Tiger Attack! (Part 2)

Animation!

I could do a lot more to fancy it up, but I don't want to! Here's the final product:

[kml_flashembed fversion="8.0.0" movie="http://www.larkinheather.com/blog/entries/tigerattack2.swf" targetclass="flashmovie" publishmethod="static" width="333" height="500"]

[/kml_flashembed]

I got a little lazy with the face, letting the white eyespots wander jiggity-jaggedly all over the place. I could fuss, but I think I've learned enough from this activity. I'm ready for the next one!

Flash Camera

I think what really took this animation up a notch was the camera action. I animated the tiger moving across a larger than 480 pixel space and used Sham Bhangal's Flash Camera to follow his movement. This camera thingy is the best thing in ActionScript since play().

More Thumbs

I put the animation above, but in time I really did the following thumbnails first:



These thumbs were done while looking at the video frame by frame (see previous post).

Tiger Anatomy?

Ideally, before animating, I would have a solid idea of what the tiger is going to look like and prepare a guide to its form clearly delineated at all angles. Well, I decided that I didn't want to do that this time, so instead, despite it being wildly insufficient, I drew three pictures of tigers from pictures I found on Google Images:

Lessons Learned

-It's so important to do detailed thumbs. When I started the first animation I didn't have nearly enough information. I should really just be copying my thumbnail drawings directly into Flash. I shouldn't have to be figuring out what's happening while animating.
-Big white circles around the eyes is a small way to stylize something to look like a tiger.
-Never mess with tigers.