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, if everything is put together properly, then your forearm will likely move up and down along with it. And if I have a firm handshake, then your upper arm may also end up moving back and forth. And if I’m a complete jerk, I might just yank your whole body to the ground.

Well, that’s about how Inverse Kinematics work. 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, among other things.

3D animators have been able to use IK for a while with programs like 3DS Max. And pretty soon, Flash users will have access to the same tools–and without having to type a single line of ActionScript code.

Here’s a quick YouTube video showing IK in action in Flash:

I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait!!

As a trainer, one of the questions I get a lot from beginners is “How do I do 3D in Flash?” And historically, I’ve always had to break it to them gently that there really is no inherently easy way of creating 3D illustrations and animations for Flash without shelling out a few bucks on products like Swift 3D (which I still highly recommend, by the way).

However, over the past couple of years, there’s been a new answer to that question, and if you’ve heard of Papervision 3D, then you know what that answer is. Papervision is basically an open source (that means FREE) 3D engine for ActionScript. It’s a set of classes that allow you to create and animate objects in 3D space.

The bad news is that I haven’t been able to find the time to experiment with it just yet, but as soon as I do, I’ll be sure to include you guys.

Until then, check out the Papervision home page and the Papervision Wiki, and take a look at the amazing examples of the things people are creating with it!

Also, take a look at Lee Brimelow’s new video tutorial on using Papervision.

If you haven’t viewed this video yet, then be prepared for some exciting stuff! This video demonstrates the way that tweens are created in Flash CS4 (code name, Diesel). Basically, keyframes have been taken out of the picture for a much more robust, organic way of creating tweens.

Also, it appears that the need for motion guide layers will vanish! Less layers means less clutter in the workspace! Can’t argue with that!

Anyways, I’ll shut up now. Here’s the video: