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george.weatherby
Participating Frequently
February 9, 2023
Question

How can I animate an animal that has moving paws and legs that looks fluid?

  • February 9, 2023
  • 1 reply
  • 251 views

I am extremely new to Animate. I am trying to animate an animal (a fox) that walks across the stage. I don't know how to do this. Should I make the whole fox a single symbol, or should there be one symbol for the body, another for the front legs, another for back legs and another symbol for feet? Will doing separate symbols allow me to move each part independantly? I am very confused about this.

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    1 reply

    JoãoCésar17023019
    Community Expert
    JoãoCésar17023019Community Expert
    Community Expert
    February 9, 2023

    Hi.

     

    Normally, you would create one single container for the whole fox and then inner symbol instances for each body part. It would be something like this:

    Fox
        |---- Head
            |---- Eyes
            |---- Nose
            |---- Mouth
            |---- Base (skull)
        |---- Body
            |---- Legs
            |---- Tail
            |---- Base (torso)

     

    And then you would animate each body part individually within the Fox's timeline (and within the Head's and Body's timelines) so that it follows the main container and creates the illusion of walking.


    Please check Nick's article on how to proper rig a puppet in Animate:
    https://flash-powertools.com/character-rigging-for-flash-animation/

    Regards,

    JC

      rayek.elfin
      rayek.elfin
      Legend
      February 9, 2023

      Perhaps this example might be useful to learn from. It is an animated fox from the open sourced and now defunct Glitch game.

      https://gofile.io/d/vPIbFe

      (ps forum won't allow me to attach the FLA file for some reason...)

       

      And yes: invest some time in the Flanimate character rigging tools for a project like this.

       

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