Lines in Macromedia Flash?

[RemusShepherd]

first, i don't think i'm answering a question, but just to shout out to all you vector artists: i've never been happier since i switched to Illustrator, which is so much more versatile than Flash. i wanted to throw my pencils away after discovering it. Flash sort of forces a look/style on the images in my opinion.

Now, what's the difference between Flash and Illustrator?

I have Illustrator, but aside from special graphics (logos and such) I don't know how to use it for drawing. When I attempt to draw a figure in Illustrator it doesn't work; the selection needs to be cleared after every line or it will connect lines together, it doesn't respect pressure sensitivity on my graphics tablet, and things like crosshatching are next to impossible. Then again, I don't see any crosshatching in these flash comics...I suppose that's what you mean by it forcing a specific look on your art.

[Johnnyhell]

I have Illustrator, but aside from special graphics (logos and such) I don't know how to use it for drawing. When I attempt to draw a figure in Illustrator it doesn't work; the selection needs to be cleared after every line or it will connect lines together, it doesn't respect pressure sensitivity on my graphics tablet, and things like crosshatching are next to impossible.

Connecting lines together is a default option than can be turned off. Dbl-click the pencil tool and uncheck "Keep Selected." I'm also pretty positive that stroke thickness is triggered by tablet pressure, but that may be a version issue, or may require some preference selection as well. I have used a tablet with it but not recently, as my drawing style has become totally dependent on bezier curves with the pen tool, so i just use the mouse. call me a digital boy, but if you want clean lines and curves, don't use a stylus...

Illustrator is totally pro-level, so don't assume it can't do what you want. It just takes some time to figure out all the ways of working within it. Think of Flash as a simple version of it folded into an animation program with some neat shortcuts. Unfortunately the shortcuts are what lend to a homogeneity of style.

peace
johnny

[TrajediJill]

An Excellent Flash learning site for exactly what you are trying to do:

http://www.cartoonsmart.com/

[RemusShepherd]

Connecting lines together is a default option than can be turned off. Dbl-click the pencil tool and uncheck "Keep Selected."

For that one tip, I want to send your baby through college.

Thanks! I'm better at Photoshop than I am at Illustrator, but I want to master both. Eventually.

[Johnnyhell]

you are most welcome. and you are not the first person to encounter that annoying problem especially when using a tablet. the default setting is backward in my eyes...

keep on
johnny

[Arvo]

and dont save things as .gif's, flash colors don't translate very well. png's and .swf's are good.

Actually, flash just exports to gif badly. If you export to bmp and use an external program to convert to gif it works fine.

Although swf blows all other formats out of the water for flash files. It's smaller, and it has much more detail.

I'm glad somebody brought this up. I also draw and color in Flash MX, and the color problems drive me crazy.

The colors that I carefully choose by entering hex codes from color wheels always change after I save the document. It is really amazing, because I can see my original hex code in the color picker when I eyedrop over the color, but if I look in the Fill dialog box it gives a different hex code entirely. And when I use a color identifier program, it confirms that these aren't the codes I entered. The colors look the same, but they have different hex codes. The ones I chose were XXYYZZ formatted codes, which means they were from the High Color palette, not True Color, so that they would display well on more monitors. But Flash always changes them to unsafe True Color codes that look the same. I have no idea why.

And when Flash exports the file as a GIF, the colors often really go screwy, and don't look the same. They go lighter or darker. Dealing with that has been so damn time consuming...thanks for your idea of exporting as a BMP and then converting it to a GIF. I just spent all night just experimenting with that...finally getting it right. The other thing I don't understand at all is why I don't get good results exporting my comics as 32 color GIFs. My comics only have about 20 different colors in them, so 32 should be enough...but when I convert from BMP to GIF (or, often if I just export to GIF), the colors go screwy at 32 color saves...and don't get better until I save at 128. I wish I knew why that was!

Also, the PNGs that Flash exports seem to dither some of my colors when I export at 8-bit. I have to export at 24 bit to stop the dithering...now why should that be when I have only 20 unique colors in the comic?

I have had so much trouble with this that I am thinking about putting my comics up as SWFs. Flash exports SWFs very well, and the colors stay true. (at least, true to the false hex codes that the program changed my hex codes to) But people have told me SWFs cause problems for some computer users...so I still don't know what I'll end up doing...probably GIFs, after going through this BMP conversion process.

Any thoughts on this?

[Jigglyman]

And when Flash exports the file as a GIF, the colors often really go screwy, and don't look the same. They go lighter or darker. Dealing with that has been so damn time consuming...thanks for your idea of exporting as a BMP and then converting it to a GIF. I just spent all night just experimenting with that...finally getting it right. The other thing I don't understand at all is why I don't get good results exporting my comics as 32 color GIFs. My comics only have about 20 different colors in them, so 32 should be enough...but when I convert from BMP to GIF (or, often if I just export to GIF), the colors go screwy at 32 color saves...and don't get better until I save at 128. I wish I knew why that was!

Also, the PNGs that Flash exports seem to dither some of my colors when I export at 8-bit. I have to export at 24 bit to stop the dithering...now why should that be when I have only 20 unique colors in the comic?

I have had so much trouble with this that I am thinking about putting my comics up as SWFs. Flash exports SWFs very well, and the colors stay true. (at least, true to the false hex codes that the program changed my hex codes to) But people have told me SWFs cause problems for some computer users...so I still don't know what I'll end up doing...probably GIFs, after going through this BMP conversion process.

Any thoughts on this?

Well, just remember. You don't just have 20 colors in the picture itself. A hundred more can be used for anti-aliasing; that is, putting certain colored pixels between a line and a fill so that the transition looks smoot and not jagged. Image programs anti-alias automatically and perhaps it needs different colors to alti-alias properly everywhere, so the fill colors end up lookign a bit distorted.

Oh, and johnnyhell: After Remus sends your kid through college, I'm giving all my money towards his retirement plan. thankyouthankyouthankyou

[Arvo]

Jigglyman,

That explanation makes sense. Thanks.