Learning Flash CS4

Inverse Kinematics in Flash CS4: FOTB’09

Rich — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 23:53:51 +0000

Here are the files from my Flash on the Beach 2009 presentation on IK in Flash CS4 Professional. I’ll try to add some personal notes during the conference, but here’s a description of the session to get you going.

Lead the Hand and the Arm will Follow: Inverse Kinematics in Flash CS4

Flash CS4 introduced inverse kinematics to your animating arsenal* which allows you to create skeletal structures, or armatures, for controlling animations. This session will explore a variety of creative and problem-solving tasks using armatures, and focus on both timeline- and ActionScript-based solutions.

Create runtime interactions like robotic arms, cranes, and similar simulations, without a lick of code.
Speed up character animations by animating IK poses. Create walk cycles that are more appealing than standard tweens, but at a fraction of the time of using frame-by-frame techniques.
Give that snivelling worm a spine. Morph shapes with internal skeletons and adjust the way the morph performs by binding bones to specific control points.
Place your armatures anywhere you like. Don’t be restricted to the first frame of the timeline.
Control your armatures with ActionScript.

Use inverse kinematics to control your animations and let Flash do the math for you. Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto!

* Go Arsenal!

Note: There is a file embedded within this post, please visit this post to download the file.

Flash CS4 Tips and Tricks

Flash CS4 Tips and Tricks

Rich — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 15:33:31 +0000

Here are the slides and available source files from my “Flash CS4 Tips and Tricks” session at Flashbelt 2009.

Note: There is a file embedded within this post, please visit this post to download the file.

If you were there, thanks for coming. And thanks to Dave Schroeder for making this year’s Flashbelt so good. It’s a can’t-miss conference.

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Flash CS4 Update

Rich — Sat, 16 May 2009 18:52:51 +0000

An important update to Flash CS4 is available, so download it now and update your version today.

Flash Technical Product Manager Richard Galvan has written a nice list of bug fixes that were included in this update. In general, this 10.0.2 update makes Flash CS4 more stable and improves performance, especially for large files. It’s a must have.

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Oops! There it went…

Rich — Thu, 07 May 2009 22:14:50 +0000

UPDATE: All chapter source files are up and available on the Downloads page .

TEMPORARY NOTE: We had an unfortunate incident when migrating the companion site from our staging server to the live server and lost everything. All the essential sections are now live, and we’ve begun recreating the posts. We hope to everything live soon.

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