Week 1: The Very Beginning of Animation

The first week of classes was all about getting to know the major software that will be used to produce the 2D animation and that software is Adobe Flash CS4. Some students had already used Flash when we were doing Imaging Our World during the first year of university. So this class was for us to refresh back our memory of using Flash while some others who are new to it has to learn from basics. This also helps us anyway as we can also sharpen our own skills by learning new stuff from the tutor or other students.

The first class was about the introduction of tools and its functions and using those tools to create object that can be animated. The animation was then made by creating motion tween at selected frames timeline. It was very simple and straight forward to move the object horizontally and vertically.

After all the basic tools were covered in the first tutorial, the second one is slightly more advance. We get to learn how move objects in any directions, not just vertically and horizontally by using Guide function. Guide is created by creating a line of movement using Pen tool and link it with the object. The other thing that we learned in the tutorial was using the function of classic tween. these functions were then combined to create a short animation of bouncing balls. In order to make the bounce look realistic, the tutor then showed us the function of onion skin. the value of ease in or ease out or the timing of its movement can be set according to individual preference on how realistic the bounce should be.

my incomplete work of flash