Adobe Animate CC (AKA Adobe Flash)

[Spotty01]

Okay, I'm starting to run out of colours for my thread posts that are actually visible against the white background, so I'm going to start doubling up colours every now and again; in this case, Adobe Animate's/Flash's logo colors.

Let me start by saying, late last night, I downloaded Adobe Animate CC 2015-2. While I've never really thought about the possibility of finding a career in animating. While I love things like animated TV shows, cartoons, and anime and the process of animation itself fascinates me, I can't really say I have a major interest in doing so either. However, I downloaded AACC out of curiosity and, at the very least, I want to make a short animation or two, if only to say that I did. Unfortunately, I literally have no frikkin' clue where to begin; all of these different settings and toolbars and everything else's look like ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics to me, to put it lightly. I have looked up a few tutorials for animating on Adobe Flash (now called Adobe Animate, in case you didn't know), but none of them really help.

At all.

Whatsoever.

The point being, does anyone here know enough about working with Adobe Flash/Adobe Animate, work with the program frequently, or have a career/hobby in Flash animation? If so, then, ahem: PLEASE HELP ME I BEG OF YOU!! I--I mean...

But, in all seriousness, could someone please guide me through this thing or, at the very least, give me a few tips and tricks on the side? Look, I can imagine folks on here who a fluent in "Adobe Flash" may be few and far between and I would be much better off posting a question like this somewhere like a forum for people who do this kind of thing, but I trust you folks here on AC a helluva lot more. And, like I said, I've already tried looking up tutorials, but some seem to explain things in a way that only people who are already familiar with Flash will understand, and others lose me because they start doing that exact same thing about halfway through. So... answers?

That is all.

 

[StephF]

I had a similar problem a long while back. Its a very powerful program but boy, is it complicated !!

 

[Streetwise]

Okay, I'm starting to run out of colours for my thread posts that are actually visible against the white background, so I'm going to start doubling up colours every now and again; in this case, Adobe Animate's/Flash's logo colors.

Let me start by saying, late last night, I downloaded Adobe Animate CC 2015-2. While I've never really thought about the possibility of finding a career in animating. While I love things like animated TV shows, cartoons, and anime and the process of animation itself fascinates me, I can't really say I have a major interest in doing so either. However, I downloaded AACC out of curiosity and, at the very least, I want to make a short animation or two, if only to say that I did. Unfortunately, I literally have no frikkin' clue where to begin; all of these different settings and toolbars and everything else's look like ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics to me, to put it lightly. I have looked up a few tutorials for animating on Adobe Flash (now called Adobe Animate, in case you didn't know), but none of them really help.

At all.

Whatsoever.

The point being, does anyone here know enough about working with Adobe Flash/Adobe Animate, work with the program frequently, or have a career/hobby in Flash animation? If so, then, ahem: PLEASE HELP ME I BEG OF YOU!! I--I mean...

But, in all seriousness, could someone please guide me through this thing or, at the very least, give me a few tips and tricks on the side? Look, I can imagine folks on here who a fluent in "Adobe Flash" may be few and far between and I would be much better off posting a question like this somewhere like a forum for people who do this kind of thing, but I trust you folks here on AC a helluva lot more. And, like I said, I've already tried looking up tutorials, but some seem to explain things in a way that only people who are already familiar with Flash will understand, and others lose me because they start doing that exact same thing about halfway through. So... answers?

That is all.

have you tried the ultimate guide to adobe animate cc
its on YouTube ,the person posting is draw with gazza he talks quite fast but its very well set out he has a time frame telling you how long each topic lasts the start is 5 minutes has an Australian accent IM English so i understood it quite welll

 

[Judge]

The truth is that most Adobe applications (Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash) have a horrendous learning curve. The kind that usually involves formal and lengthy classes for those bent on mastering such things professionally. When I went to vocational school to learn web design I remember at the time (1998) how complex attempting to learn Macromedia Shockwave was. Very different from all the classes I took regarding markup, scripting languages and Photoshop.

It wasn't until around 2000 while working as a website designer that my employer requested that I learn (then) "Macromedia Flash". It was a struggle doing it on my own. I can't say I ever really mastered it, but became proficient enough to produce brief animations for the software game websites I was creating. That was at the level of Flash 4. I haven't been involved in website design since about 2007. For as much as I liked web design back then, Flash wasn't much fun to me as it proved to be so difficult. The one concept that took me the longest to understand was to learn to use the timeline of sprites in a non-linear fashion. Another helpful thing I found was simply to study an .fla file. The raw file format of a Flash project before you formally save it to the .swf format.

From my own perspective, there's no way anyone can blithely tell you through a few forum posts how to effectively use this program. It's just too complicated. Your best bet IMO is to seek written tutorials, preferably a book or two with comprehensive instructions.

Example- I was always a big fan of the "Visual Quickstart Guides" by the Peachpit Press. Books with graphic explanations more than text explanations. Without the usual number of pages you'd find in a Bible, lol. From what I understand, Adobe Animate CC is just a rehash of Flash Professional CS6.

Flash Professional CS6: Visual QuickStart Guide | Peachpit

Though I can't help mention that Adobe Flash itself is on life-support relative to the web. Mostly because of insurmountable security concerns over the years. You might be better off attempting to master other animation programs that aren't tied to obsolete platforms like Flash. Small wonder Adobe is giving it away when you consider the usual retail price of their products still in great demand.

Could it be the end of the road for Adobe Flash? Everything you need to know

Adobe tells developers to use HTML5 instead of Flash

 

[FreeDiver]

Adobe products are a lot like Autocad. They are feature rich and very powerful pieces of software that have been evolving for decades. Even the pros who are masters of these products still would be lucky to only know and use about 10% of their capabilities. I myself have been using Photoshop, Premiere, and Audition for years now and I have yet to scratch the surface on what these programs are capable of doing. Just like Judge said "They have a horrendous learning curve." So don't feel bad that you are not picking it up right away. They aren't very intuitive.

 

[Mia]

Autocad

Now there's a monster of a program. Each time I consider going back into autocad a pyramid comes to mind. Actually learned to use it with text commands.

 

[Spotty01]

Adobe products are a lot like Autocad. They are feature rich and very powerful pieces of software that have been evolving for decades.

Now there's a monster of a program. Each time I consider going back into autocad a pyramid comes to mind. Actually learned to use it with text commands.

What is AutoCad? Is tthat another animation program or something?

 

[Mia]

What is AutoCad? Is tthat another animation program or something?

This is their blurb, I used to use it for graphic and industrial design.

AutoCAD is a commercial computer-aided design (CAD) and drafting software application. Developed and marketed by Autodesk,[1] AutoCAD was first released in December 1982 as a desktop app running on microcomputers with internal graphics controllers.[2] Prior to the introduction of AutoCAD, most commercial CAD programs ran on mainframe computers or minicomputers, with each CAD operator (user) working at a separate graphics terminal.[3] Since 2010, AutoCAD was released as a mobile- and web app as well, marketed as AutoCAD 360.

AutoCAD is used across a wide range of industries, by architects, project managers, engineers, graphic designers, and many other professionals. It was supported by 750 training centers worldwide in 1994

 

[Spotty01]

From my own perspective, there's no way anyone can blithely tell you through a few forum posts how to effectively use this program. It's just too complicated. Your best bet IMO is to seek written tutorials, preferably a book or two with comprehensive instructions.

Okay, looking back on it now, I guess I should've been asking for links to things that can help instead of what I did.

The thing is, I've seen a number of Flash animations and a couple of 'how the animation was made' videos on YouTube and it looked like a cake walk. But then again, these people probably have years more experience with Flash than I do... actually, I think that's a guarantee.

The truth is that most Adobe applications (Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash) have a horrendous learning curve. The kind that usually involves formal and lengthy classes for those bent on mastering such things professionally. When I went to vocational school to learn web design I remember at the time (1998) how complex attempting to learn Macromedia Shockwave was. Very different from all the classes I took regarding markup, scripting languages and Photoshop.

It wasn't until around 2000 while working as a website designer that my employer requested that I learn (then) "Macromedia Flash". It was a struggle doing it on my own. I can't say I ever really mastered it, but became proficient enough to produce brief animations for the software game websites I was creating. That was at the level of Flash 4. I haven't been involved in website design since about 2007. For as much as I liked web design back then, Flash wasn't much fun to me as it proved to be so difficult. The one concept that took me the longest to understand was to learn to use the timeline of sprites in a non-linear fashion. Another helpful thing I found was simply to study an .fla file. The raw file format of a Flash project before you formally save it to the .swf format.

Are there any online courses that you know of that could teach me how to use Flash/Animate... or at least enough so that I can actually put the program to use? Or is that just a course that I'd have to actually go to college/a university and take in person?

 

[Judge]

Are there any online courses that you know of that could teach me how to use Flash/Animate... or at least enough so that I can actually put the program to use? Or is that just a course that I'd have to actually go to college/a university and take in person?

I can't say for certain. Though IMO I doubt there is any online tutorial that would ever be as helpful as going to regular classes in a standard school semester at least twice a week where you can ask an instructor directly and approach a highly complex program in a methodical and incremental fashion.

My advice is to skip Flash altogether and focus on something easier that concentrates on animating graphics alone. You have to remember that Flash is a true multimedia program, incorporating static and animated graphics (both vector and bitmap) as well as audio files, and scripting programming. All to incorporate into a single web source. It's almost like composing a symphony!

In other words, if I wanted to learn only animation itself, I'd start out small and work my way up using a far less complicated program. Trying to flirt with Flash isn't the way I'd start. You don't want to "bite off more than you can chew".