converting programmed animation to timeline animation

**katydove** · 01-21-2003, 09:32 AM

hi,

I have made a simple animation using programming in Flash 5. It is all contained within one frame on the timeline. It constantly repeats itself and plays fine as an swf file and as quicktime (6).
The problem is, I want to import it into an application (after effects)that doesn't understand flash programming. It imports it as one frame and nothing happens when I try to play it.

I think the solution may be in converting it to a timeline animation for about a minute which has a definite start and end point but I don't know how to do this.

any ideas?

katy

**boomph** · 01-21-2003, 10:23 AM

Unless someone comes up with a better answer, what you could try is stretching the original timeline out in the fla to roughly what the scripted anim runs. Then publish it out as a swf. Just keep tweaking until it all plays out.

Then take the swf and reimport into a new movie, set at the same fps and screen size as the original movie. There are downsides to this, in that you will lose symbol name info, any tweening or scripting info, may take up more filesize than the original, and it will all collapse into one layer in the timeline. But it should play exactly as it did in the swf.

May be more to it than that, and hopefully you will get better solutions from scripter types, but if all else fails, this should work for you if all you want to do is make a multi-frame publish of the original swf.

Hope that helps,
Boomph

**katydove** · 01-22-2003, 07:30 AM

Thanks for the suggestion boomph.
But, unfortunately it didn't work.

The finished thing needs to be a quicktime not an swf.
I tried stretching, exporting, importing as you suggested but there was nothing there when I imported it.

And when I exported it to quicktime after stretching etc there was nothing there either.

hmmmm

Katy

**boomph** · 01-22-2003, 03:26 PM

I think you misunderstood me. The point of exporting it as a swf is to reimport the swf into a new fla, and then publish the new fla as a quicktime, or whatever media you want. did you try that?

Once you import the swf, the new movie should be full of keyframes, animating your show one frame at a time. So as long as that conversion happens, you can re-export it to whatever format you want.

Give that a try, and if that doesn't work, then I don't know what to tell you.

Just trying to help,
Boomph

**katydove** · 01-22-2003, 07:07 PM

hi,

yes, I did as you said; extended, exported, imported.

The thing is the original animation doesn't play when I hit the play button in Flash. It needs to be published first.

When I re-import the extended version it comes up as multiple frames like you say but it it still doesn't play in flash but needs to be published again.
If I export this as a quicktime it plays a few seconds of blank then the animation only comes on when it reaches the end of the timeline.

It seems like there must be a simple solution to this but I just can't quite work out what it is.

thanks again for your help.
katy

**megatoon** · 01-22-2003, 07:22 PM

Any animation contained in MC's will not export to a time based format. boomph's suggestion is about the only thing that I can thing that hould work in theory.
Depending on how importrant this is you make want to invest in SWF2video.
http://www.flashants.com/root/swf2video.shtml

Thsi would export to to avi you would then need to convert it to mov in a video application. I'm unaware of any Mac versions that do the samething. But I'll take a look

**boomph** · 01-22-2003, 07:25 PM

Is it possible for you to upload your fla here? Or maybe an example fla of what you are talking about, just to tinker with? Would love to see exactly what's going on, so I can learn for myself if there is some factor I am not taking into consideration... (which may very well be the case!)

I swear, sometimes I learn more by answering questions than asking them! And if I do not find an answer for you, then at least I can commiserate with your situation!

Hope I can help,
Boomph

**katydove** · 01-23-2003, 04:03 PM

its too big to attach here!
maybe I can e-mail it to you or something?
K.

**boomph** · 01-23-2003, 04:31 PM

ok, send it to thepixelvixen1@aol.com . Would like to see what you're up to!

**saracita** · 02-06-2003, 10:51 AM

Just wondering what happened with this problem, if you guys ever solved it?

Because I am having the same issue right now:

Trying to convert an SWF film with "embedded" movieclips (a movieclip within a movieclip) into a .MOV or even .AVI so that we can edit it in Aftereffects.

A friend of mine said that you can solve this by exporting as a .mov (Quicktime) file, then you will see the "embedded" animations. This file is however quite small and the animations are still vector ones - not bitmapped, so the file cannot be imported into a video editing program, such as Aftereffects.

But, he says you can use Quicktime Pro to convert the "flashified" .mov file (meaning small, vector based and un-importable) to a regular .mov file (meaning large, bitmap/pixel based, and importable).

I guess in short it does the same thing as the FlashAnts thing does...

http://www.flashants.com/download/do...html#swf2video

SO - anyone know if this Quicktime Pro thing works? or is FlashAnts better?

Thanks for your advice.

Sarah

**katydove** · 02-09-2003, 10:51 AM

Hi Sarah,

I still haven't managed to get to the bottom of this one.

I wondered if Quicktime Pro would work too but don't have a copy of it yet so haven't been able to find out .

As far as Flash Ants is concerned it only seems to be available for PC and I have Mac so I can't give you any info about that either.

Sorry not to be of more help!

Let me know if you have any major breakthroughs and I'll do the same for you!

Katy

**prdesign** · 03-16-2003, 11:51 PM

Hi folks-

I'm not sure if you've found a solution yet...I'm trying to do the same thing.

I have QT Pro (get it, it's worth it for $30) ,AFX 5.5, and I'm on a MAC.

The best solution I found requires AFX 5.5 to import swf. I extend the root timeline in Flash, export an swf then import into AFX. This gives you a timeline in AFX, but I still have trouble getting the in/out points precisely where I need. It's very rudimentary.

Hope this helps. Let me know if you've found a better solution.

-paul

**saracita** · 03-17-2003, 04:37 AM

Actually I got a copy of Quicktime Pro and it's worked out pretty well. I have several "movieclips within movieclips" and everything plays fine. The only problem I had was that in QT you have to export the .MOV *as the film is playing* so at first my films missed some frames in the beginning. So I just made a few seconds of black before the action starts and now it works fine.

I haven't tried the AFX thing, Paul. Do you know what their URL is so we can read more about it? Is it free?

I just think it's a bit ridiculous that Flash themselves couldn't have built this into the software!

sarah

**prdesign** · 03-17-2003, 09:29 AM

Sarah-

I actually thought you we're already using After Effects. It is certainly not free--the most expensive software I own. Try $1,700 for the production bundle! You can also buy the standard version for about $700. Sorry that isn't good news for you.

-paul

**saracita** · 03-17-2003, 01:19 PM

Aha okay, I am familiar with After Effects but don't have it. I didn't know that AFX was After Effects.

It's weird, the editor I work with told me that the .MOV file I had exported from Flash didn't work in AFX, so that's why I ended up doing the Quicktime Pro thing. Cool to know that it works okay after all in AFX.

sarah

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