ANIMATION WORLD MAGAZINE - ISSUE 5.05 - AUGUST 2000

Getting Started On-Line

by Kwesi Ako Kennedy & James Dalby

Kwesi Ako Kennedy.
James Dalby.

Traditional animators rejoice! The Web industry is hot and hungry for on-line content, and Flash makes it possible for anyone with an idea to produce an animated skit out of their own home successfully. I've seen some great content come out of a studio the size of a closet. If you have a mid-range PII PC or PowerPC Mac, scanner and modem, then you're prepared to mark your name onto the Internet walk of fame.

Independent animation doesn't necessarily need to end up at a festival to be viewed by the public. If you have a Web site, your audience will have instant access to your work 24 hours a day worldwide. Millions of users are logging on and exploring the Net every second. With a few carefully placed links on other sites sending users to your content, hits to your Web site could reach thousands in days. If you feel you're ready to take a step above the rest, submit it to a content distribution site such as Atomfilms.com. Afterward you can think about how many thousands of Netizens watch your content while you sleep.

The price of a workstation capable of Flash design has plummeted in the last year. With the convenience of a monthly payment option, a decent machine can be purchased for as little as US$50 per month. As far as Internet access is concerned, a DSL or cable modem connection is recommended, but not required. If you're comfortable with drawing on a tablet, Flash offers specific settings that register pen pressure for calligraphic painting.

Aardman Animations' Angry Kid shows that mixing media on the Web creates some funny effects. © and TM Aardman Animations Ltd. 2000.

Flash 4 runs about $250.00 and is quite easy to learn. You won't lose any hours at work because you can accomplish all that you need on your own free time. Flash can also import a slew of picture file formats, such as Adobe Illustrator, Quicktime video, GIF, JPEG and more. Therefore, using other programs to create your artwork is always an option. Audio software for voice and foley can be downloaded for free at any shareware distribution site (i.e. www.download.com). Geocities.com offers a free 15 Mb. Web site, and free custom e-mail addresses come at about a dime a dozen.

The Tough Step
The "how to" of making your own animation shop out of the home does not end at providing yourself with the proper equipment and materials. Once you have surrounded yourself with everything you need to create animation for the Internet, you should also take the time to familiarize yourself with all of the different things being done for the Internet as well. This should help you to determine the limits of the medium as well as how far you're capable of going with your own material.

For example, take time to see how different Flash animated productions run on different speed machines. Does a tweened pan of a gradient filled background work well or are the results you see in other people's work telling you that this is a bad idea? Take what you find and use it to your advantage by either correcting the mistakes made by others and improving on what you have seen in your viewings. This should help you to determine what tricks and techniques will work the best with what you have planned.

One of the biggest problems we have on dialog heavy productions is figuring out an efficient way to lip sync the character's mouths. We noticed in rival productions, while art and animation value was very high, lip sync was either very poor or avoided. This was due to limitations of the software or the problems encountered with streaming a tight series of images over the Internet.

 
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