Chapter 3: Computer Digital Animation with Adobe Animate/Macromedia Flash

Digital Animation: Introduction

Digital animation is the process used for creating digital animated images where characters or objects can be moved following various computer techniques. In the early days to generate animation animator had to rely on stop motion animation, where hand drawn images were used or camera based techniques were used to generate animation.

Computer animation is essentially a successor of stop motion animation techniques. Various application is thus developed to meet various requirement of computer animation. For example a very basic 2D animation where only two dimensional animation need to be generated, Software like Macromedia Flash/Adobe animate, Krita, Synfig etc can be used. While for very advanced animation which are usually 3D animation, Software like Blender, Autodesk Maya, Autodesk 3Ds Max etc. can be used.

Below two examples are given for 2D and 3D animation.

   

2D animation Demo: Gateway Car

3D animation Demo: Spring using blender software

In your computer book, you will be presented with the concept of computer animation with a very nice software application called Adobe Animate which was once known as Macromedia Flash application. With this application animator can create some nice animation short if proper order of execution be followed with dedication as it is the kind of beginning level of animation making application.

Introduction to Macromedia Flash or Adobe Animate

In a very basic sense it is a animation software that can create flash based animation that utilizes timeframing and keyframing to create animation.

In this kind of software a very important components that are really need to be understood which is "Layer" that allows to create from simple to complex animation.

In Adobe Animate, objects can be placed on layer to keep them organized. The objects can be edited without affecting the objects on another layer. Layers are also helpful in creating complicated animation movies. They are helpful in working with multiple animations. Below a simple demonstration of three layers is given to showcase how multiple layers can be stacked together.

Three layers demonstration using three rectangles in Adobe Animate

Three layers in stacked and shown using three diagram illustration

In Adobe Animate, there are three types of layers utilized, these are, Normal Layers, Guide Layers and Mask Layers.

Normal Layer, are the general layer used for all regular use and editing.

Guide Layer on the other hand is used for serving as a point of reference to help you position items on the Stage. Flash doesn't include the graphic content of guide layers in the final exported movie. A guided layer is a layer linked to a regular guide layer

A mask layer hides layers linked to it.