FMP Blog post 3: Deciding on animation and style

For this blog, I will explain why I chose to do my animation in Adobe Flash.

Choosing the program

Because this was my FMP, we were advised to use the programs we're most comfortable with using to make our projects. I had decided to use Flash because I have a lot of knowledge and experience with doing Flash animations well in it and knew what tools I would use to make the characters. Below are a list of different programs I could've used but explained why I chose not to.

Cinema 4D

I have had at least two full years of using Cinema 4D to model and only at least one year experience of animating in it. If I was to use Cinema 4D, I would need longer to make models of the ITMA characters as I have little experience in modelling, rigging and weighting characters.

Maya

I found that Maya is a great program to make animations in, but the fact that I have less than one year's experience in all areas, this would be a program that I would've had more difficulty with. The other reason not choosing this program is the same as Cinema 4D, where I would need more time to make, rig and weight the character.

Adobe After Effects

Having experience of using after effects to create animations, I felt that this program would've been a good option, but there would be no support from anyone else as no one as well as me knows an awful lot about the program. I also was drawn away from using it as the animations I have seen animators make from them would not be great.

Adobe Photoshop

One of my projects last year consisted of using Photoshop to do an animation in, but I had only managed to make a small part of a well timed animation, and it was only making a character talk. I then decided not to use this program.

The Style

I had trouble of thinking of how I'd animate this project; doing frame by frame animation or auto tweened movements. My tutor had picked up on how I made the animatic and suggested for me to do it as a motion comic style. I studied motion comics and found that this was a good style to do my animation as it would save time and incorporate with the Superhero theme. Because I didn't want to do this in After Effects, I decided to do this on Flash using alphas and tweens to help move the characters.