Traditional Animation
In this activity, I am thinking of making an animation about the growth of a plant. In the class, we are guided by Prof. Zaidatun to make a traditional animation by drawing a face of a bear and the bear's mouth will change smiling as the animation moves from frame to frame. So, here are steps to make a simple traditional animation. Happy learning..!!
- Draw a character on the stage. For example, I draw a background with a picture of seeds inside the soil.
- Then insert keyframe in the same layer by press F6. E.g : I choose keyframe 10. You will see the same picture in this new keyframe. To create the animation, draw a new picture on the stage. I draw a water drop of rain to show that plants need water to stay alive and growth.
- Again, I repeated the step by insert new keyframe in timeline 20 and press F6 and draw a small tree to show the growth of the plant. This step was repeated in timeline 30 and 40. It's up to you how many keyframe you want to insert.
Then, you can check your short animation by selecting Control>Test Movie. Your image will change as the animation moves from frame to frame. To make it move slower, insert frames and vice-versa.
Motion Guides / Motion Path
For the first time trying this new skill, I feel a little bit difficult and I have to make a lot of corrections here and there to ensure it really works. After trying and practicing so many times, at last I can make it. Sometimes, learning from mistake can give a lot of advantages. =) It makes me remember the step and also become really familiar with the interfaces.
A Motion guide is a line that has drawn with pencil tool on a guide layer. It is use to make an animation sequence that involves substantial movement. Instead of using motion tween, which to make your object moves from one place to another place you can use motion guide to guide your object to moves for example in 'S' shape line or irregular line which need a lot of moves. Or else, we can say that this is a shortcut for you to moves your object in substantial movement. Here are the steps:
- Draw a light colour of the background by selecting colour in the properties section.
- Then, use rectangle tool to draw a large rectangle over the whole stage area. Make sure you choose other colour to differentiate it with the background colour.
- Then use eraser to make the path. Draw other picture on the stage of this layer (I rename it with 'background') to make it look real. For example, I draw some trees, stones, a pond and a few houses.
- Add a new layer and draw an object that you want to make it moves. Then, rename it with the object name . For example, I draw a car and named the layer 'car'.
- Select the car and convert it into symbol by pressing F8 or choose Insert> Convert to Symbol. Name the symbol as 'car' and select 'graphic' in behaviour options.
- Add guide layer on the 'car' layer by clicking 'add motion guide' symbol. You can see this symbol beside the 'add new layer' symbol. Please make sure that this 'motion guide' is situated above the 'car' layer to make it really work.
- Use pencil tool to draw the path that you want your object to follow.
- Insert new keyframe (press F6) in the timeline (e.g timeline 60) for all the layers (background, object and motion guide layer) to make all the background can be seen at the end of the movement.
- Snap the ant to the guide by pressing the magnet icon in the tools option on. Select the object (car) in the object layer (car layer) which you can see a crosshair and point your mouse on the centre of the object and move the object from starting point to the end of the guide by following the line that you have drew using the pencil tool.
- In the object layer (car layer), click between the two keyframes and select motion from the tween dropdown menu.
- Test your movie by pressing Ctrl+Enter.
