Slightly More Qualified Beginner Here!

[Artificer]

Hey, everyone. I've been a lurker for the past year and a half or so, debating on whether or not I wanted to get involved.

Finally decided to get involved. I come with offerings!

Spoiler (click to show/hide):

"Offering" Here.

MannequinDemo.jpg (7.78 KiB) Viewed 2487 times

I got that done in a little more than 2 hours last night, and it was my first real attempt at Flash CC. It's pretty similar to the basic Playshapes mannequin you all have been using, except the torso is split into upper and lower parts, giving it a tad more flexibility. Forgot to give it a movable jaw, though. I haven't tried animating it yet, but it's certainly pose-able.

Spoiler (click to show/hide):

Different pose of original "offering."

MannequinDemo2.jpg (7.38 KiB) Viewed 2487 times

I'm an art student with experience in traditional art and comics, so I'm reasonably good at drawing- even if I'm still getting the hang of Vector-based stuff. I can also write, and I'm particularly good at writing dialogue and scripts. However, on the topic of scripts, even though I've got some very basic programming experience, I haven't done so much as even glance at ActionScript yet.

As a Game Design student, I figured I'm probably going to have to re-learn Flash eventually, and thought I'd get a headstart here. In my time as a lurker, I've been very impressed at how friendly, open, and genuinely artistic the LoK bunch was. I've got a lot to learn, and this looks like a fun environment to learn in.

So hello, world.

I'm probably going to continue lurking until I've got a bit more experience with Flash CC... Even though I've had access to the Creative Cloud stuff from my school, I just installed Flash for the first time yesterday. Hey, at this rate, maybe I'll be animating by this time next week. If you all have any feedback on the models, or advice on what to try next, I'd love to hear it.

[Anonymouse]

The model looks nice. Some bits are a little jarring, where the edge lines are inconsistent and thick in some places but nonexistent in others, but I'm not sure if that's because it's unfinished or the style you were going for. Also the character seems to be leaning forwards a bit too much. In general though, the proportions and shape look good, and better than a lot of the models on here that have really weird back arches and super long legs and thin bodies. I look forward to seeing what else you come up with.

I'm a fairly experienced AS3 programmer, so if you need any help with any programming feel free to ask. Probably much more useful in that department than I am with art criticism, as I can't draw at all

Edit: Something to watch out for: because you have less than 10 posts, if you edit your original post it will disappear until a moderator approves it, so for now just post replies

[Artificer]

Some bits are a little jarring, where the edge lines are inconsistent and thick in some places but nonexistent in others

Yeah, that's me still getting adjusted to Vector drawing... I tried to work it into the style, but had mixed results. On one hand, it kind of looks calligraphic. On the other hand it also looks lazy.

One beginner's question that's come up with programming though:

Once you've written the code, and made the animation, how do you get the code to interact with the animation? I was trying to make a loop, using Renara's tutorial on this site, but when I tried playing back the animation, it completely ignored the code for the loop, and just played from start to finish, ignoring the buttons and the "stop" commands in the code.

Do you have to enable AS3 code in the options or something? Or is it some rookie mistake like not putting everything in brackets, or forgetting a semicolon somewhere?

[Anonymouse]

You don't have to enable it or anything, it should just work, and semicolons aren't all that important in AS3 (you can miss them out most of the time, but most people still put them in for those times when they are required). If there are any errors it will ignore the code, so first check that there isn't any errors in the output or compiler errors panel. If those are clear then it's possible that the code is in the wrong place or referencing the wrong object.

Code on the timeline references the object that it is inside. So if you have a symbol with "stop()" on frame 2, when that object reaches frame 2 it will stop. If you want to reference other objects you use the labels given to then in the properties panel, ie "obj1.stop()" if the object is called "obj1".

If that doesn't help, if you want you can upload your .fla and I'll take a look at it and see what is going wrong.

Oh, one other thing to help you debug. You can output text to the Output panel in Flash CC by using trace("[text]"); Try putting that next to your stop commands to see if the code is actually being called or not.

[Terrantor!!!]

I like where you're going with this. But one important element is the outline. It needs to be consistent and can't have any breaks otherwise you can tell how it's pieced together. It'll end up looking like south park animation, and I have nothing against the show. But Flash is capable and is used in shows like Archer. So you definitely wanna investigate into how to reduce line breakage.

Another thing is with code, all you have to do is give your art handles and use those handles for actionscripting. You do that by naming your clip. Let's name your character's head... "skull." Go ahead and click on your head, find the properties tab (press ctrl+F3), and click on the "instance_name" text prompt (at the top). In there, you'll put in the word, "head" "cephalization", or "skull" (without "quotes", of course). Anything you want, I'm gonna go with skull in this example. Now the skull can be told what to do with code.
So now you click on a frame where you want the head to do something, open your actions tab by pressing F9 and give your head some instructions. Let's assign it an x value for simplicity's sake:

Code: Select All Code

skull.x=200;


And there you have it. the skull should be +200 units from the origin which is at the top left, contrary to the x's and y's you were used to in school.

[Artificer]

I like where you're going with this.

Well, that's a good sign!

Thanks for the coding advice, guys. I haven't had a chance to try it yet, but I'll probably make another post when I do.

If I can't figure it out, I'll upload the .fla for you all to take a look at. And if I do figure it out, I'll upload an .swf instead!

[Terrantor!!!]

I look forward to it.

[Artificer]

First attempt at animation went only marginally better than one would expect a newbie's first attempt at animation to go. Even then, I'm hiding it in spoiler brackets so that it doesn't take away from the other thing I've been working on...

Spoiler (click to show/hide):

Click to Play
(Javascript Required)

Flashtest.swf [ 51.31 KiB | Viewed 2304 times ]

Floating dicks? Unfinished models? It has all the trappings of a doomed, half-assed project! But hey, remember, this animation was more about learning how to create loops than making something that looked pretty. The important thing is that I figured out loops during the animation. However, the button was supposed to restart the animation if you clicked it at the end. Instead, it jumps back to the first loop and gets stuck there. It's not letting me upload the .fla for some reason. I'll try again in another post so you all can take a look at the code, if you dare.

...It didn't occur to me until around now that I probably could have practiced making loops with a simple walking/running animation.

Hmm.

Anyways...

Oh no, my Art History is showing. I mean, seriously? Aphrodite of Knidos?

V2 WIP.jpg (5.57 KiB) Viewed 2304 times

It's still a work in progress, but hey, it is several leaps and bounds past the first one as far as quality goes. This model's a lot taller- practically Aphrodite of Knidos proportions- and the perfectionist in me demanded that the head and breasts be at least anatomically plausible. In that 3+ hour adventure of reference-hunting, drawing, deleting, and redrawing, I found a whole new respect for the many, many perfectly talented artists who simply don't bother with that level of accuracy. It's all part of the learning experience, I guess.

Not sure when I'll have the model done, but the next thing I'm aiming for is going to be either enemies or backgrounds... Probably backgrounds. Once all of the pieces are built, the last part will be learning how to combine them all into a functioning game.

[Artificer]

Well, there was going to be another post with the .fla, but apparently they aren't allowed?

[VintageBass]

Well, there was going to be another post with the .fla, but apparently they aren't allowed?

Oh they are allowed... have you tried uploaded it as an attachment?

[Artificer]

I know I've seen other people upload .fla's, but I'm getting an error message saying "the extension fla is not allowed."

[Terrantor!!!]

The contour is lookin a lot better on your new model. Pretty soon, it'll do great as an animateable.


*That may be the problem, If you wanna post the source code, (.fla) you gotta .zip or .rar it. If you wanna post the compiled file, you gotta publish it as a swiff, first. It seems you figured that out already, though. Just in case.

[Anonymouse]

Yeah, or you can upload it externally (GoogleDrive, DropBox etc) and post a link, that's what I usually do for .fla files.

The new model is good, and the animation is a good start. I don't know if you were looing for comments on the animation, but the main thing to work on is keeping the joints together; for example in the first loop the front elbow looks odd because one arm piece moves and the other doesn't, and same for the back knee.

[Artificer]

Something I've been wondering about as I'm working on version 3 of the model...

I'm figuring out that the animation style I'd like to aim for would be similar to UrielmanX7's Space Escape. But that requires animating the same model from different angles, doesn't it?

Seems like a lot of pieces. I get the feeling it would be easier to do if I was better at this vector drawing thing. Are there any process or step-by-step things on this site about how the original Krystal models were made? Does anyone have any links to other useful tutorials?

So far, the most time-consuming problem to solve has been that I've been designing each piece of the model on one lair. Because of that, the base color, shading, and linework all get in the way of each other. On top of that, Flash does weird things when I select the lines with the selection tool- like changing the direction the tapering thickness flows, or splitting the line in two. Is it easier to do the lines, colors, and shading on separate layers, then merge them as one symbol later?

If I could figure out a solution to those two problems, I'd be able to finish this model a lot faster. Which, in turn, would make the goal of a style similar to UrielmanX7's a much more attainable goal.

[Anonymouse]

I always draw the pieces on separate layers, but I'm pretty crap at art so I'm not sure if that's the best way to do it.

Actually, off the top of my head, you could try drawing it all on one layer, then duplicate the image over multiple layers. On each layer delete the bits you don't need.

[Mattis]

Like anonymouse said : I usually draw on one layer, then duplicate the model (or parts of it) and place them on several layers, to edit them specifically (using layer options "show/hide" and "lock/unlock", for easier handling)

For shades and stuff : check out your "brush" tool options : you have option to be able to draw inside what exists, outside, or only the zone you selected, etc...
All that can help you to affect only what you want, even if it depends on the context.

Another trick is to draw lines inside your existing fills. Lines you can bend and link to other lines, in order to vectorly delimite the shade/light zones.
Then you can use the "fill up" tool to fullfill the shade/light color in those delimited zones.
After that, select and delete the "zoning" lines, so you're just left with the shades and lights.

Also, for later animations, scripts and everything, be sure to get those two notions straight in your learning process (if you haven't already) :
- movieclips & instances
- standard motion tweening.
Sure you can find dozens of tutorial on that, but if you get stuck wondering how the hell do animation works, that the key notions to start.
(also : you got to put each limb on a separate layer, if you want to animate them separately. May be obvious, but it sure wasn't for me, a few years back, and I struggle a lot with motion tweens before understanding that)