LONG CARTOON IN FLASH - organization

[SAB0TAGE]

When ever I make a long cartoon in flash the file gets too big and too complicated.

I learned flash on my own and I’ve never really learned to organize things in folders and save movie clips. What I do instead is, I animate one scene at a time in Flash then export it as a QuickTime .mov. I drop each .mov scene in to iMovie. That is a really easy way to edit and it has work up until now…

I’ve been hired to create a 3min cartoon (that’s long) They want it all in Flash. So, no iMovie. :blink: I’ve never really figured out “Movie Clips” What I have figured out is similar to the above process. I make one scene at a time and export them as .swf files. For the final animation I drop all the .swf scenes in to one file.

Is there any drawback to doing it this way? :rolleyes:

Am I making things more complicated then they should be? :rolleyes:

[Evil Demon Creature]

It is hard to say. Developing a process for making large projects work is an art in of itself, and it's something you learn more about each time you try it.

From what I know of it, it looks like you have gotten a good strategy going, movie clips are quite versatile, and can be nested in each other easily and indefinitley. Your plan's sucess is going to lend itself to how you operate in the phases before it.

I mean, the animation is going to be tricky to modify no matter what approach you take, so you should make sure that everything in the scene is decided well before you actually start crafting the scene in flash. Storyboarding and concepting will help you out immensely, and save you a ton of time and work in the end. Just look up how animation studios operate when making whole shows (or Disney when they make whole friggin movies!) and you should be able to get some great info on effective animation production practices. Since your animation is going to be three minutes, I can't imagine it being too hard to scale what they do down to a shorter timeframe.

[ElusiveMoose]

I've played with dropping swf's into a new fla to bring them together and have gotten mixed results. Not what you want when you've got a job with a deadline.

I also tend to avoid Movie Clips because they run on their own timeline, have no relation to the main timeline, so things can get out of sync easily. Graphic Symbols are much more reliable.

Large fla's are a fact of life. Do a lot of "save as..." with new file names to keep the file size smaller (or do a lot of "save and compact"). And organization is key in keeping a good workflow. I'd recommend doing a lot of pre-production for such a large project. Get your character libraries set up and lay everything out ahead of time to make this as painless as possible.

A good resource to help you out is Foundation Flash Cartoon Animation (http://astore.amazon.com/aeonsector-20/detail/1590599128/002-7213515-9086457). I just got it and have been working my way through it. Great info on pre-production and setting up character libraries.


Good luck.

[SAB0TAGE]

Thanks guys.

I guess I could just make it all one file. It just gets hard when you have a million layers you know. I really like my iMovie way. Thought it doesn't look nearly as clean and crisp as the original Flash animation.

I'm glad you mentioned that you get mixed results with dropping .swf files in. I could see myself doing every scene and then being screwed at the end when they don't all fit together smoothly.

[Terro]

Do you use scenes in flash? Thats the way I separate my timelines and it makes for a good organized file.

[SAB0TAGE]

I don't use folders or scenes. I don't even label my layers. I basically keep my virtual work space as messy as my actual desk. I'll try scenes and see if I can't keep on top of labeling for this project. When I get it done, I'll see if I can post it here.

[Terro]

Dude, definitely start labeling and organizing your workflow. It's super important and once you get used to the organized way you will never go back lol. As you can see I was a very disorganized individual as well.

And yes separate each scene using into a flash scene. New scenes give you a black timeline so you can go as long as you want.