Best place to learn Adobe Animate

[uptonsdad]

Hello, I am Tony, 70 plus years old, and have recently opened up ADOBE ANIMATE for the first time.   I have loads of questions, which I will post a sample here.   But the "biggie" is where is the best place to learn animate?   I am aware that it was called Micromedia/Adobe Flash, but tutorials on ADOBE ANIMATE seem to be scarce, (even on Lynda.com) 

More specifically, I am trying to create an animated banner for a friend's website - a photographer, who drives a small yellow car called yellow custard, hence the name: YELLOW CUSTARD PHOTOGRAPHY.

The ai version has three layers (body plus 2 wheels)    The idea is to have the car motion left to right across the stage and stopping 50% across, while other action takes place, then resumes the tween.   I get the car to travel and stop - I then create symbols of the three parts, which appear on new layers in a separate timeline.   So do I set up wheel rotation start and stop on this second timeline?   Do I then somehow repeat the tweeting after the pause and how do I do that?

OH Yes! HTML5 Canvas or Action Script?  Classic or Motion Tween?   It will be obvious to you lovely people that I am an old boy, a bit out of his depth, so your help will be appreciated

Tony !@

[kglad · Accepted solution]

you would create a wheel movieclip that consists of one wheel rotating 360 across its looping timeline.

you would then add two wheel movieclips to your car movieclip and assign them instance names (eg, wheel_front_mc, wheel_rear_mc)

you would then tween the car across the stage on the main timeline and assign the car an instance name (eg, car_mc)

you can then stop and start your wheels using

this.car_mc.wheel_front_mc.stop() and this.car_mc.wheel_front_mc.play().  likewise, for wheel_rear_mc.

if you use the stage to tween your car instead of actionscript, you will have problems unless you use a motion tween.

you'll probably want to use html5.

[uptonsdad]

Hi KgLad and GoryGreg and thank you    Some useful info there.   Yes, I had a quick look at the YouTube page by Jazza - he is good, so I will do an in-depth scan.

Thank you Gentlemen

[kglad]

you're welcome.

[GoryGreg]

No worries, Tony.

[GoryGreg]

Try here first, Tony...

Animate tutorials | Learn how to use Animate CC

Also this page (that was suggested by someone here on the forums) might help too (it is for Flash before it changed to Animate but principles may be similar) . I haven't looked at it yet but hopefully it helps.

Start Here - YouTube

And I love this guys positive approach...

The ULTIMATE Guide to ADOBE ANIMATE CC! (AKA Flash) - Tutorial - YouTube

YouTube can be good and bad for tutorials- it's finding the right YouTube channel.

Hope this helps start you off. Remember to learn it in small segments at a time and don't overwhelm yourself. Wanting to learn too many things at once about it will put you off in my opinion.

Have a blast and good luck, Tony.

[Colin Holgate]

More answers for you:

Most people doing banners would want HTML5 Canvas, so use that kind of FLA.

Assuming your wheels are identical you only need one symbol, the same one can go in both places. I would use a Graphic and not a MovieClip, that way you can achieve what you want without any scripting.

Put the wheel rotation tween into that Graphic, using a Classic Tween, with no easing. Then on the main timeline have the tween that moves the car body as a Graphic and each wheel as a Graphic. Set the wheel Graphics to Loop.

At the point where you want the car to stop for a  while, set the Graphic to Single Frame, and adjust the frame number to match where the looping had got to.

In deciding how many frames it should take to rotate 360 degrees, think about Pi. The distance the car moves across the screen during one revolution would be the diameter of the wheel times Pi. The number of frames you'll need will be affected by how quickly you want the car to move, and the frame rate you're using.

[Joseph Labrecque]

Just adding a note that even most resources for "Flash" are still completely relevant for Animate.

Welcome to Animate

[uptonsdad]

Hi Joseph, I watched your tut on Lynda.com and will run it again.   It's the wretched rotating wheels that have thrown me.   Clearly action scripts are all important.

[Colin Holgate]

You don't need ActionScript to do the rotate. Make a keyframe, then some frames later make another keyframe. Right-click in the frames between the two and Create Classic Tween. Click again on one of the in-between frames, and in Properties panel, Tweening section, you can select Rotate, and choose CW. That will give you a perfect 360 degree rotation.

Usually you don't want that though, because when it loops the last frame and first frame would be the same, causing a slight visual glitch. To fix that, click in the frame before the last one, and use F6 to make it be a keyframe. Click on the last frame and use shift-F5 to clear the frame. You now have a perfect looping rotation.

One important thing, you would want to make the length of the full 360 rotation be correct before you add the keyframe and clear the last frame.

[Colin Holgate]

Just to increase the odds, Flash Professional CC tutorials will be almost 100% useful. Older tutorials for Flash Professional CS6 may show features that are not in the program any longer, and any HTML5 Canvas work done in CS6 was done in a different way.

[johnbarrett]

The Hawaii Animate user Group has about 5 years of meetings about Flash/Animate. You can see them here:

https://www.meetup.com/hawaiianimate/

Also, search for "Flash" resources on Google. Adobe Animate is really just a name change if you are targeting the flash player. Adobe Animate also lets you target html5, svg, etc.

[ProDesignTools]

In addition to the helpful recommendations above, you may also want to check out Mr. Labrecque's free new Animate workbook and assets here as well:

Animate CC Resources from Adobe MAX 2017

Best of luck!

[ProDesignTools]

Update:

Joseph has kindly updated these resources for his recent class at MAX 2018... You can find them (plus other helpful content) here:

Adobe MAX 2018 – Animate CC Content – In Flagrante Delicto!

Kudos!

[Apk61]

thank you very much

[_keyframer]

We've actually placed many example files and tutorials directly in to the new Start Screen.