Posted by warnwood on March 17, 2000 at 11:22:48:
In Reply to: Flash Animators posted by Herb Kent on March 16, 2000 at 18:37:30:
Maybe this information has been posted before, but it bears repeating:
Although I’m not a big fan of Flash animation (at least the stuff I’ve seen so far), readers of this board who are interested in finding out about this software should know that they don’t necessarily have to spring for the full $300 program in order to try it out. You can download a thirty day free trial version by going to Macromedia’s site (the URL is listed below.) Thirty days should be more than enough time to develop a short entry for the Animation Celebration competition (you’re probably a little late for the Playboy contest, deadline, April 1.) With job opportunites opening up in this field, you owe it to yourself to at least take a look:
http://www.macromedia.com/software/flash/trial/
And if you find the interface a little too clunky or unfamiliar, you might want to try out the beta version of Adobe’s new competing product LiveMotion (it exports to the .swp format as well) – this one’s free, too, and you can keep it forever! It’s probably a little buggy, but that’s what betas are for. Go to the Adobe URL listed below:
http://www.adobe.com/products/livemotion/main.html
Lastly, a lot of people seem to be working on export utilities to Flash that will allow for more fluid, less cut-out-like animation. Here’s a site that's giving away a demo version of a program called "Moho" that treats 2D stuff as if it were 3D, adding IK bones to groups of vectors and using curves to tweak the animation. You’ll need Windows to run it, but a (buggy) demo can be had at:
http://www.lostmarble.com/
And, once again, it’s FREE – just like Larry Miller’s mattresses.