Lately I've been getting quite a few requests to start covering tutorials on Toon Boom Studio and Toon Boom Digital Pro. What do you think?

Toon Boom or Flash?

• Stick to Flash.
• Switch to Toon Boom.
• Try to cover both equally.

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Have you ever thought about just what Flash can do to create rich interactive media content for the web? Have you ever thought about the advantages that Flash content gives you over traditional code-based design in terms of layout, functionality, graphics, and interactivity? These tutorials on using Flash for web design and content delivery will give you a foothold on taking your content from HTML into the world of Flash - but just remember, there's such a thing as too much of a good thing. Sometimes a website is better enhanced by Flash elements rather than wholly designed in Flash, but even if you decide to go wholly Flash-based...try to remember every annoying Flash website you've ever seen, and avoid making their mistakes.

Jess asks:

"I have been trying to learn Flash Pro 8 and have started to do some simple animations. I just wanted to know what the difference is between a movie symbol and a graphic symbol and when to use one or the other."

The basic difference between a movie clip and a graphic is that a graphic is a static object, while a movie clip is not. When you're working in Flash, a graphic symbol may look like it has its own timeline, but when you publish it acts as a single static image in Flash. Nothing you do on additional frames really shows unless you do some rather odd tweaking with ActionScripts, while movie clip symbols are designed to play like little mini Flash movies all their own inside your main SWF. Movie clips also have more ActionScripts that can be applied to them.

In addition, in Flash 8, you can use filters on movie clips. You can't on graphic symbols.

I've gotten so into the habit of using movie clips for everything that I'd almost forgotten about graphic symbols. They have their uses, but for the most part, movie clips are just more convenient.

LL asks:

Hi Adrien,

I’ve just read your article on about.com regarding freelance animation.

Like yourself i am a freelancer and experienced the same things as you have, I really enjoyed reading your article as I’ve also seen myself and how I developed over the years having good and bad clients J and I also enjoy working in my pj’s and greatly consider this as perks as well lol.

I do have one question for you if you have the time, I’ve been working freelance for nearly 7years now but only opened up to the international market for almost a year. Most of my work load now comes from freelance sites like RAC, GAF, GURU... I would like to open up more and do business with other people outside these networks but really don’t know how to introduce myself and my services... my question is, is it ok if I research these potential clients and send them emails directing them to my website?

I generally wouldn't advise it unless you do it very carefully. Those kinds of e-mails are almost always deleted because they're seen in the same class as spam e-mails asking them to buy Cialis or learn about an amazing new business system that will only cost $29.95 for you to make thousands of dollars a day. They have no way of knowing you're legit and not a phisher of some sort because the e-mail is unsolicited.

If you can, find out about career opportunities with the companies and instead of directing them to your website, ask them about freelance employment opportunities if they already have career opportunities related to what you can offer. Most company websites will have an employment page and an HR contact e-mail.

Also, try sites like MediaBistro.com. These days I'm actually doing more writing than animating, and I get a lot of my work from there - but I also see quite a few animation and graphic design ads up, and they'll net you some good contacts in some fairly decent companies (I've seen everything from IGN to the Independent Film Network on there). The best thing about MB is that since they screen people and require payment from advertisers while only requesting free registration from job searchers, you very rarely get anything shady on there. You might even find something local, but if not, there's plenty of remote or contract work.

Companies tend to hate being solicited unless they ask first; even e-mailing HR is pushing it a little, but it's not so frowned upon as using general contact e-mails because that's what HR is there for - as long as you phrase it as an inquiry and offer to show your portfolio but don't actively direct them to your website, although it's okay to include it in your signature. Anything more direct and most companies tend to get a little cranky. If they need your services, they'll make it known somewhere, somehow; you just have to be in the right place at the right time to pounce on the opportunity. One my closest friends is an HR manager, and her biggest complaint is that she gets tons of inquiries saying "Are you hiring ___________ / Do you need __________?" It drives her nuts that she can't come out and say "Look, you jerk, if we needed anything you had to offer, there'd be a job listing on the website that would just scream "That's me!" at you. If you aren't qualified or don't want any of the jobs we have posted, learn to read and go away."

...although she's admittedly a bit prickly. I think most people would be a bit more polite than that.

It's a tricky line to walk between bold networking that opens doors and brazen offenses to business etiquette. Often checking out the websites of companies you're interested in will give you a better idea of the reaction you'd receive to an unsolicited contact and let you decide the best way to approach them.

I know I've used a lot of words to say very little, but I hope there's something useful for you in there. For more information on soliciting clients as a freelancer, try Alison Doyle's site at JobSearch@About.com. She's got some great tips on making professional contacts.

Thanks for reading,
-Adrien-Luc Sanders

The second half of the animated Flash thumbnail gallery tutorial shows you how to create the actual expanded image overlay, using movie clips to animate the image unfolding and then folding away again. You can customize this with your own animation, rather than using the one that I've chosen for mine. This lesson also touches on a few other basics from early ActionScripting lessons, and will make a good review for anyone looking to brush up their basic scripting skills. Try playing with my version below to see how it works:

The fun thing about this is that you aren't restricted to images only; you can use it to display video, or any kind of multimedia content.

Ever seen those nifty thumbnail galleries that use slick-looking effects to animate full-size images popping up in customized windows or overlays? Often, those galleries and their animations are created in Flash. It's actually not that hard to create and customize your own, and we've got a pretty basic starter lesson that tells you how. The first lesson just covers setting it up and animating the thumbnails themselves.

Speed Racer was a staple of my childhood, notorious for its mixture of high-octane action, varying animation quality, and pure, unadulterated cheese. It's a classic, and it's now following the tradition of many classics such as Transformers and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: it's being remade for a new generation, using new animation technology and new storylines.

I smell a disaster already.

When I received my advance copy of the Lionsgate film intended to kickstart the Nicktoons Friday night animated series, I was extremely reluctant to watch it. I've seen too many of my childhood favorites - both good and bad - utterly butchered by modern remakes. The fully 3D rendered character on the cover, with his Botox lips and big calf eyes, didn't really help my anxiety. If I want a fully 3D animated series, I'll watch ReBoot (now there's a childhood favorite whose remake I'm anticipating eagerly). I'd hoped Speed Racer would at least be preserved in 2D.

I'm not sure if it was fortunate or unfortunate that I got a heaping helping of both: a mixture of jerky, minimalistic 2D animation layered over highly simplified 3D backgrounds and animated environmental objects mapped or painted to mesh with a 2D environment. The entire thing looks like a badly-tweaked Flash tween, character motions twitching from one position to another and pretty obviously using every digital shortcut available to avoid having to actually animate something. It actually looks worse than the original Speed Racer, which is hard to do and really isn't acceptable considering the decades of improvements in animation technology and techniques that separate the two. Here; have a video clip and see for yourself:

About the only thing marking this as sophisticated animation is the fact that it has highlights and shadows, which most older made-for-TV cartoons eschewed due to the time and effort that went into animating and painting anything beyond solid colors. Now technology makes that far easier, but you know, pretty colors just don't cover up bad animation. Unfortunately I can turn on the TV on Saturday morning and see a dozen programs using the same cost-shaving, corner-cutting techniques to churn out quick cardboard shows that can only appeal to someone too young to have any standards beyond action, conflict, and cartoon cheese.

Since this isn't a music review site, I'll keep my thoughts on the painful revamping of the classic Speed Racer theme song to myself, although the opening animation - a mixture of flashing checkered fields and rough pencil sketches of animation that frankly look better than the rest of the film - could induce a seizure. Add in a storyline that seems to have been pieced together from random facts about the original with dialogue apparently written in Swedish and then run through Babelfish and played at 1.5x time to create the English track, and the entire experience was an hour of yawns that I had to force myself to finish. The best part was the robotic monkey. When in doubt, throw in a monkey for humor, and you can't fail.

Even at age 28, I still watch cartoons. I wouldn't miss Pucca for anything; it's a great example of minimalized 2D computer generated animation that does a lot with very little. I think I'll be skipping this, though. Like I said, the series runs Friday nights, Nicktoons, 7p ET, and started on May 2nd; the movie will be out on DVD by May 6th. If you enjoy it, well...everyone has different tastes.

The thought of a live-action version of this terrifies me.

One of the fun things about my job is that I get to preview advance copies of films before they're even released to the public. One such film is Muhammad: The Last Prophet, coming to DVD from MPI Media Group on May 27th, 2008. Considering that Islamic faith is such a politically controversial topic these days, prone to engendering some ugly and unnecessary stereotypes, I admit that I felt a bit of trepidation when I opened the prettily designed case and popped the DVD in. I couldn't help but wonder how such a sensitive topic would be handled in an animated film.

While the subject was handled with some grace, I can't say the same about the CGI. The merger of hand-drawn and computer-generated animation is a delicate process, one that has to be handled with subtlety and care, and the clear dichotomy between the beautifully drawn character animations and the obviously digitally composited and rendered backgrounds and camera movements made for a rather jarring contrast even if the settings were quite well designed. They almost, almost hit the mark, but fell just a little short. The 3D animation in the opening titles was a little rough and overused as well, and felt a touch unnecessary. The character designs are quite nice, though; it's too bad the voice acting doesn't entirely measure up to them - although believe me when I say that I've heard far worse, and this wasn't unforgivable. The 2D animation is smooth, professional, well-done, suited for theatrical release. It's too bad we don't see more of it rather than camera movements across still images while a narrator tells parts of the story. It was done for a reason out of respect for certain tenets of the Muslim faith, but it could have been handled more adroitly.

The story was interesting enough to distract from that, though, and all in all it was an entertaining 95 minutes that didn't feel at all wasted. Is the movie a blockbuster hit? No. The target demographic is too narrow to hold wide appeal, but it's a very interesting and educational representation of a topic that normally receives a rather slanted representation in most English-speaking presentations. I learned something, anyway, although it stretched a little long and ran heavy on the repeated rhetoric - but considering the genre, that's to be expected, and it was tempered by welcome moments of humor and a lovely, moving soundtrack by award-winning composer William Kidd. I think that an animated film to explain the history of Muhammad and Islam is a good choice, because the prevalent attitude towards the overall wholesomeness of animation helps to dispel immediate negative assumptions to leave the viewer with a more open and accepting mind. The historical accuracy may not be perfect, and of course the storytelling is exaggerated for the sake of an animated tale...but it's a good start, and despite using the "safer" vehicle of animation, the animators still weren't afraid to depict some rather emotionally charged events while maintaining good taste.

It's a brave and ambitious film, overall, and it's a good family film for those seeking to educate their children on other faiths.

Lately I've received multiple e-mails asking about the Flash Animated Dropdown Menu, and how to make the links work. The general complaint is that for every tutorial readers have seen on multiple sites by multiple authors, the links don't work at all once you finish the rollout / roll up animation. What seems to slip under the radar rather often is the second tutorial in that lesson, where we focus specifically on finding a workaround for the problem of links in nested movie clips and buttons so we can make the dropdown menu work just right.

• Flash Animated Dropdown Menu
• Flash Animated Dropdown Menu II: Making Content clickable