Flash Bones Crab Monster Animation Š2010 mkelly/robert morris university
final product of this exercise is shown in excerpts from the finished movie: http://www.onestopdesktop.com/examples.html
first, you need something to animate. you can dissect half of a crazy crab or...
* ...a scary hideous, hunter spider. this isn’t a photoshop tutorial so no details, but suffice it to say the *Quick Selection Tool (along with Cutting and Pasting) can be your friend…finally, I used Image/Trim and saved them as PSD files.
you can find a sandy beach or other background using Google which you can Import first (to the Stage): ⌘R.
. once you bring it in, you can Modify/Document to get the Stage/Movie to match the size of the image. note that if you import multiple layers, you get the option to change the stage size during the Import.
you can also change your frame rate here 30 − 60 fps. you can follow the same procedure to bring in the “monster� crab:
the layers retain their Photoshop names to make it easier to choose. you receive other options in addition to the aforementioned right to change the size of the stage...
you can set each layer to become a movieClip, give it an Instance Name (if you plan to use ActionScript to communicate with it later), and finally, set its compression and registration. I chose Lossless for clean images for video. this is how he comes in. note that if you save your layers with names , the layer names will be set:
double-click to change the name of a layer such as bg for background or in this case, you can change the extra layer to actions and drag to the top of the pile, in case you want to add a stop(); at the end:
there he is in all his glory.
Shift-click to select both parts of the foreclaw.
right click on them and choose the above. you can also hit F8.
name it. save as a Movie Clip.
one of the layers gets emptied out… you can delete it.
appears as one unit now…
double click the claw to get into its timeline...
the claw is in separate pieces again in this timeline, and since we made both parts movieClips on Import, they are ready to be animated using bones (motion tweened) since this type of tweening can only be done with movieClips. the fore claws will animate separately from the main timeline so they will be moving the entire time the crab scurries along. you’ll see...
look for your Tools: Window/Tools. and grab the rectangle tool seen above. change the stroke to none and the fill to any color. we’re going to create an ik (inverse kinematics) chain of bones. to get better movement you need to create an end to your chain. this will make more sense in a moment.
draw it at the base of the claw.
F8 it and name it null. in animation a null object is one that doesn’t show up. its job is to be the lead man on the chain like a puppet string on a wrist.
/ / another cool thing about movie clips is that you can go to Color Effect like above in the Properties inspector above (Window/Properties if you don’t see it). you can choose Alpha and turn it down to 0. your null box appears to disappear. you can wait until after you add bones to do this since it does make it a bit harder to manipulate. you can also turn it back to visible whenever you need to so you don’t have to worry too much about it.
grab the Bone Tool.
click/start here...
...and finally here.
drag here...
you can
Layer 1 since everything lives on the Armature_1 Layer now.
grab the arrow/selector
to manipulate the bones. it becomes
you can use it now to animate or change the relative positions of the bones:
holding down the ⌘ key while moving the tip of the bone allows you to shorten the distances or chug the angles between the objects connected to the bones like above.
you can also bring the null in closer if necessary.
.
go back to Scene 1. right/control click on the fore claw to Copy it.
⌘V or Edit/Paste. two claw instances for the price of one. select the new one. /
/
‌
after moving the second set into place, double click one of the claws to get back into its timeline.
go to frame 60 and right/control click on the frame and choose Insert Pose. this will make the claw ends up in the same position it starts out in thus creating a seamless loop for your motion no matter how many other Poses you insert in between.
right or control click to add Poses maybe around frames 15, 30 and 45. they can always be moved, removed or added to later.
if you click on a keyframe (where major changes occur) after right/control clicking your mouse or after or while holding down the ⌘ key, you can drag any keyframe to a new location.
you can right/control click on the keyframe choose
.
and
you can also right/control click on a keyframe and
so you can right click another frame and
...
.
peek-a-boo. note that the right claw is performing symmetrically on the main timeline since the two movieCips are one in the same. we’ll make it all less mechanical in a minute.
go back to lock the
layer.
select both front claws and open the Window/Properties Pane.
click here and...
you can convert the claw movieClips into Graphic symbols without actually changing the original movie clips. it adds newfound Graphic symbol capabilities on top of the movie clip possibilities they already own. the most important one is the ability to decide where in the movie clip’s timeline each of the two pieces of this graphic’s animation playback should begin (we have 60 frames to play with here). you can make the legs on opposite sides start at different times so you don’t create a robot crab (unless you wanted to, of course).
choose one of the fore claws and set its first frame somewhere in the Property Inspector. it doesn’t matter where as long as we start the other one somewhere else.
the change is immediate. however, if you were to play it back right now (⌘ + enter), you would see no animation. this is because Graphic symbols need to have added frames in the main timeline to match their internal number of frames so that you can see them play out (unlike movie clips which only require one).
so choose frame 60 in every layer on the main timeline and hit F5 to insert a frame. F6 inserts a keyframe. F7 inserts a blank keyframe. hit ⌘ + enter to see what you have so far… start the other fore claw on a different frame in the Properties pane.
turn off the eye of the fore claw layer so you more easily select the back leg joints. so what happens next? switch it back to Movie Clip:
yes and yes. we must convert to a movie clip.
make the fore claw layer visible. double-click to its timeline. copy the null movieClip there (which Flash has renamed). back to
. lock the fore claw layer
or
...
paste it at the bottom of the final leg segment.
joint it up ith the bones tool like above‌
select the to move it around from the null. ⌘ key drag to adjust the positions of the bones if necessary.
choose frame 30 to Insert the Pose to create your loop. this will be faster.
you can insert one or more other keyframes to make the leg flex like a crab’s.
you can extend timelines by dragging their ends. you can move keyframes by clicking on them with the ⌘ key down and then dragging them. you can option/alt click to duplicate Pose keyframes also.
once again we have a dead layer to dispose of.
back in . copy and Shift ⌘ V to Paste in Place. sleet and use Shift + Up arrow to stack like above.
hide the body and the background to more easily select all four legs. Copy and Paste the lot.
select the second four and perform the above operation to flip them to the other side of the body.
flipped and moved into place.
lock the other layers to make it easier to select all of the legs.
convert them to a Graphic symbol as we did with the claws.
one option is to select them in pairs so that pairs start off a the same time. you can stagger opposing legs or let them fly randomly. play around and test the different possibilities.
, , , etc. either way, decide a starting frame (between 1 and 30) for each leg.
the above legs were staggered in cascading pairs.
you can also make the head bounce up and down if you’d like. in the main timeline, select the head layer.
drag frame one’s keyframe with the option/alt key to frame 60. why?
you can drag the same keyframe to frame 30. in frame 30, hit shift and the up arrow once to raise the head slightly. perhaps you could rotate a bit, too. you can option drag out those frames for a more bouncy animation with more keyframes like further below.
click next to the layer’s name to select all of its frames. right click inside the blue line and choose Create Classic Tween. Motion Tweens are reserved for bones animations like we’ve been doing and 3D animations which we’ll do soon Classic Tweens are what Flash could do prior to the CS4 version (moving in X,Y space, changing scale, color, opacity, rotation, shape tweening graphic elements, etc.)
we’ll be doing old fashion y axis movement (vertical) so we’ll need the good old Classic Tween.
kill any empty layers.
Classic Tweens use arrows to show the connection of the movements.
select all of the crab’s frames and right click on them to choose:
in the menu at the top, choose the above.
name it.
you’ll see you’re in its timeline now.
select the first frame and right click to Past Frames.
they’re here…
get back to
trash
and select the layers we copied the frames from:
them all leaving just:
look below bg and click on this icon its first frame.
to create a new layer like above. select
drag crab_walk from the Library onto the stage. it contains all of the work we’ve put in so far.
duplicate it so that we can create a shadow from it.
name it.
bring crab_walk back out of the Library. the one on stage changed into the shadow:
you might wonder why we didn’t just Copy and Paste like before. it’s because if we use the same base movie clip and make a change to one, it changes them all. we need a whole new instance to work from:
choose the bottom crab like above and: / time.
/
this
line them up better than this…with the bottom crab selected, open the Property Inspector and choose Filters.
click on
to create a new filter: Drop Shadow...
whoah…we can do better than this, I hope.
if you
change
, the bottom crab becomes:
+
to get:
keep in mind that all of the motions are also contained in the shadow instance of our movie clip so it will reflect those motions like a real shadow.
you can also Blur the shadow.
you can use the Transform tool to squash the shadow a bit so it appears in perspective. you may need to arrow key it up a bit also like I did.
grab both the crab and its shadow and‌
/ :
name it.
new tool.
use it to send the crab back in space along the Z axis. mine got smaller and shot up in the air. you can adjust the path later when this is Motion Tweened or you can use the y and x axes to position him which is what you’ll see next to bring him down to the beach on the right side of the image:
on the main timeline, give yourself a bunch of frames to work within.
this time we’ll right click on the frames and choose the New School Tween version.
in the last frame: ... insert a new keyframe at the end and bring the beast as close as you dare or choose keyframes along the way and build your animation piece by piece. remember crabs scuttle sideways a lot so you might want to incorporate some of that.
, etc.
as stated earlier, you can select and alter the path itself. you can always Command Z if it doesn’t work for you.
you can dramatically increase the effect if you scale the crab down when he goes back in space and up when he’s ready to leave the camera to attack the
viewer. you can use the Motion Editor to even the animation if it’s too fast or slow.
choose the above. they all change:
unless you uncheck them of course.
choose 100 to slow it down at the end. −100 to speed it up at the end. Flash/Export/Export Movie. Change Quicktime settings if necessary.