New book on "Flash Cartooning"

[Arni Mator]

Has anyone read this new book on Flash Cartooning by Mark Clarkson? So far, there's been only 1 review from Barnes and Nobles. They rated it a five star; mind you the price of the book is pretty expensive! If anyone has already come across this book, can you please share your critiques and your own opinion? Especially CNO and Ibis (since you're coming up with your own, it'll be most interesting to hear your unbias take on this one)? This is so far the only book that have surfaced almost exclusively dedicated to cartooning animation.
[Edited by Arni Mator on 06-01-2001 at 11:56 PM]

[Naldoman]

Flash Cartooning by Mark Clarkson

The Amazon.com listing has a number of consumer reviews about this book, mostly in praise of it. An important item mentioned is that the book is written for people who are familiar with Flash, not really for beginners.

Another book was listed at Amazon.com:
Flash 5 Cartoons and Games f/x and Design
by Bill Turner, James Robertson, Richard Bazley

It's rated 4 stars, and is also not for beginners. This books covers animation and game design techniques.

Hmmm...I think I need to buy some books!!

[KingJoe]

I've read the book. It's pretty good, though very basic. What it really did was get me interested in all forms of animation! Right now I'm reading "The Illusion of Life", the Disney cartooning book...

[metamorphosis]

Are you interested in learning how to draw or do animation in flash?

[CNO]

I'll say this - while I haven't read the book through it's entirety, it looks like a good book to have if you can afford it. Otherwise, there are plenty of sites on the web that have great info for animators - Ibis' site at http://www.flashfilmmaker.com has some of the best tutorials on the web (and as I understand it, he helped author some parts of that book), and you're on another of the best resources for up-to-the-minute info and answers to any questions you might have along the way.

[xup878]

i don't tend to use books to help me, i always skip right to the last page..... instead tend to use resources like here to give me lil hints... then u've just gotta keep practicing till ur good at it

animation is pretty hard, so i think if u get a book on animation bringing that skill into flash isn't that difficult....

[persistanceofvision]

Originally posted by metamorphosis
Are you interested in learning how to draw or do animation in flash?

For me, the two are inexorably linked. Drawing leads to greater understanding of the principles of movement, which leads to better Flash animation. As one is learned, the other improves.

[Ibis Fernandez]

Here's an totally unbiased suggestion (**wink**)

Flash Animation and Cartooning: A Creative Guide

Macromedia Flash Animation and Cartooning: A creative Guide by Ibis Fernandez[\url]



-Ibis
[Edited by CNO on 12-22-2001 at 10:51 PM]

[CNO]

Hey Ibis, quit spamming the boards.

Actually, I'll be picking up the book myself soon and will post a review on the boards when I'm through it.

[toony]

I've read the book, got some good pointers and i agree with kingjoe is basic, i would say its worth a buy.
A few weeks ago I got 'flash studio secrets' book, thats a good book with some good info.

[dainbramaged]

I haven't read the book, but I have chatted with the fellow. He seems like a nice guy. He frequents another forum where he pops up pretty regularly to answer questions. That would seem to be a bonus--author on hand to help you work through sticky spots.

Dain

[Coffee Cat]

The only thing that much different about flash than animating 2d in any other manner (whether its hand drawn and shot on film, or done as individual layers and exported from photoshop for rolling in premeire) is techniques on how to make the file size smaller if bandwidth, net congestion and more accessibility on the web is a concern of yours. If you're not really worried about file size reduction methods, optiming for look above all else, then standard animation techniques are used in flash. You set a frame rate, key frame to it.... tween anything that merely moves/slides like backgrounds and such, and animate seperate things on layers. Not biggie.

I'd suggest using what you already know about regular old character animation when you use flash. For information about traditional character animation there are billions of sources. My learning technique is merely to get inspired somehow, maybe watching a really good animated movie will spark something.... and then what do I do.... maybe I sketch if I want to develop a new character. Maybe I write dialog out if I have a scene I specifically want to get down on paper. But the main thing is I lay down, cover my eyes and picture my inspired animation over and over again.

The real key to animation is timing. Most people who "can't" time well simply haven't envisioned the animation well. I've seen aniamtion that whizzes by, almost so fast you think they just drew a storyboard and film it frame for frame. I've also seen animation that moves really really slow because they over drew. All I do is "see" it over and over again so I know what moves when and how..... I slow it down frame for frame in my mind and I speed it back up again. Everyone will think you're super lazy doing this cause it looks like you're just relaxing... but when you finally sit up and churn out so kick ass animation it will all be worth it.

Oh, another early animation pitfall I've seen. You know those spinning legs or "blurred multiple legs" you see in toony animation before. Well, prior to animation many of us draw still versions of this, right? A charcter running that has seven or so little balloon looking legs under him. Well, I've seen before attempts at animating that where the animator simply did dozens to hundreds of frames with the mulitple legs. So did the final animation look like blurred motion????? Nope. It looked like the character was standing still or floating and simply HAD a bunch of legs. When animating this effect you need to still think about motion and vary the placement of the legs and where you draw the multiple legs and in what positions and where you blur the legs so that when veiwed at high speed it simulates a frantic cyclical movement.

I'm working on a visual guide to early animation for the character animator taht will explain such things as this so that people knew to the artform won't get confused or exasperated with these early pitfalls. But to answer your question: flash animation is typically no different than any other animation unless you're involving actionscripting for some reason (a dynamic choose your own adventure novel come to life, etc.)

Coffee Cat

[CRjr]

I went to the bookstore, as I had been given a couple of gift certificates. I had looked at both "Flash 5 Cartoons and Games f/x and Design" and "Flash 5 Cartooning". My first impression was that Flash 5 Cartooning was a simpler book, but that simple approach makes it very easy to read and comprehend. It's written in a very friendly way. Very accessible. Both books covered a lot of stuff that I already knew, so I decided I wasn't going to buy either of them. Both books are around $50 plus tax, at least at the bookstore I bought them at. I spent about an hour at the bookstore taking in an overview of the content of both books. I kept finding nice little tips and tricks that I just hadn't thought of in "Flash 5 Cartooning".

My primary focus has always been traditional cel animation. This book definitely is more geared toward that. The very simplicity of the book is what's so nice about it. I don't know if it's "for" beginners, but it certainly could be. It's a very easy and inspirational read. I've taken a few of the simple ideas from the book and given them my own little twist. It's a great launch pad. The concepts are easy to grasp and I've always thought that was important. Once you really "get" the basic idea, you can always take it up a notch.

Again, I every time I was going to lay the book down I ended up finding some little tid-bit that was useful.

Suffice to say, I returned later that night to buy the book and I'm very glad I did. By the way, the physical construction of the book itself is very good. Also for what it's worth, the other book I mentioned "Flash 5 Cartoons and Games f/x and Design" both copies had pages that were losing the binding.