Craig Campbell’s School of Flash

From what I’ve heard, Adobe has a lot of exciting things in store for the next version of Flash. One of the most exciting new features (especially for designers and animators) is the Inverse Kinematics engine, as demonstrated on Lee Brimelow’s blog. Flash animators have been screaming for IK for years, and Adobe has finally obliged.

So, what exactly is Inverse Kinematics?

Well, let’s put it this way. If I walk up you to and shake your hand, your forearm will likely move up and down. If I have a firm handshake, then your upper arm may end up moving back and forth as well. And if I’m a complete jerk, I might just yank your whole body to the ground.

Those are the basics of IK. Separate objects are joined together by a basic bone structure, and when you move one object, the objects it is attached to will be forced to move along with it. As you can imagine, this kind of functionality will make it infinitely easier to animate walking characters. 3D animators have been able to do this for a while, using programs like 3DS Max and Maya 3D, but now this amazing functionality will be included in Flash without having to write a single line of ActionScript code!

Now all we need is the ability to do some 3D modelling in Flash. But until that day comes, we’ll have to stick with Swift 3D.

Tags: flash cs4, inverse kinematics, swift 3d

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