Character rigging for Flash animation

[n. tilcheff]

Due to the huge popular demand and as service to the wider animation community, we created a detailed step-by-step guide to professional character rigging for Flash animation.

The newly released article (link below) goes in depth through all the production stages from concept to completion.

Special attention is given to the different types of joints, symbol registration and nesting.

http://flash-powertools.com/character-rigging-for-flash-animation/

High quality illustrations and nearly two hours of video footage, document the process of creating and rigging the EDAPT Rabbit - a new fully-functional free-to-download Smart Magnet Rig.

Enjoy, like and share!

Message was edited by: nickolay tilcheff

[kdmemory]

Hi Nickolay,

I think you are doing Great work and education. I'm not an animator myself, more a 'constructivist' with AnimateCC, but I watched your video part 2 about joints and I have to say it is briliantly made and entertaining.

I fear that your posting here might be a bit in vain. This is a user-to-user forum for solving problems with Animate. Not so much a "show room" if you get my drift.

Further, and this is just an observation, your insistence on the name Flash is quite out of date, you know that?

Klaus

[n. tilcheff]

Thank you very much for the kind words, Klaus!

Really glad to know you found the joints presentation enjoyable and interesting enough to not give up watching after the 3rd minute!

I see my writing as a service to the wider animation community and hoping to reach as many people as possible with helpful information. Been using Flash since 1998 and over the years have accumulated a lot of knowledge, at least some of which appears to be unique.

We started the EDAP Tools project while I was still teaching at university level in Sydney with the intention to help students with some simple commands. Since these humble beginnings in 2010 it has grown way beyond our initial expectations and we broke a lot of new ground with Smart Magnet Rigs, KineFlex and so on.

I'm also a member of the Animate Pre-release community, but thought that posting here might reach and be beneficial to more people as this is an open forum.

Thanks again

Greetings from sunny Tasmania!

NT

[Preran]

Thank you for posting your tutorial here. We are currently exploring ways in which we could showcase such wonderful work on our forums, and have our forums be a place of both learning and support. I will make sure that we curate this link for our exercise. Meanwhile, feel free to write to me directly over a private message.  To send a private message, click my picture and use the Message button.

I will work with the relevant Adobe teams to promote your post across our social channels.

Thanks,

Preran

[JoãoCésar]

These are excellent news, Preran! Thanks!

[n. tilcheff]

Thank you very much, Preran!

It will be great for the whole animation community and for Animate's reputation if good practices and knowledge could reach new adopters of the program earlier in their paths, before they get to a point when they need to un-learn the unproductive ways of setting up rigs which in turn limit their ability to achieve fluid animation.

I have, over the years, written a few in-depth articles about how to achieve best results with digital cutouts in Flash.

We will be more than happy to contribute links, descriptions and illustrations to the new learning area.

Our goal with the EDAP Tools project is to:

1. Push the boundaries and enhance the user experience of Flash / Animate in the area of character design and animation.
2. Contribute to establishing a theoretical framework which should give digital cutout animation, created in Flash / Animate the confidence of a stylistically mature art-form with its own principles and good practices. These are overlapping and related to traditional animation, but not necessarily always identical.
3. Provide some free-to-download sample files, licensed under Creative Commons as a service to the community. These should help people start more easily a journey that otherwise can look too intimidating.

We have been in contact with Ajay and the team in regards to some UX, JSFL and performance issues with the recent Animate CC releases, but it was only a recent realisation that we should post in the public forum as well.

Thanks again for the support and please don't hesitate to contact me when you have set up the new learning/knowledge area. I will definitely post more there.

NT