Learning Flash Animation Homework

The Context

Did this as homework for a class at the University of Utah that taught After Effects, Flash, and other things. This project had to be done in Flash, and had to have at least one minute of animation and include interactive aspects. The project was supposed to address an "issue" or modern social concern, and I chose plastics recycling... although admittedly this little animation dealie is an oversimplification of the subject.

The Behind-the-Scenes

All assets were drawn in Illustrator CS5, sometimes with an Intuos3 graphics tablet, and copied-and-pasted into Flash CS5. (Drawing in Flash is a headache! Aiya~) The sound effects came from freesound.org and the robot vocals were recorded by me and pitched up with an old copy of Amadeus Pro. The songs at the beginning were done in GarageBand using a custom software instrument. See if you can spot any Homestar Runner -esque techniques in the animation! There's a few.

The Ranting

First of all, I have to say that I found working with Flash extremely frustrating, especially at first. Having grown up with PhotoShop and Illustrator, I kind of assumed Adobe software uses a similar paradigm all around, but I found Flash largely unapproachable -- After Effects was much more intuitive in comparison. (I realize that Flash wasn't always an Adobe product, but I guess I thought they would have brought it into line when they bought Macromedia.)

The Rejoicing

By the end of it I definitely knew how to use Flash. I certainly don't know very much ActionScript, but I know how to get what I want from Flash on the whole (though it still takes a while).

P.S.

There are twenty-two intro songs in all. Who can name them all?