This official Adobe.tv video shows how to import a sprite sheet into Adobe Edge Animate. This will create reusable sprites that can be reused throughout your project.
Go to http://ik.duduf.com and download the IK tools. Install the files in the scripts folder of After Effects: (win = c:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe After Effects\Support Files\Scripts”, mac : “Applications/Adobe After Effects/Scripts/").
So I set that up and began working on my Flash file to see if I can export my characters body parts and the head to be ready for flash.
I will first make a copy of my flash file. With the first copy I am going to delete everything except the head. I will keep the 378 Frames that I used to lip sync to a high quality audio file I received.
That's a lot of chatterin'!
I exported the head as a SWF file. Importing that into After Effects is no big issue. Once I put it in a Composition, I imported the audio file to the comp and named it "Head". I then proceeded to create a new comp for the body.
I continued my tutorial (or more like "self-teaching") with Flash and FXG files. As stated in part one of this foray, I am starting off with all the parts of the character in separate layers.
I then moved the Anchor points of all the characters to have the rotation match the ones I had in Flash. A little tedious, but so far so good.
Once I did that, I made sure to parent the limbs in the correct manner in order to make sure, for example, the hand moved with the forearm when I rotated the upper arm. I did this with the pick whip.
A FXG file is a "new" file that Flash exports, instead of the usual Adobe Illustrator filetype (.ai). Why Adobe did this? I don't know.
So, with that, I fired up Illustrator and saw how it imported.
What the...?
It did not import the forearm. I decided to go back to Flash and break up the symbol that had all the arm shapes in it and put each symbol in it's own layer. I also decided to draw a new hand with the fingers separated (for another test I want to see...)
So, I did some stuff a LOOOOONG time ago with some STTNG Characters drawn by Josh Howard. I worked in Flash tracing out the character of Data, trying to make animatable character for me to use for cartoons.
Well, I let things go a little bit--starting College up again and all--and never did finish up.
However, I have been doing some thinking, and I wondered if there is a way to import characters I draw up in Flash into After Effects and animate them there, using AEs powerful effects and the like. There are a few different ways to do animation in AE, so I wasn't sure which one I should use.
So, I decided to try some experiments to see if it would work. I made a new FLA with just one frame. I splayed out the arms and legs of Data so I can try out different types of animation.
This week Mozilla is in London at the Mozilla Festival 2012. A year ago at last year’s Festival, we released Popcorn.js 1.0, and with it a way for filmmakers, journalists, artists, and bloggers to integrate audio and video into web experiences. Popcorn has since become one of the most popular ways to build time-based media experiences for the web. It has proven to be uniquely powerful for bespoke web demos, films, visualizations, etc. This year, we’ve come to the Mozilla Festival with an even bigger 1.0 release: Popcorn Maker 1.0.
Here is a quick and dirty video I did. I pulled a video from youtube and put some dialogue bubbles... only a few. Not exactly a very exciting foray, but a foray nonetheless.