Flash & Photoshop

External Since: Jun 29, 2007 Posts: 2

I am about to work on a short animation with a designer, who is an expert on
Photoshop. Both of us are new to Flash, and this is my first real project since
I started to learn Flash. Almost all the examples I have learned from the book,
these images were either created in Flash or have been converted into symbols.
Here are my questions:
1) If the designer insistes on doing all his design (graphic) in Photoshop,
what does he need to pay attention?
2) If we want to make a small animation like a person walking, does he have to
save all the parts (like arms, legs, face, etc.) into different images and I
assemble them all in Flash? Is there any better way?
3) What file would be better? jpg? png? gif? or all the same?
4) Will this effect the file size?

Thank you very much... any reply would be appreciated....

External Since: Jun 30, 2007 Posts: 1

"FANLIN" <webforumsuser RemoveThis @macromedia.com> wrote in message
news:f640lb$5i2$1@forums.macromedia.com...
>I am about to work on a short animation with a designer, who is an expert
>on
> Photoshop. Both of us are new to Flash, and this is my first real project
> since
> I started to learn Flash. Almost all the examples I have learned from the
> book,
> these images were either created in Flash or have been converted into
> symbols.
> Here are my questions:
> 1) If the designer insistes on doing all his design (graphic) in
> Photoshop,
> what does he need to pay attention?
> 2) If we want to make a small animation like a person walking, does he
> have to
> save all the parts (like arms, legs, face, etc.) into different images and
> I
> assemble them all in Flash? Is there any better way?
> 3) What file would be better? jpg? png? gif? or all the same?
> 4) Will this effect the file size?
>
> Thank you very much... any reply would be appreciated....

To respond to your second question and to dpteacher first, a better resource
for learning how to create animations is: http://www.cartoonsmart.com/

To respond to a couple of issues with your strategy. First of all, unless
you need an image quality or style of animation that is only available using
bitmaps, then you're much better off considering vector graphics such as
those created with Illustrator. Image quality, your file-sizes and playback
can all be dramatically (and adversely) affected by using bitmap images
instead of vector.

If Photoshop is ultimately the preferred choice, then one good rule of thumb
is using a 1-to-1 ratio for your graphics. IOW, if the final Flash movieclip
is being displayed in a 100x100 pixel space onscreen, then the Photoshop
graphics should match that. IOW, if you squeeze 500x500 pixel Photoshop
images into movieclips that will be displayed at 100x100 pixels, you will
quickly have a non-functioning mess on your hands.

As far as which bitmap format is most appropriate, they are not "all the
same" but they may all need to be used, depending again, upon the type of
graphics you are using. Typically .gif graphics are good for flat colors,
whereas .jpg is best for photographic imagery and .png can be used for both
and is the best option if you want to use transparent areas in your
graphics.