OK gang, hopefully you have all managed to complete your Flash animations and assignments ready for handing in.

Now it's time to put your 3D modelling hats on. I have spent the break playing with some of my 3D modelling programs and the results can be seen in the new Bryce gallery.

See you all tomorrow night - Alan

Just a reminder, tomorrow night's class will be the last before the mid-semester break, there's no class Saturday.

This will also finish the animation module, you should now have the skills and knowledge required to complete the assignments for this module. If there is anything that you are not sure of, make sure that you ask tomorrow night.

Those who have not completed all assignments, can hand them in on the first class after the break.

After the break, we will be starting on the 3D modelling module. If you like, you can get the Raydream Manual from the library and have a read during the break.

If you want to improve your drawing and animation skills then check out The Animation Learner's Site. There is a wealth of information available.

Although most of this is presented using traditional animation techniques (pencil and paper) all of the methods involved can be adapted to your computer animations.

In last Saturday's class we had a look at some more of the drawing tools available in Macromedia Flash.

I also quickly demonstrated the principles involved in creating a scrolling background. I have added a Flash tutorial on scrolling backgrounds to the animation section. This expands more on how to get the background to loop successfully.

View the scrolling background tutorial

In tonight's class we started by briefly recapping how to create a motion tween. We also saw how it is possible to slide a whole motion tween backwards and forwards along the timeline to allow us to fine tune animation's with multiple layers and animation's. Once again, these skills should be practised until they are second nature.

Most of tonight's class was spent looking at some of the drawing tools available in Flash. Although there aren't many of them they have some very powerful features. If possible you should spend some time playing with those tools.

On Saturday we will have a look at some more of the drawing and painting tools that Flash offers.

OK, here are some of those web links that I have been mentioning in class.

Flashkit.Com has a lot of resources and tutorials though once again many of them are advanced ones.

What I suggest you do for now is just practice doodling with the drawing tools that we have looked at so far.

If you want some tutorials on drawing, here are a few to get you started

Gary Harbo has a site where you can learn to draw cartoon characters.

If you want to get really basic, then have a look at unclefred.com where you can learn to draw some very simple figures and animals in cartoon style.

See you Saturday
Alan

In Wednesday's class we had a look at what we want to achieve this semester, don't forget to keep referring back to the study guides if necessary.

Make sure that you understand each assessment, and don't be afraid to ask if you are not sure.

Today we had our first look at Macromedia Flash and everybody managed to create a simple animation and save it in a variety of formats.

The area that we concentrated on was creating motion tweens. These are probably the easiest animation's to create, those who struggled a bit today, will be wondering in a week or two why they had a problem getting it to work, believe me it happens every lesson, the first time student use Flash

The main thing is to remember that you need to do the steps in the order that Flash seems happiest with, not necessarily the ones that seem the most logical.

The other important thing is to practice those steps until they become second nature and you can do them without thinking.

Probably the biggest mistake that students make after they have grasped the fundamental skill of making a motion tween, is forgetting to use a separate layer for each object that is to be animated.

Remember to give each object its own layer and things will work smoothly.

As I mentioned in class, you can create some very effective animation's using nothing but motion tweens and a few layers, it is the method that I use for most of the simple animation's on my web site.

Just another reminder, when you are enrolled in the multimedia classes, you have long term access to the manuals for the programs. You do need to show your enrolment receipt to the librarian to be able to get these manuals. The only ones you need at the moment are

	Flash 5 - Using Flash 5
	The Raydream Studio Manual

Once you get the manuals remember to bring them to each class as we will want to refer to them during the lessons.

Happy animating