Onion Skinning modifications advice

[Tgibs2]

I like the onion skinning feature, but with it's defaults I find it awfully hard to know what's what. The colors are too confusing and I can't tell between whats before and what's after. Any advice to make this feature more easier and clear to see visually. Much appreciated. Thank you. 

[n. tilcheff]

I keep it similar to how it is in Flash with just white tint for both previous and next.

[Tgibs2]

Ok, yeah that's what I saw in one of the videos. I'll do that then. Thank you. Also, our district approved the use of the EDAP tools. It took us a while, but I was able to secure a meeting with one of the technology higher ups, and just like I thought, it was just a misunderstanding of what it was we were asking for. Meeting took 10 mins lol. So we are currently getting into it as we speak. If you have any rec's for videos for high school students, please let me know. Thank you. 

[n. tilcheff]

Hi @Tgibs2 ,

That's great news.

I'm glad to hear you managed to get this sorted out!

Well done!

I'm not exactly sure whether the students are just starting to learn how to use Animate or already know the basics.

I used to teach Flash and Character Design in a BA of Animation program to first year students, who had never touched Flash before.

The drawing tools are all simple and logical, so they pose no challenge at all.

The most crucial and important thing that lays the foundation of a solid understanding of how to effectively utilize symbols is to grasp the concept of nested and synced timelines.

The simplest example I could think of to introduce the concept was a circle (ball) bouncing in place with a duplicate frame, where the first and last are the same; then wrapping it into a Graphic which shows all but the last (duplicate) frame, and then wrapping this one again and tweening it across the stage.

Here is a version of this with illustrations:

https://flash-powertools.com/keeping-cycles-flexible-for-easy-re-timing-by-using-service-frame-and-w...

Matt Fryer's courses @TipTut are very good: 

From our stuff, I'd recommend first learning simple joint mechanics:

And then progress with the rest:

https://flash-powertools.com/smart-magnet-rigs-where-to-start/

Good luck!