Finishing Up / Macromedia Flash 8 Bible

Finishing Up

When you have a shot done, it's often helpful to see it play at full speed. Unfortunately, Flash is unable keep up with all of the sounds, bitmaps, and complicated vectors that go into broadcast- quality animation. Plus, it's impossible — even with the most macho of processors — to play the shot at full speed without hiding a bunch of elements. But, hey, you're the director of this masterpiece — it's time for dailies, and you need to see it all.

The best way to do this and to cut down on file size is to export a raster video at 320 x 240 pixels, using the standard QuickTime Video codec (Mac) or the Microsoft Video 1 codec. These codecs are for draft purposes only, so it may have banding and artifacts from compression, but the point is to generate something that even a machine that's ill-equipped for high-end video output can display easily at full frame-rate speed. This method will be of great help in revealing those areas of the animation that still need further tweaking and work before going out to the final published version. The general movement and pace of the shot will make itself known. Look for errors such as unintended jumpiness in frames, and color shifts or inconsistencies between views. Furthermore, your lip-syncing efforts will either be a glory to behold or a disaster in need of medical attention. Other things, such as sound clipping (pops in high volume sound) also become apparent here. To put it bluntly, if the preview makes you cringe, then it needs work — if not, you're on your way to final output.

Final Output

Now, after checking endlessly, you're ready for the final video file of the shot to be rendered. Back it up one more time. Then, when you've safely archived your final project file, it's time to choose the codec that your playback equipment can use and render one out for the tube. Then, when you have rendered all your shots at full screen, you can take them into Premiere or After Effects or Macromedia Director for more detailed editing and tweaking, using all the power that these applications offer. For example, you might want music to play gently in the background across all of your scenes. Although this would be a headache to piece together with separate Flash project files, it's a snap in Premiere. Again, the possibilities are endless.

Web Resource

We describe some suggested workflows for output of character animation in detail in an archived version of the "Exporting Animation" chapter from the Macromedia Flash MX 2004 Bible (Wiley, 2004) at www.flashsupport.com/archive. We put this chapter online because the workflow has not changed significantly since the last edition and we had to make room for coverage of new features.

CineLook Filters for "Classic" Broadcast Animation, by Evan and Gregg Spiridellis

If you've made it to this section of the book, you are by now well aware that Flash is an amazing tool not only for online animation, but also for broadcast animation.

There is one pitfall with using Flash animation for broadcast purposes: Time and time again, we hear that Flash looks too "Flashy" — meaning that it is too "digital" or "perfect" when transferred. The perfectly flat colors that you get from Flash work great in some circumstances, but when they're transferred for broadcast, they come across as a bit cold and lifeless. Looking at big, even blocks of color on a computer monitor is one thing, but traditional animation needs to look more organic.

We've found the solution in the DigiEffects CineLook 1.5 plug-in for Adobe After Effects. The software is a bit expensive, but if you do a lot of this kind of work, it is worth every penny! It takes your perfect digital files and adds enough imperfection to give your Flash animation a more organic look and feel. In this tutorial, we will explain our process for adding filter effects to a Flash animation file in preparation for broadcast delivery. Although many of the filter effects are very subtle, you can see some of the differences between the original Flash artwork and the final filtered animation in Figure 14-19.

Figure 14-19: Flash artwork that looks too "clean" for broadcast (top) can be modified with filters in AfterEffects to look more organic (below).

Web Resource
For more information and demo versions of the CineLook plug-in, go to www.digieffects.com

Setting up the file

After installing the CineLook plug-in, you're ready to begin. Start by exporting your Flash movie as a QuickTime or AVI file. Open After Effects and set up a new Composition. The dimensions and duration should match your Flash file. Import your QuickTime or AVI file and drag your movie to the Timeline. Select the movie in the Timeline by clicking its layer, and now you can begin to add filters.

Softening with Gaussian Blur

The first thing that we recommend is adding an ever-so-slight Gaussian blur to take the hard "edge" off of the lines in your Flash movie. Go to Effect ð Blur & Sharpen. Apply a 0.1 or 0.25 Gaussian blur depending on the style you are trying to achieve.

Caution
It is very easy to get carried away with these filters! It is important to find the filter effect that best complements your movie and not go overboard with the effects. After all, you want people to congratulate you on your movie, not your filters!

After the initial Gaussian softening, we can proceed with our "film look" filters.

Adding DE CineLook filters

Make sure that your movie is still selected in the Timeline, go to Effects ð DigiEffects CineLook, and select DE CineLook.

The CineLook plug-in allows you to add and control film grain, adjust color temperatures, and view whether your colors are NTSC safe. There is nothing worse then spending hours perfecting your animation only to find that when it's transferred to television, your colors bleed all over the screen.

The first thing you do is run the NTSC Gamut Warning. This will block out any colors that are not NTSC safe and allow you to make the appropriate adjustments. You can adjust your saturation and color levels until nonsafe colors enter the NTSC spectrum. CineLook gives you seven layers of adjustment for your Red, Green, Blue, and White channels or you can transform your entire file to Black and White.

Next you tackle the film grain. This is by far the biggest advantage of the CineLook plug-in. Color film is processed in three layers: red, green, and blue. CineLook enables you to control the amount of grain and the softness of the grain in each color field. Adding a slight grain effect will help activate the big, flat shapes that Flash is notorious for. If done well, this adjustment may not be overtly noticeable to the average viewer, but it will add a more organic feel to your movie. Of course, if it fits the style of your movie, you can go overboard!

Once you find the right grain level for your current animation, you have the option of saving your settings. This makes it possible to get a uniform look throughout an entire project or apply the same effects to multiple projects.

Adding DE FileDamage filters

After polishing your Flash movie with a "film look," you might want to take it one step further and "damage" the film a bit. The FileDamage plug-in is a great tool for making a perfect digital file look more weathered. The descriptively named main categories for adjustment are Flicker, Vertical Scratches, Hair, Dust, and Dirt.

In the old days, shooting film was by no means a precise art form, and it seems that no two consecutive frames ever received the same amount of light. Flicker makes it possible to control the difference in exposure between frames. Select the movie in the timeline, then go to Effects ð DigiEffects CineLook and select DE FileDamage.

The first effect you add is Flicker. FileDamage enables you to control the Amount, Speed, and Variation of exposure differences. This might be difficult to see in side-by-side illustrations, but when the movie plays in real time, Flicker is a very natural effect.

Another disadvantage of traditional film developing (in the early days) was that the celluloid was exposed to the elements at almost every stage of the process. FileDamage allows you to control the amount of hair, dust, and dirt that has mucked up the film along the way.

The Vertical Scratches effect is the perfect "Old Time" filter, and FileDamage allows you to control the Number, Speed, Opacity, and Thickness of the scratches.

Finishing up

Once you've gotten the desired look for your movie, save your settings in the Presets section for future use. If you're all set with your filters, save your After Effects file and go to Composition ð Make Movie to test your movie.

On the CD-ROM
To see a "live" comparison of the before and after files described in this tutorial, open JibJab_Willy.swf (original file) and JibJab_Willy.mov (filtered file) from the JibJab folder in the ch14 folder on the CD-ROM.

Film filters such as DigiEffects CineLook give you a range of options to take the digital edge off your Flash animation, and when they're done properly, they'll give the impression that you've been scribbling cels in your basement for years!

Note from the authors: We kept this tutorial from the Macromedia Flash MX 2004 Bible (Wiley, 2004) because it provides some great guidelines for the kind of adjustments that you might want to make to your pure Flash animation to get it ready for broadcast. The only thing that has changed since Flash MX 2004 is that there are now more options in the Flash authoring environment for modifying the look of your graphics. You might want to try some of the new Flash 8 Filters or Blend modes to soften up your artwork. Ultimately, it is hard to replace expert ready-made filters for adding things like film grain, but keep an eye on the Flash Exchange on Macromedia's site for custom Filters that may soon fill this gap.

Web Resource

We'd like to know what you think about this chapter. Visit www.flashsupport.com/feedback to fill out an online form with your comments.