FLASH ANIMATION

A Flash animation or Flash cartoon is an animated film which is created by Adobe Flash
or similar animation software and often distributed in the SWF file format. The term Flash
animation not only refers to the file format but to a certain kind of movement and visual style.
With dozens of Flash animated television series, countless more Flash animated television
commercials, and award-winning online shorts in circulation, Flash animation is currently
enjoying a renaissance.Flash animation refers to an animated movie or clip created using
Adobe Flash software (formerly MacromediaFlash). Flash animation can be created using
Timeline in the Flash workspace or with the help of ActionScript code.

In the late 1990s, when for most Internet users,

bandwidth was still at 56 kbit/s, many

Flash animation artists employed limited animation or cutout animation when creating
projects intended for web distribution. This allowed artists to release shorts and interactive
experiences well under 1 MB, which could stream both audio and high-end animation. Flash
is able to integrate bitmaps and other raster-based art, as well as video, though most Flash
films are created using only vector-based drawings which often result in a somewhat clean
graphic appearance. Some hallmarks of poorly produced Flash animation are jerky natural
movements (seen in walk-cycles and gestures), auto-tweened character movements, lip-sync
without interpolation, and abrupt changes from front to profile view.

The most basic example of a Flash animation is the tweened animation method. In the
tweened method, the appearance of movement is created using the start and ending
keyframes. The user creates an animation effect by varying the size, color and rotation of the
object between the keyframes.

Tweened animations in Flash have several options including motion tweens, shape tweens
and traditional frame-by-frame animations. In a motion tween, Flash tweens the size, color
and rotation of an object between two keyframes. The shape tween effect makes one shape
appear to change into another between two keyframes. The effect is similar to morphing and
also allows users to tween multiple shapes at one time. A frame-by-frame Flash animation is
used for creating complex animations. The user modifies the movement of the image in every
frame.

There are several simple animation effects available in Flash. One of them is the Timeline
effect. There are three types of Timeline effects such as blur, expand and explode. Users can
employ Timeline to animate an object in a few easy steps. The object is selected and any one
effect is applied to it. The parameters can be changed to modify the effect. Timeline allows
users to create animation easily.

These methods are used to create basic Flash animations. However, animations can also be
created using the ActionScript language. ActionScript allows users to create more complex
animations and provides more flexibility to users. They can script animations using
different coding techniques and use pre-built classes and simpler codes to create animations
with ease.

Today, many users create Flash animations with ActionScript codes to improve the
consistency and performance of the animation. A Flash animation created using ActionScript
code, reduces the file size of the completed application. It also reduces the work load of the
animator because the code can be implemented quickly and reused in other instances.

Flash animations are mainly displayed on the Internet. They are often referred to as online
toons or webtoons. A Flash animation is mainly saved in .swf file format. Flash files are
generally smaller in size, ensuring quick download times. The fact that Flash can only allow
the creation of two dimensional animations is not true. Nowadays, an online Flash animation
tutorial also teaches how to create three dimensional animations with ease. Flash animations
are typically distributed by way of the World Wide Web, in which case they are often referred
to as Internet cartoons, online cartoons, or webtoons. Web Flash animations may be
interactive and are often created in a series. A Flash animation is distinguished from a
Webcomic, which is a comic strip distributed via the Web, rather than an animated cartoon.
Flash animation is now taught in schools throughout the UK and can be taken as a GCSE and
A-level.