- adobe flash general
Adobe Flash General
The combination of pixel art and Adobe Flash might seem strange, since Adobe Flash is mainly associated with vector graphics.
Contrary to what most people think, pixel art can be used to great effect in Adobe Flash. In combination with the programming language ActionScript, interactivity can be added to pixel art using only modest technical skills.
First I will give you some information about Adobe Flash, the interface of Adobe Flash, and the basics of ActionScript and animation in general. Then I will use the animated road worker animation to explain step-by-step how to combine pixel art illustrations with Adobe Flash and ActionScript.
History
Jonathan Gay created Flash. After writing some games, he created
SuperPaint II and subsequently Intellidraw, which made use of Postscript
just as Adobe Illustrator and Freehand did.
More details about Postscript are to be found in the 'Adobe Illustrator'
chapter.
Back in 1993, Jonathan Gay started FutureWave Software to develop
graphics software. SmartSketch was developed to make drawing on a
computer as easy as drawing on paper.
SmartSketch became CelAnimator, which became FutureSplash Animator.
Microsoft and Disney Online boosted the success of FutureSplash
Animator.
In the end, Macromedia acquired FutureWave Software, and Future Splash
Animator became Macromedia Flash 1.0.
General
Adobe Flash can be used to create animation, banners, components for web
pages such as video players, and rich Internet applications.
Besides Adobe Flash, animated GIF's or applets can be used to create
Adobe Flash type animations as well.
Animated GIF's lack interactivity, and the size in kilobytes increases
rapidly if animation is used.
Animated GIF's don't require a plug-in and the file format is supported widely.
An Applet is a small program written in Java, which can be executed in a
web browser that supports Java. The programming language Java is
cross-platform, which means that it runs on every type of operating
system. This is done in a so-called virtual machine (VM).
An interesting third alternative for Adobe Flash is processing.
Processing is an open source programming language based on Java, which
allows you to create images and/or (interactive) animations.
Adobe Flash animations can be made with a so-called 'timeline': a
visible representation of an animation by frames. Each frame can contain
static images, buttons, and/or so-called 'movieclips' - sub animations
with a timeline of their own. The content of the frames can show a part
of the animation over a period of time.
The timeline is mainly used by designers, since it's a nice and easy way
to create simple animations.
If interactivity is required, the timeline has to be extended with
ActionScript - the programming language in Adobe Flash. Otherwise, the
entire animation can be made with ActionScript.
Adobe Flash and Pixel art
Pixel art illustrations saved as GIF or PNG are usually very small in file size. ActionScripts don't take up much space either, which results in very small (interactive) Adobe Flash animations.
You should keep a number of things in mind when using pixel art in Adobe Flash, in order to preserve the characteristics of pixel art.
- Your Adobe Flash movie shouldn't be scalable, otherwise the pixel art
can be resized, which will result in loss of the pixel art
characteristics.
By adding the ActionScript code, 'fscommand("allowscale",false)', in the first frame of the main timeline, scaling will be disabled (see picture).
- You can either import your pixel art as GIF or PNG into Adobe Flash. After importing the image, it will be anti-aliased by default. Anti-aliasing should be deactivated in order to see the pixel art in a crisp quality. More details about deactivating anti-aliasing are to be found in the 'Adobe Flash' chapter.
- Pixel art illustrations (GIF and PNG) and textfield with pixel fonts
should be positioned at so-called 'integer positions'.
More details about integer positions are to be found in the 'ActionScript Basics' chapter.
Take a look at the ic-project pixel art illustration; 978.071 hand-drawn pixels.