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07-Jul-2008 by eWarrior
Chaotic Animation
Here’s an example of what I call "non-linear" or Chaotic Animation. What I mean by that is most cartoons run in a straight line, from beginning to end. In this case, the animation is "bounded" or limited by the number of things it can do, and it will do them continuously in random order. So even as the creator, I don’t know exactly what it will do next: Lunge, Intimidate, Twitch, or Blink.
Digital+Painting
The backdrop is a digital painting, maybe not as "chaotic" as Jackson Pollock, but the best approximation I can achieve, spattering color with a computer. Although it appears to have a gamut of colors, it really has a limited palette.
If you are working digitally, I recommend that you isolate the colors you want to work with, from the 2 million or so shades that your computer can render. In other words, your software offers lots of colors, "straight from the tube", and you should mix and blend them to make your own palette, just like artists using traditional media. It sounds less spontaneous that way, but it’s worth the extra effort.
Hacks
To do something similar using Flash motion graphics, you’ll have to use Action Script. Assuming you already know a bit about Flash, I’ll make a few intermediate level pointers. Feel free to log-in and comment if you need more.
The transformations this character goes through are ordinary "tweens" and single frame animations. The trick to making your animation non-linear is to create frame labels, and then goto and play those labels, in random order.
Now that you have a mental image of the play head jumping back and forth on the timeline, you may be wondering why the backdrop doesn’t jump back and forth as well. That’s because the backdrop is another movie clip, with its own timeline, on another layer.
Pretty impressive technology, don’t you think? And a good reason to creatively delve into Flash Action Script.
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