KK back then), TNOAT got me to join the KK, and if you followed the drama in the portal at all you probably know the rest.

[austin23cook]

i ... DIDENT lol i cant do flash cuz i dont hav n-e extra coin 2 buy the software

[Vinstigator]

At 6/7/08 03:34 PM, LordZeebmork wrote: and if you followed the drama in the portal at all you probably know the rest.

I took a 1 year hiatus from Newgrounds, so I don't know what happened in that time. When I came back I was surprised to see that we had userpages. I was used to the pop-up profiles.

[Steven-M]

I haven't done a proper movie for about 2/3 years. I do remember the first movie I made (NY Trailer Trash) was born with a 'bought' copy of Macromedia Flash 2003. Long since deleted, mind.

[Tootbook]

hooo boy its been 5 years..oh how the time flies ^_^

Well I was first interested in flash when I was 13 because i had this little comic book i made that I didnt like just writing in little strips. I then found out one of my friends made this hilarious star trek movie about him and his friend ( it got blammed, and honestly to this day I don't see why it was a quality film ) We got to talking and he burned me a copy of his flash cd.

I kept making shitty sprite animation after shitty sprite animation ( probly had 5 different movies i spent about 2 weeks on blammed ) Until I found out one of my teachers actually taught basics of flash in her class. So after school I asked her how to do it and she showed me. So finally I thought I had an ace up my sleeve, we thought we were gods...

The original "optimus vs megatron"

That was before we learned how to tween ^

and this is the final project once we learned tweening

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/19 3830

Now while I had no actual work put into those movies those are what taught me basics of tweening but I still had one major issue to deal with, and that was trace bitmap. Having just got my own computer and knowing nothing about the internet outside of homestarunner.com and messing with people on aol chatrooms i was not very good at following instructions or tutorials.

Thats when I watched FF: Ju gay hoe 2 I believe and Michael pollock, better known as HAcoreRD started talking to me. He said I had good potential and shall we say "took me under his wing" and started teaching me step by step what I needed to do to make a decent flash. At this point he was making FF: Warfare 7 ( a movie that should be in the final fantasy collection )

We then had the difficult task of teaching me how to not suck. I eventually made a sprite movie but it was pure garbage and I had to start from scratch. Though I was so untalented I had to steal the opening scene from HAcoreRD just to get a feel for what I was gonna do. ( if you watch the first episode of my series and the first scene of warfare 7 they are pretty much the same )

Finally i got my first movie on and the rest...is me getting reallly lazy after 05 :D

Watch my movies people and i'll give you snacks :D

[Vinstigator]

At 6/7/08 11:46 PM, Tootbook wrote:
Thats when I watched FF: Ju gay hoe 2 I believe and Michael pollock, better known as HAcoreRD started talking to me. He said I had good potential and shall we say "took me under his wing" and started teaching me step by step what I needed to do to make a decent flash. At this point he was making FF: Warfare 7 ( a movie that should be in the final fantasy collection )

We then had the difficult task of teaching me how to not suck. I eventually made a sprite movie but it was pure garbage and I had to start from scratch. Though I was so untalented I had to steal the opening scene from HAcoreRD just to get a feel for what I was gonna do. ( if you watch the first episode of my series and the first scene of warfare 7 they are pretty much the same )

Finally i got my first movie on and the rest...is me getting reallly lazy after 05 :D

Watch my movies people and i'll give you snacks :D

That's an awesome story Toot, one of the best so far. And I agree with everything you say (especially about Warfare 7 not being in the FF Collecitons). But I know you told me there was more to it so I'd like to know the rest :)

[LordZeebmork]

At 6/7/08 04:01 PM, Vinstigator wrote:

At 6/7/08 03:34 PM, LordZeebmork wrote: and if you followed the drama in the portal at all you probably know the rest.

I took a 1 year hiatus from Newgrounds, so I don't know what happened in that time. When I came back I was surprised to see that we had userpages. I was used to the pop-up profiles.

Basically, I joined the KK, trolled the fuck out of Newgrounds, co-authored bedn, p-bot, chluaid, and some other people on a turd of the week, got the alt the turd was submitted on deleted for that, left the KK, hacked the KK forums, helped run the betty account, hacked a shitload of accounts, stole some awards, made another alt that got deleted while it had turd of the week, and many other things that I'm too lazy to list.

[McZero]

I started animating a year ago.

[Vinstigator]

At 6/8/08 12:12 AM, LordZeebmork wrote: co-authored bedn, p-bot, chluaid, and some other people on a turd of the week

I would have probably laughed my ass off if I saw that!

[LordZeebmork]

At 6/8/08 12:25 AM, Vinstigator wrote:

At 6/8/08 12:12 AM, LordZeebmork wrote: co-authored bedn, p-bot, chluaid, and some other people on a turd of the week

I would have probably laughed my ass off if I saw that!

chluaid made a news post about it.

Basically, Kes found a hole in the co-authoring system that let people co-author users not on their portal buddy list and everyone exploited it.

yep, good times.

Here's the obituaries page for the flash. Most of the funny reviews got assed.

[FrozenSheep]

I started watching flash movies at 12 and eventually figured that I could try to take a stab at this..
.. four years later i'm still trying for at least one award.

I'm pathetic.. ;D

[DELUCA2400]

I got started in Flash when I was a junior in highschool in my web design and E Commerce class. I learned the basics of animation and a little AS, and then I learned how to use Dream Weaver and Fireworks and a little HTML and Java. and after two years I still can't come up with a good animation or a game or a website. lol my teacher sucked.

[Vinstigator]

At 6/8/08 12:29 AM, LordZeebmork wrote:
Basically, Kes found a hole in the co-authoring system that let people co-author users not on their portal buddy list and everyone exploited it.

Haha I remember I did that shit to my former enemy! I co-authored him to a diss movie I made on him and I took screenshots. What made it funnier is when he reviewed saying "I did not make this! This motherfucker co=authored me without me even adding him to my buddy list!". Good times... good times...

[Cheese-on-toast]

Well, i haven't started yet, mainly because I'm too cheap to save up for CS3 and too lame to rip it off of anyone (I'm such a rebel =/), however, i might try score it for a birthday or christmas. Then, i can spam the portal 12 ways to Sunday. But for the moment I'm focusing on 3D max...

[Tootbook]

At 6/8/08 12:09 AM, Vinstigator wrote: That's an awesome story Toot, one of the best so far. And I agree with everything you say (especially about Warfare 7 not being in the FF Collecitons). But I know you told me there was more to it so I'd like to know the rest :)

Eeeewellp heres the rest of this tale of toots

Like I said I finally got a movie through the portal and it scored a decent 2.00 so i was excited started jumping around a bit and did a little dance. HAcoreRD was impressed so I felt like i did a good job on it. I could not animate fight scenes for shit but oh well I had a basic storyline going on. I started the second one with every intention of completely out performing my last movie and to my suprise I did just that. I got a 2.50 and needless to say I go pretty excited.

I started learning new techniques and kept taking advice from the reviewers, learned a bit from shin2k27, HC, and vince. ( before i got myself involved in that internet drama ) Shin taught me how to make the characters walk smoother without the need for a high framerate. Vince taught me how to have a story make sense, mainly from watching his movies I was able to figure that out, and HC taught me that I should put myself in the characters mindset so they all don't sound boring ( i have a problem with that still :D )

Basically after about 3 weeks of nonstop work I released my longest movie ever, wich had somewhere in the area of 6 fight scenes and a pretty decent storyline. At this point HAcoreRD had become upset with me and we stopped talking. So I submitted and was just barely under the green, I think I had a 2.96 ( I remember because it made me that mad that I didnt get in the green since I was so close )

But since I still had a goal to do better I kept pushing and pushing until I got my first movie in the green zone. At this point I realized that I might actually get an award in the not to distant future so I really started to take time and care. For those of you interested this movie impressed my "mentor" so much we actually started talking again, and we were on good terms.

Finally I was on to part 5, I had spent so much time on that movie that it seemed like i'd never submit it. But finally I buckled down spent weeks writing the script and even longer animating it. I at this point realized my story had a lot of holes and needed to be polished but It was kind of late so I just kept trying to explain it through idle conversation between the characters.

I was really striving for an award on this one, and while I didnt actually get one I was barely .04 points away from daily fifth. At this point I stopped using my own spells and started using zsnes gifs to use in game spells. I think it was a very good decision on my part. While I knew I was going to get an award on this one I thought I'd spend a lot of time on this one just to make sure people knew I was serious about the series. I went through the movie probly 5 times ( wich sucked because my comp was shit ) and polished it to the best.

I submitted october 30th 2004 and Got a daily 3rd place and I was stoked, mainly because black mages 4 was submitted that day and I got praised by the guy who made it and said he liked my movie ^_^. Then I went to school and I come back and sign on to aim...BAM I get like 12 ims in the first 10 seconds of signing on ( again sucked because my computer ran like shit >.< BASTARDS! ) and everyones like "DUDEZOMGJ00GOTONTHAFRONTPAGE" and sure enough i did ^_^.

So basically once I got good enough to learn how to trace bitmap and motion tween it only took me 6 months to get my first award and first front page ( probly my last but oh wellz :p )

and that as they say...is that.

-The flash career of a n00b ^_^

[Vinstigator]

At 6/8/08 01:19 AM, Tootbook wrote:

At 6/8/08 12:09 AM, Vinstigator wrote:

Vince taught me how to have a story make sense, mainly from watching his movies I was able to figure that out

Heh, I'm glad I taught you that. The trick is to just really concentrate on the story even if it means going over it 100 times. And if something just doesn't seem right or it's akward, then change it up so it makes sense, no need to rush it. And also when you're reading through your dialogue make sure that makes sense as well and something the character you're portraying, would say. If something doesn't seem right then replace the dialogue so it sounds believable ;)

So basically once I got good enough to learn how to trace bitmap and motion tween it only took me 6 months to get my first award and first front page ( probly my last but oh wellz :p )

I think you'll make front page again. It may not be today, it may not be tomorrow, it may not even be this year but believe me, it'll happen again. Just like I know I'll make front page again. This new movie I'm working on (Part 15) is better than anything I've ever put out (even better than my movie that made front page). I can't make any promises but I'm crossing my fingers that my series will go out in a blaze of glory :P

[DevourerJay]

i tried to get into it... i guess im too old or something, also, i just watch it now

[DevourerJay]

At 6/8/08 01:52 AM, Jeffaro wrote: I started animating about 4 years ago. at age 11..I stopped a year later due to frustation..

I want to animate again now....

so what are you wairing for!?

[Deadchick]

At 6/8/08 01:46 AM, MissingNYC wrote: i tried to get into it... i guess im too old or something, also, i just watch it now

You're never too old to learn something new.