2.1. Planning Pays Off Drawing a single picture is relatively easy. But creating an effective animationone that gets your message across, or entertains people, or persuades them to take an actiontakes a bit more up-front work. And not just because you have to generate dozens or even hundreds of pictures: You also have to decide how to order them, how to make them flow together, when (or if) to add text and audio, and so on. In other words, you have to think like a movie director. With its myriad controls, windows , and panels, Flash gives you all the tools you need to create a complex, professional animation, but it can't do the thinking for you. In this section, you see how the pros approach this crucial first step in the animation process: how to create a storyboard, come up with ideas, test your ideas, and benefit from others' successes. 2.1.1. Creating a Storyboard Say you want to produce a short animation to promote your company's great new gourmet coffee called Lotta Caffeina. You decide your animation would be perfect as a banner ad. Now, maybe you're not exactly the best artist since Leonardo da Vinci, so you want to keep it simple. Still, you need to get your point acrossBUY OUR COFFEE! Before you even turn on your computer (much less fire up Flash), pull out a sketchpad and a pencil and think about what you want your animation to look like. For your very first drawing, you might imagine a close up of a silly-looking male face on a pillow, belonging to a guy obviously deep in slumber, eyes scrunched tight, mouth slack . Next to him is a basic bedside table, which is empty except for what appears to be a jangling alarm clock. OK, now you've got a start. After you pat yourself on the backand perhaps refuel your creativity with a grande- sized cup of your own productyou plan and execute the frame-by-frame action. You do this by whipping out six quick pencil-and-paper sketches . When you finish, your sketchpad may look something like this: -
The first sketch shows your initial ideaMr. Comatose and his jangling alarm clock. -
Sketch #2 is identical to the first, except for the conversation balloon on the left-side of the frame, where capped text indicates that someone is yelling to your unconscious hero (who remains dead to the world). -
In sketch #3, a disembodied hand appears at the left hand of the drawing, placing a cup bearing the Lotta Caffeina logo on the bedside table next to Mr. Comatose. -
Sketch #4 is almost identical to the second, except that the disembodied hand is gone now and Mr. Comatose's nose has come to attention as he gets a whiff of the potent brew. -
Sketch #5 shows a single eye open . Mr. Comatose's mouth has lost its slackness. -
Sketch #6 shows a closeup of the man sipping from the cup, his eyes wide and sparkling, a smile on his lips, while a "thought bubble" tells viewers , "Now, that's worth getting up for!" In the animation world, your series of quick sketches is called a storyboard . Figure 2-1 shows a basic storyboard. 2.1.2. Five Questions for a Better Result Creating your Flash animation will go more smoothly if you can answer these five basic questions before you even turn on your computer (much less start working in Flash): Figure 2-1. Spending time up-front sketching a storyboard lets you set up your basic idea from start to finish. Don't worry about how sophisticated (or unsophisticated) it looks; nobody but you will see this rough working model. 
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What do you want to accomplish with this Flash creation? Besides knowing whether you want your creation to be fun or serious, cutesy or slick, you should have a concrete, stated goal, like "show my company's new line of scooters" or "generate 1,000 hits per month for my personal Web page." -
Who's your audience? Different types of people require different approaches. For example, kids love all the snazzy effects you can throw at them; adults aren't nearly as impressed by animation for animation's sake. The more of a sense you have of the people most likely to view your Flash creation, the better you can try to target your message and visual effects specifically to them. -
What third-party content (if any) do you want to include? Content refers to the stuff that makes up your Flash animation: the images, the text, the video and audio clips. Perhaps all you want your animation to contain are your own drawings, such as the ones you see how to create in this chapter. But if you want to add images or audio or video clips from another source, you need to figure out where you're going to get them and how to get permission to use them. (Virtually anything you didn't createa music clip, for example, or a short scene from a TV show or movieis protected by copyright. Someone somewhere owns it, so you need to track down that someone, ask permission, anddepending on the contentpay a fee to use it. Chapter 8 lists several royalty-free , dirt-cheap sources of third-party content.) -
How many frames is it going to take to put your idea together, and how do you want them to be ordered? For a simple banner ad, you're looking at anywhere from a handful of frames to around 50. A tutorial or product demonstration, on the other hand, can easily require 100, 200, or more frames. Whether you use storyboarding or just jot down a few notes to yourself, getting a feel for how many frames you'll need helps you estimate the time it's going to take to put your animation together.
Tip: Try to get your message across as succinctly as possible. Fewer frames (and, therefore, images) typically means a smaller file size , which is important if you plan to put your Flash animation up on the Web. (Folks surfing with dial-up or on a cellphone often have trouble viewing large files.)
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How will you distribute it? (In other words, what's your target platform? ) If you plan to put your animation up on a Web site, you need to keep file size to a minimum so people with slow connections can see it; if you plan to make it available to hearing-impaired folks, you need to include an alternative way to communicate the audio portion; if you're creating an animation you know will be played on a 100" monitor, you need to draw large, bold graphics. Your target platform the computer and audience most likely to view your animation always affects the way you develop your animation.  |
