Motion tweens and 3d...

[Jeemanx]

So, I finally bit the bullet and started to use some of the advanced functionality in Flash CS4.

I have a side-on shot of an SUV type vehicle and I want the doors to open out like cupboard doors - like the ones on the old Cadillac in the first Matrix movie..



There's no way I'm hand drawing that on singles - and I don't want to go the 'full 3d' route - though I have the skills if it came to it.

I used motion tweens and the 3d manipulator to move the doors and also animated a 'return' behind them to give the (2d) doors some thickness.

Here's a short (4mb) quicktime movie showing the test piece working.

I've now got to go back in and give it a hand-drawn look to match the rest of the cartoon.

[ASP]

It looks good and very smooth, but yes, it does stand out far too much compared to the jeep. That and it's far too slow. I mean, if you drew it by hand, just make it a 5 frame ease out animation. If done right, it will look good and it won't stand out too much.

Frankly, the 3D feature in CS4 is very limited and difficult to use to it's fullest, because any 3D animation is too perfect compared to 2D. I only see that tool as being useful for putting animated movie clips in perspective, but the fact that it only works with movie clips and AS3 is enough for me to stay away from it.

Good job though. Even though it stands out, you did the animation pretty swiftly. The only glitch I notice is the 'side' of the door doesn't seem to sync it's corners too well with the door.

[Jeemanx]

Thanks for your comments Asp!

I plan to totally replace all of the car artwork with hand-drawn lines (like the wheels) so the final scene will look less '3d'.

This is for a kind of set-pice reveal where we'll see a powerful villain for the first time - so the doors will open slowly (probably with a little timing offset) with a ppssshhhhhhh noise and possibly some dry ice spilling out. The interior will be completely dark, and our bad guy will emerge from that.

It's for the Buggane character, seen in the end credits of this first episode:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llP8kJ_XhW8

[Jeemanx]

Here's the next step - matching the design and colour to previous scenes..



... and a test movie with the new hand-drawn doors is here.

I'll look into adding some reflected light shapes moving across the doors when they open but otherwise I'm pretty happy with how it's turning out. It fits quite well with the other scenes.

[ASP]

Wow that looks pretty good. Nice 'rough' graphics. I take it that the doors are still 3D, but by doing that, the blue lines thickness will shrink and by the end, they'll look totally different.

I'm not sure if there is a line texture to make it look rough, but what I would do is within that movie clip, on a new layer, draw the outline of the doors with a rough texture and shape tween them to slowly get bigger (the duration of the door animation), followed by a stop(); script.

Might be a little too much work for a simple movement like that, but I just hate seeing lines getting thinner when an object is shrunk in width or height. It just seems like such an amateur glitch to me.

[Jeemanx]

Might be a little too much work for a simple movement like that, but I just hate seeing lines getting thinner when an object is shrunk in width or height. It just seems like such an amateur glitch to me.

That might be an idea... Ordinarily I probably wouldn't - I've spent quite some time setting this up already - but this is a pivotal scene, so might be worth the extra work.