Creeping shadow

[Chance1234]

Hello,

im just sketching out a animation at the moment (bit through my graphic pen -grrr) but come stuck on one point.

Im trying to do a shadow creeping across the floor then up a wall,
http://www.5ylac.biz/flashing/mummy.jpg

I have been playing around with masks in flash, but cant get anything suitable, does anyone have any eexamples or techniques they are willing to share ?



regards

[ElusiveMoose]

You mean like the person/object/mummy :eek: casting the shadow is approaching the wall so the shadow moves accross the floor until it hits the wall and then goes up the wall? (wow, that was a long pseudo-sentence)

If that's what you're trying to do, I think it's more a matter of layers AND masks.

Basically you'll need two copies of the shadow (or two shadows), let's call them fshadow and wshadow (floor and wall respectively)

Your layers from top to bottom would be:

foreground layers
wall shadow mask (could just be a copy of the wall)
wshadow
wall
fshadow
floor

Then you just tween the two shadows so that when fshadow hits the wall (and subsequently goes behind it bc of the layer), the wshadow enters the mask region and becomes visible on the wall.

I hope that makes sense. If not, let me know and I'll throw a quick example together later on (can't do it right now bc I'm not at my work computer).

Good luck and make sure you share the results with us!

[Chance1234]

Hi an xample would be great, its somthing i just quite get my head around at the moment.

this is as far as i have got at the moment

www.5ylac.biz/flashing/mummy2.jpg

[Terro]

The shadow part should be easy in flash, just draw the shadow with a black color then drop the objects oppacity a little to make it a bit see through.

The hardest part you will encounter is the shadow breaking and changing angle when it creeps on the wall.

[Chea]

There's a very easy way to do this without Masking.

I dunno what you're making a shadow of but anyway.


Take a shape (preferably black for a shadow) and select the rotate and skew tool: http://img181.imageshack.us/img181/8679/shadow1xb0.jpg

Take the fulcrum (little white circle you see when you select the rotate and skew tool) and move it to where you want the shadow to originate from. Usually a shadow on a person originates from his feet so you'd move the white circle to the feet.

Then, skew it left or right however you want.

Draw the base of the wall (A line) where the shadow begins to lie on the wall and then take the skew tool again and skew the top part of a shadow that begins at the base of the wall so that it stands up normally and stretch it up or whatever you want


Here's an example:


http://img166.imageshack.us/img166/3231/shadowca6.jpg


If this is too confusing for you then tell me what you're confused about. once you understand how to do it, it's easy.

[ElusiveMoose]

Quick and dirty:

http://www.elusivemoose.com/flash/shadowOnWall.swf

The fla is available here (http://www.elusivemoose.com/flash/shadowOnWall.fla), so you can look at the layers and all that.

Now, this is a very simple shadow shape and very simple movement. A more complex shape (like the outline of a mummy) and a more complex movement (like a creeping, limping walk) will require more tweaking, fitzing and futzing and probably and extra layer to draw adjustments where the two shadows meet.

Well, here...

If I change the shadow to make it more complex, but leave the movement the same you get this:

http://www.elusivemoose.com/flash/shadowOnWallMoreComplexBad.swf

You see how it doesn't always match up?

But if I go in and shorten (squish) the wall shadow a little bit and then keyframe where certain features (like an inner vertex) transition, I get this:

http://www.elusivemoose.com/flash/shadowOnWallMoreComplex.swf

The fla for that one is here (http://www.elusivemoose.com/flash/shadowOnWallMoreComplex.fla).

This is still a very simple movement, though. So the more complex you get, the more fussing you'll have to do.

Hope this helps a little. Good luck!

[Chance1234]

great replies thanks a lot, nice to find a friendly forum.

the animation is about 30% complete at the moment (waiting for damm replacement pen to arrive ) but it is entitled "The Dangers of Pork Pie" the title is from a old silent film in which a man visits the british museum, eats a pie and finds himself in ancient egypt where he is made king. My animation will be a good old fashion mummy chase, just couldnt think of anything else to call it ;-)