Flash Animation Extensions

Howdy friends, Its Shaggy.

So last post I mentioned fixing some problems in our work flow. One thing we are going to make use of is Flash's wonderful Extensions Manager. Basically this is a feature where independent actionscript programmers can write bits of code to help Flash users automate certain tasks and perform features flash doesn't have. Sounds like it's just a way for Adobe to not have to program certain things themselves, because some of these extensions fix some pretty obvious and annoying problems ;)

Here are the ones we are going to be using on a regular basis and links to where you can find them. Most are free but some cost a few bucks.

Enter Graphic at Current Frame - Author: Dave Logan - If you're on frame 300 in your root layer and double click into a animated graphic of a character, it normally brings you back to frame 1 of that graphic. this is incredibly annoying and a huge waste of time. By using the "Enter Graphic at Current Frame" extension, it will keep you at the same frame you were on before you entered the graphic. We assigned a Shortcut for this extension to the
" ` " key, which is the key above the "tab" key.

Anim Slider - Author: Warren Fuller - This extension is useful for scrolling thru a graphics internal timeline. It's really helpful for mouth animation and changing out hands. Instead of creating a bunch of different hand graphics that swap out in place, you can put them all in one graphic on different frames. Then all you have to do is select the characters hand and scrub thru the "Anim Slider's" timeline until you find the one you like. It basically does the same thing as typing a frame # into the properties panel. Very useful.

Keyframe Jumper - Author: Dave Logan - This feature jumps forward and backwards to the next keyframe. We assigned it to the ";" and " ' " keys because they are just above the keys that move you forward one frame on the timeline. This is useful for quickly checking your blocked animation poses.

Multi Swap - Author: Dave Wolf - This gives you the option of selecting as many symbols as you want and swapping them all out for a different graphic. One use is for changing out a hand to a different one after the animation has been completed.

Search and Replace - Author: Dave Wolf - This changes searched words in you library to something new. Just a good renaming extension :)

There are a few others as well but those are the ones we will be using most often. Make sure to check out all the other extensions these fine fellas created because there are a lot of other good ones. Another good spot to find some extensions is at the Adobe Exchange site.

-shaggy