why does my FLASH, look like TRASH@#$!@

You have done it in flash. nice. your can artfully ease in or out your fighters. With variable motion they may jump to life. Also you can add gravity effects as they are flying upwards (that's easing out) to provide a more natural look.

Gabe I made up a mock up that may help you. On the last frame there's a link to the source files.

http://www.tco.net/~phacker/AWN/nuclear.html

Took me a second to notice the pump-jerk action was them pointing at the subtly flashing names.

I love that character design for some reason.

I know it's not perfect, it was just a quicky little thing I put together to show Gabe that you can do things with timing, even at 12 fps.

If it was going to be something that I used, I'd finesse it a little more and maybe have atoms going around the Nuclear name and little puffs of smoke coming from the Nitro one.

Didn't want to use his Characters for copyright reasons so threw together a quick version of my own.

Your welcome Gabe. I learned a lot by tearing open source stuff apart that I got over at FlashKit. Flashkit is one of the best resources ever for new Flashers. I am just trying to pass the sharing on. Remember that when you are rich and famous...always take the time to help out someone else. Pass It Forward!

Pat

In the publish settings under Html choose exact fit, not show everything.

"an idiot's solution..."

I was assuming he was referring to the jaggedness of the motion tweens and not his animation skills...

Timing, and that's something you only learn through experience.

Motionmiltia, sorry guess that was a rather harsh way to put it. I apologize.

Gabe you upload the html and the swf into the same directory, then when you refer to the url you call the html file not the swf. The html will load the swf.

Animate it at 30 frames per second.

In this case upping the frame rate is just an idiot's solution. Learn about timing your actions. And most of that can be accomplished by shortening the length of your actions on the timeline. This is an intro. And with Flash if he's using it to introduce another piece at a different framerate you are going to create a conflict by just upping the frame rate. Try adding a few more keyframes and shortening the length of time they appear in the timeline. It's timing!

yeah, I think Phacker's right. The timing can be a lot better. Alittle ease-in here, a little ease-out there, and it'll feel much better. The timing is also pretty evenly spaced. I also think it's your color choice. That bright yellow background is pretty jaring to the eyes. If you muted the color down a bit, that should help a bit too.

Aloha,
the Ape

I'm going to chime in here with my 2 cents.

If I were to have my character in a flying stance such as demonstrated, I would have them remain flying through the magic of a repeat background....or flying off screen entirely. Doesn't matter ease-in, to be in a flying position and then stop really adds a static quality.

the path of action.

you have a pose that curves downward. since you're not 'animating' it--
just moving it around-- it only works for a path that matches the curve.

but since you made it follow a path that curves in the opposite direction
(curving upward) but did not change the pose curve-- you lose visual
smoothness.

hence the feeling of choppiness.

drawings look a bit primitive too. but it maybe style.;)

Another thing to also consider, is that the dimensions of your movie are really big.
Generally, the smaller the size of your movie, the easier it is for the flash player to play back the animations smoother, quicker and less choppy.
Yes, there are some animation techniques you can do to get better animation that have already been mentioned that you should do as well, but if you keep your movies size dimensions down as well, it should help the flash player to play your animations smoother.

Frame rate is the least concern. Yes, all that has been mentioned can help. It just boils down to experience. You'l get better the more you do it. Don't just do it. Study timing and drawing. Look at a boffo Superhero opening title you like a think about why you like it. Try to emulate it.

As for Flash, I'm getting like Times Roman font in your title...not very dynamic let alone the anemic timing for a heroic opening. Break apart your fonts otherwise what a veiwer sees on a differnet computer is the closest system font.

Just to put my money where my mouth is....gosh I hate to show this becasue it will be assumed that I copied...but I certainly didn't frame per frame....It is another parody of The Incredibles title done for a comcial church video skit ( live actors)...of course I had to make it very similar and approximate the style. Please see it as a homage. I hope it is an example of a title and timing and animation and drawing coming into play:
http://www3.telus.net/drard/super06.html
Oh yeh...it is 30fps and published at a smaller size. That does help this.

As for Flash, I'm getting like Times Roman font in your title...not very dynamic let alone the anemic timing for a heroic opening. Break apart your fonts otherwise what a veiwer sees on a differnet computer is the closest system font.

Actually the font used in the .swf file is embedded and does not need to be an installed font on a users computer. I believe that he actually just chose a simple font for his titles. You are correct however when it comes to the fla file. You do need to have that same font on your computer otherwise a default font will show up.

Thanks, BH! I never knew that about SWFs... I always thought the FLA problem carried with them, and you either had to play it safe or use graphics for nicer fonts...

Yeah, it's a nice feature so that you don't have to break the text apart which only adds to the file size of the movie.

Something I just noticed Gabe the line width on the two characters doesn't match. Looks like you have one set for hairline and one set for 1.0. That's easy to fix, but something you have to watch if you want your characters to integrate well.

Actually the font used in the .swf file is embedded and does not need to be an installed font on a users computer. I believe that he actually just chose a simple font for his titles. You are correct however when it comes to the fla file. You do need to have that same font on your computer otherwise a default font will show up.

Well maybe you can try it. I was showing a flash animation swf of mine a different location off the net. When it came to the credits it was this plain font."Hey that's not my font."
The young animator much well versed in Flash than I, even after two years of dabbling, told me to break apart (ctrl b) the fonts.
Try it. Use an odd custom-like font, don't break it apart, go to your library or internet cafe and view the swf online and tell me what you see.

Straight from the help files guys:

About font outlines and device fonts

When you publish or export a movie containing static text, Flash MX creates outlines of the text and uses the outlines to display the text in the Flash Player.

When you publish or export a movie containing dynamic or input text fields, Flash MX stores the names of the fonts used in creating the text. The Flash Player uses the font names to locate identical or similar fonts on the user's system when the movie is displayed. You can also export font outlines with dynamic or input text, by clicking the Character option in the Property inspector and selecting options. See Setting dynamic and input text options.

Not all fonts displayed in Flash can be exported as outlines with a movie. To verify that a font can be exported, you can use the View > Antialias Text command to preview the text; jagged type indicates that Flash does not recognize that font's outline and will not export the text.

For static horizontal text only, you can use special fonts in Flash called device fonts as an alternative to exporting font outline information. Device fonts are not embedded in the Flash SWF file. Instead, the Flash Player uses whatever font on the local computer most closely resembles the device font. Because device font information is not embedded, using device fonts yields a somewhat smaller Flash movie file size. In addition, device fonts can be sharper and more legible than exported font outlines at small point sizes (below 10 points). However, because device fonts are not embedded, if users do not have a font installed on their system that corresponds to the device font, text may look different than expected on a user's system.

Flash includes three device fonts, named _sans (similar to Helvetica or Arial), _serif (similar to Times Roman), and _typewriter (similar to Courier). To specify a font as a device font, you select one of the Flash device fonts in the Property inspector. During movie playback, Flash selects the first device font that is located on the user's system. You can specify text set in a device font to be selectable, so that users can copy and paste text that appears in your movie. See Using device fonts (static horizontal text only).