Welcome
Adobe Flash Professional is the industry standard for web based animation and is an excellent vector graphic drawing tool. Flash can be a challenge to master but it is my student's favorite class and I am seeing the fastest enrollment growth in animation. I start my course by weaving traditional drawing skills with computer based drawing skills (Flash). This builds my student art vocabulary and helps make my traditional art students more comfortable with the medium. Once they have a solid understanding of the interface and how to create the art work they need I then introduce movement or animation. Again we start with traditional hand drawn animation and then transition into how to animate using a computer. I finally introduce some very basic action script in my first semester class. Most of the lessons are designed for Flash CS3 but I have added a few new lessons targeted to the new features in Flash CS4.
- Course Outline
- Keyboard Shortcuts: Adobe CS3 | Mr. D's Essential Flash Shortcuts
Learning Resources
I have created Flash based tutorials for all the projects we will cover. This method of teaching/learning might be new to you but I think you may find it extremely powerful once you get into it. By putting all my lessons into this web site you have control of your learning. You can go as fast or slow as your learning style requires. You can stop the lesson at any time and practice the techniques or ask me for more clarification. Once you have watched a tutorial, make sure to take the time to practice what you just learned to ensure that you understand the concept.
Software
Adobe Flash CS4: Enjoy a fast, fluid workflow with Adobe® Flash® CS4 Professional software, featuring a streamlined user interface, advanced video tools, and impressive integration with related software.http://www.adobe.com/products/flash/?promoid=BPDEE
Adobe Flash Player: The tutorial in this workshop require Adobe Flash player be installed on your computer. If you don't have the latest version of Flash you can download it at http://www.adobe.com/.
Copyright 2008
Joe's Animation Foundations Class Web Site: We use Microsoft Sharepoint in our district so everything is housed in a sharepoint site.