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Schooling for Flash Animation.

Tucom

Tucom

Cancelled
Original poster
Jul 29, 2006
1,252
312
Hey all,

I took a class on Adobe Flash a few years ago, and created some pretty awesome stuff with it. It's been a few years, but decided to get back into it, as it's something that I was really creative and great at, and just enjoy the idea of creating something visual that expresses an idea like that.


Anyways, I know I could either learn it on my own, or via the many tutorials out there, and most likely get to where I would want that way, however you never know how much going through a dedicated schooling program could help, and it's something I may want to look into.


Anyone know of any online courses or schools that have dedicated Flash programs? And this may lead to me eventually doing 3D graphics and animation.


Thanks in advance!
 
Wow, NO responses? Nothing? No one has any ideas?
 
I would push you in a slightly different direction. If you want to do motion graphics, take a class or do some tutorials on After Effects. If you want to learn to do 3d, do the same with Maya, 3DS Max, Zbrush etc.

Because of widespread lack of support Flash is, for all intents and purposes, out to pasture. The last holdout was ad banners, but in the past few months my clients have even stopped asking for those.

Flash is a powerful authoring tool, but you now will have very limited distribution for what you make. So, you can certainly learn flash for fun, but understand that it is a dead end.

To put things in context: I spent many years as a professional flash developer, and spent some time collaborating with Adobe's flash product team. I no longer even have the plug-in installed on any of my computers.
 
lucidmedia said:
I would push you in a slightly different direction. If you want to do motion graphics, take a class or do some tutorials on After Effects. If you want to learn to do 3d, do the same with Maya, 3DS Max, Zbrush etc.

Because of widespread lack of support Flash is, for all intents and purposes, out to pasture. The last holdout was ad banners, but in the past few months my clients have even stopped asking for those.

Flash is a powerful authoring tool, but you now will have very limited distribution for what you make. So, you can certainly learn flash for fun, but understand that it is a dead end.

To put things in context: I spent many years as a professional flash developer, and spent some time collaborating with Adobe's flash product team. I no longer even have the plug-in installed on any of my computers.
Click to expand...

Appreciate the response.

I would say Flash is FAR from being dead, though; it's still a supported, up to date program that now supports exporting or working within HTML5. I like Flash for creating 2D, 'hand-drawn' animations - that's what I'm after, at least right now. Is there another, just as capable industry supported standard that would work for that, like Flash does? That would be great. And do you know of any schooling for that app?

One thing I want to know is if there are any schools offering courses on Flash animation, or 2D animation with a different app that would work well for what Flash CC does.


Dislike flash player, yes, but I'm talking about Flash Professional.
 
If you are interested in hand drawn animation I would point you to Toon Boom. Their Studio product is a nice intro, and they have far more advanced tools for professional animators.

In terms of schools or programs that teach 2d animation, I can only talk about the schools that I teach at, but both have animation programs. Most good freestanding art schools have one. The day school programs are usually less focused on tools, but both have evening classes that are more production based. Depending on the nature of the program the classes may be VERY traditional (i.e. hand drawing and photo-stand) or very digital (3d work). Every program has a different philosophy.

The "best" animation program in the United States (in my opinion) would be the one at USC School for Cinematic Arts.
 
Excellent, thank you.

Are there any OTHER alternatives to Flash Professional that you know of, besides what you already mentioned? And do they run on Mac, and are they industry standard, at least to a degree?
 
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Tucom said:
Excellent, thank you.

Are there any OTHER alternatives to Flash Professional that you know of, besides what you already mentioned? And do they run on Mac, and are they industry standard, at least to a degree?
Click to expand...
Maya and Blender are great for animation... both are used professionally on the Mac.
 
960design said:
Maya and Blender are great for animation... both are used professionally on the Mac.
Click to expand...

Thanks, but again looking for 2D animation. Drawing. Nothing 3D, yet. I dabbled in Blender a little bit in the past and it's awesome, but right now just looking for 2D.
 
lucidmedia said:
If you are interested in hand drawn animation I would point you to Toon Boom. Their Studio product is a nice intro, and they have far more advanced tools for professional animators.
Click to expand...

Thanks again for the recommendations - further searching through and about Toon Boom I found it is totally killer on the Mac, and has won awards from Apple for the design of the software, and appears to be THE industry standard for exactly what I'm looking to do.


Thanks!
 
Tucom said:
Thanks, but again looking for 2D animation. Drawing. Nothing 3D, yet. I dabbled in Blender a little bit in the past and it's awesome, but right now just looking for 2D.
Click to expand...
I'm sorry for my suggestions, I understand you know more about this than I
 
960design said:
I'm sorry for my suggestions, I understand you know more about this than I
Click to expand...

Lol, ok.

I'm sorry I hurt your feelings :rolleyes:


What you suggested is FAR away from what I was asking about and looking for. I obviously DO know more, evidently :)


I wasn't snide or insulting, merely saying thanks for the suggestions, but those weren't what I was looking for. You obviously took that WAY too personally.
 
Tucom said:
Lol, ok.
What you suggested is FAR away from what I was asking about and looking for. I obviously DO know more, evidently :)
Click to expand...

Maya is used profesionally to create 2d animation as well as 3d, as are many other 3d programs. South Park is entirely done in Maya. Archer is a hybrid of drawings puppet-ized in After Effects and then brought into a 3d program. Most animation created today for broadcast touches 3d software somewhere in its pipeline even if the final result looks 2d.
 
lucidmedia said:
Maya is used profesionally to create 2d animation as well as 3d, as are many other 3d programs. South Park is entirely done in Maya. Archer is a hybrid of drawings puppet-ized in After Effects and then brought into a 3d program. Most animation created today for broadcast touches 3d software somewhere in its pipeline even if the final result looks 2d.
Click to expand...

Ok, but his response was hilariously defensive. Again, and as you seem to have understood initially, I was looking for 2D drawing.


Which I found Toon Boom to be ideal - thanks again for reminding me about it. I came across it a few times when researching this topic on my own, and didn't think much of it as I never heard of it before.

Maybe there was some confusion somewhere, even though I said Flash type, drawing etc. whichever the case, no need to get defensive or feel offended. CLARIFICATION is all it was, lol. Directed at 960.


Really interesting though; thanks for telling me about the 2D being done, at least in part, with 3D geared software. This field is rather new to me, hence why I wanted to start with 2D drawing animation initially. Toon Boom Studio has a 15 day trial, and after that, you have to pay or there's really no other way to learn it. It's definitely superior to Flash all things considered.


Is there any online schooling that you know of that teaches Toon Boom? I think Lynda.com has a few courses on it.
 
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Tucom said:
...And this may lead to me eventually doing 3D graphics and animation.
Click to expand...
Blender and Maya do 2D very well. There are tons of tutorials out there for them. While ToonBoom is quite amazing, it is also fairly pricey for someone used to the Flash pricing model.

I offered a free 2D to 3D learning path and a paid 2D to 3D learning path.
 
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