i know this might not be the best place on the net to post this thread, but i’ve been trying to figure out how to animate .ai (adobe illustrator) files in flash mx 2004 for quite some time. so far, i know how to import the file and set up for animation, but it’s the animating part that i get stuck at. i’ve already followed the help guide (tutorial) on animating in flash mx 2004, but to no avail…don’t get me wrong, i know how to create a basic motion tween, but i want to get get a little more realistic (e.g., animating a character turning from front to side view)…anywho, can someone please help me out?
This is something done within the gimp. You could easily import the single frames into flash or AI and vectorize the drawings.
Hey very nice little animation krizu! 
I wouldn’t suggest using Flash for realistic animations. It can be done, but requires lots of tricks, or drawing individual frames.
One trick for turning the head side to side, is to create a graphic with the basic head shape, another graphic with the facial details (eyes/mouth), and mask the facial details with another copy of the basic head shape. Then animate only the facial details moving side to side. It won’t turn out realistic effects, but it will be very similar to how it looks when Strong Bad from homestarrunner.com shakes his head. If you want to add a nose, then it requires another trick, and things start to get real complicated.
thanks, you guys are alot of help…
Trevor and N3ON, i wish i could use Anime studio or Toon Boom studio, but unfortunately, i’m broke at the moment. flash mx 2004 was a christmas gift, that’s the only way i was able to get it…anywho, krizu, i would like to know how you did that flash animation that you posted in more detail if you don’t mind…
bboycycle: It´s not flash, this is a gif animation exportet from the gimp. in total it is 8 frames, so I drew 5 within gimp each on a seperate layer. 1-Front, 2-1/2profile_front, 3-profile, 5-1/2profile_back and back. for 6, 7, 8 i mirrored 2, 3 and 4. For a smoother transition I would add 1 inbetween before each keyframe. It is basilcally the technique I learned working on cartoon animation. Nothing fancy. I did it as a test if I could animate within the gimp. To get it into flash as I said you could render it as a movie (blender compositor/NLA?) and import to flash or you could vectorize each frame and composite the animation within flash. Most pro animation packages I know (toonz, ToonBoom) can render to flash straight out of the box. If you need further help, just ask.
krizu
you should look into the learnflash.com podcast, that is a great tutorial website ( you might want to subscribe to the podcast too!), here is he link:
http://www.learnflash.com/419802.html
Ignore the tweens. If you managed to import the ai files as a sequence in flash then they should all be separate images on individual key-frames on one layer.(like individual cells on a film roll) Animating them’ as you say, is then only possible frame by frame (i.e by editing each image). Its probably best to ensure all your frame work is done in illustrator and then just sequence them in flash. Flash is a 2d Animation Editor, you can effect 3d with cheats, in your case turning front to back will need to be drawn into your separate images. Hope this helps