Chapter 11. Faking Video in Flash

More often than not, knowing how to simulate realistic action in Flash is the name of the game. In the 2-D world of the computer screen where there are no cameras or true 3-D environments, it's necessary to create effects that mimic camera movements and perspectives. Part of Flash's versatility as a 2-D animation program is that it gives you a number of ways to deal with these issues.

In a sense, Flash has a great deal in common with older forms of animation. Just like traditional cell animation, Flash relies on changing items in front of a stationary camera or stage to create the impression of movement. Layers serve the same purpose as acetate transparencies in cell animation and are used to create the illusion of depth. By combining these techniques, you can use Flash to create convincing 3-D effects.

Flash also enables you to simulate video technology. Although Flash doesn't actually perform video streaming, you can use it to import video in the form of bitmap or PICT sequences. This is a powerful capability that enables you to present video clips in Flash movies, and it gives you the ability to trace over video frames and convert them into vector animations.

In this chapter, you get an introduction to a couple of different techniques that you can use to simulate video inside of Flash. You'll work with tweening, create perspective, and import and trace movie sequences. You'll explore the following:

• Simulating animation and perspective. You set up the pieces for a simple, yet effective, cinematic animation sequence by using layers in Flash along with some perspective tricks. You also take a look at how you can create graphics and illustrations that mimic certain camera effects.

• Simulating a movie camera and dolly . You animate your backgrounds and props on the stage by using some creative tweening (and more perspective tricks) to create the illusion of a panning camera mounted on a dolly.

• Simulating damaged film. You create the effect of aged or damaged film and explore the ways to use it most effectively. The illusion of aged film is easy to achieve ”you just have to use some randomly spaced frame-by-frame animation. Just think black-and-white, scratches, and dust, and you're on your way.

• Using video stills for film sequences. You focus on converting QuickTime movies into frame-by-frame Flash animation sequences. You use Flash's capability to import a QuickTime sequence and export it as a series of bitmaps.

• Tracing 3-D objects. You trace over elements of a raster-based sequence of video stills to capture both the shape and motion in a vector format.