Any Flash animators here?

[Random Axe]

Dude, thanks for the awesome summary. I think I'll have to upgrade my computer for this. I know I can do the design part, record vocals and come up with some pretty funny stuff. I may try partnering up with someone here local too. Too bad there's only 24 hours in a day...

Scott

For that style you don't necessarily need Flash, and even if you do decide to use Flash you're going to be using basics of that program which aren't too difficult to learn, so I would think you should be able to get away with some simple online tutorials.

Maybe you should email the guy who made those and ask what program he's using? In any case it shouldn't matter too much. You could do stuff like that with a few different programs and they all pretty much work the same.

Like MegoScott said it will take a fair amount of work, but most of the movement is their mouths talking, and mouths like that don't require in-between frames. Just an inventory of mouth images matching the vowels and consonants. They might even use the same mouths for the different characters.

Here's a quick outline of how I'd go about this project:

1) record dialog

2) import dialog into Flash (or whichever program). The audio will be your guide in the programs timeline.

Here's a video showing some basics of the timeline in Flash (though, it's pretty much the same in any animation program) just in case this isn't making sense: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwegBk2Idp4

3) Draw your cast and backgrounds. As you probably know Flash (and other animation programs) allow you to animate without drawing each frame. As MegoScott said it's more like puppeteering. Draw your characters in the poses you need them in. If your character is going to move a body part you need to make sure each moving part is on a separate layer.

Here's an online guide on mouth shapes for lip-sync: Lip-Synching For Animation: Basic Phonemes

4) Create libraries for each character. You're going to be dealing with lots of image files on lots of layers, so organization is key. If character A only moves his arm and head you'd have a library for character A consisting of a file for his head, arm and the rest of him. I'd try to use the same mouths for everyone, but if you can't then I'd make a library for each characters mouths as well.

5) Personally I'd start animating by puppeting the character's bodies without mouths (or faces if you're going to be changing their eyes for expression). I'd sort of block out the scenes using the audio on the timeline.

After the scene is blocked out I'd go back and add the details like mouths and expressions.

I've never used this, but you might want to check out some automated features of Flash: Lip-syncing automatically with SmartMouth in Flash Professional | Adobe Developer Connection

None of the auto-lip sync software I've used before is perfect - but it least it does a fair amount of heavy lifting so you can just go in a tweak things after.

6) Add extra sound effects if needed.

I'd also edit at this point - but if I was doing this for the first time I would try a 1 scene animation just to get the feel of it first, rather than tell a story with multiple scenes. Like anything I'd start with the basics and then try to get more advanced as you get more experience. The programs can allow you to get a lot more out of your animating as you learn too - for example you can create a character's walk cycle and then repeat it over and over - then plop them in the timeline, so you're not puppeting each limb every step the character takes - you just do it once. Things like that.

I hope that helps!