In this, Tom’s first screencast for Flashtuts+, he takes you camping with him to Northern Ontario. To add an extra touch of atmosphere, he demonstrates applying a moody rain storm effect to lake Obatanga – all without a single line of ActionScript.
During this screencast you’ll be taken through working with a range of Adobe CS applications including Fireworks, After Effects, SoundBooth and (of course) Flash.
View Screencast
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Going to watch soon ;)
thanks for this Tom Green!
No DEMO :(
You’ll find a demo .swf in the source files.
thanks Ian… ;)
Thanks for sharing, but i think it´s more a tutorial for after effects tham flash, and sorry but i didnt like the final result, i hope other people like it, and also it could be done faster, easily and lighter directly in flash with masks and vectors.
But thanks anyway!
I hope this isn’t Adobes attempt to start pushing tutorials which use various pieces of software to create an easy effect that would be much smaller and easier if done purely within Flash :(
here is an example thats entirely dynamic and weighs 5kb rather than > 1Mb…
http://flashden.net/item/realistic-rain-effect-with-depth-and-blur/30081?ref=MSFX
I agree with Andre, thanks for sharing but full flash next time please :)
I have to agree with André.
If you know how to work the FLiNT particle system, you could’ve whipped up something better in shorter time.
But still, thanks! You can always learn new stuff from this.
I disagree, maybe the result can easily be achieved by using only Flash, but I don’t think a tutorial must only teach how to do something, a tutorial must also teach new things, that can be used for other things.
In the industry of interactive media, graphic design etc. Adobe has a monopoly. So it’s important to learn how to use Adobe programs, to achieve something.
In the Flash industry many sites are with rich video footage from After Effects, and learning how to use AE together with Flash is a must.
Now the effect of this tutorial might not be that awesome, learning about using flash and AE together, now that is awesome!
So don’t think, I could have made this rain just as well with only Flash, think how can I use Fireworks, Soundbooth, After Effects and Flash together to get a great result. Amen.
Sorry but i have to disagree you.
1. I think this tutorial should be posted at ae.tutsplus, tutsplus is a great network that integrates everything about adobe, so if you want to search something how to interact flash + AE, the ae.tutsplus is the best place to find…
2. Adobe´s monopoly is about photoshop, flash, indesign and illustrator, for video production Autodesk Combustion is the most used, and video editing Final Cut is the most used, Adobe still doesnt have a software for 3D like 3D studio max, maya or blender, so this market is divided by maya and 3D studio max.
Actually After Effects has a MASSIVE share over combustion. No one is really using combustion at all anymore. Your looking at studios using either AE or Nuke and some people are still using Shake although thats pretty much dead now.
After Effects HAD the preference, but since combustion started node view and timeline view, and incorporated 3D models importing wich you can edit 3D elements directly in the program, Combustion taked the preference, also the particle system is indisputable better tham particle system of AE.
And about the studios, the biggest studios are using Eyeon Fusion, Nuke and Combustion for 3D interaction, wich the final result is much more realistic tham AE.
However i´m still using AE for flash Interaction, wich is really much better tham any other for this porpouse… but it doesnt take the monopoly for video production.
I studied about 2 and half years of video production and editing in USA, and what Andre said now is right, the biggest studios are really using Eyeon Fusion and combustion for video production, but Combustion is used only when need to interact any scene with 3D models, the final retouches are done in Eyeon Fusion, Final result of ae is amateur if compared with Fusion.
Some movies that used Fusion:
Terminator Salvation
Watchmen
X-Men Origins: Wolverine
300
Sin City
and many others
Fonts:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eyeon_Fusion
and
http://www.eyeonline.com/Web/EyeonWeb/Community/current_productions/current_productions.aspx
I ilike this tuto because it talk about integration between adobe softwares.
now flash user must have AE in mind.
Just see http://www.templatemonster.com/flash-intro.php and you will understand that flash designers making money with this integration between Flash and AE
Oh, it looks weird. It’s possible to see the limits of the rain which was sliced in AE. Maybe using a mask through AS in Flash. I believe the rain sound choosen was the wrong one. The sound would be perfect if it was a closer rain.
And I think the raindrop’s motion is a little bit too fast.
Well, looks like there’s a lot of stuff to be improved in this tutorial. But as @adil have said, it’s cool see the integration between adobe softwares, but it’s more an AE tutorial than a Flash tutorial. Maybe if you use some AS to improve the rain video as I’ve said before.
Sorry.
Rather than reply to a few of these individually I thought one post would fit the bill.
Let’s get started:
First off, MSFX, I am not an Adobe employee nor are they paying me for anything or telling me what to do. This tutorial was not “Adobe’s attempt to push tutorials” around integration. Ian Yates would politely turn them down if they tried this and Adobe knows if they were to push me as well there would be some serious push back from me.
Instead I see the apps in the Master Collection as being a toolbox and am fascinated with how they work together. This tutorial shows you one way of doing it – Transparent PNG from FW, effect from AE, keeping an animation somewhat small by using Region of Interest and adding audio to the timeline using a little-known feature of Soundbooth. This is a tutorial that presents a ton of techniques that can be used individually or mixed and matched.
Should this tutorial show up in aetutes+ as suggested by André? Not really. All roads in this one lead back to Flash and the branches to FW, AE and Soundbooth all run, in a straight line, back to the Flash stage.
Both MSFX and André raised essentially the same point: This is large and could be done in other ways. Absolutely. Use an an ActionScript Sound object and a Video Object to call in the flv and the sound at run time and then use ActionScript to heave in a Sprite to hold the image and the swf size plummets faster than a rock heaved into the lake.
Diego, I agree with everything you have said but again the whole point of this was to show how the apps “hang together”. Tweaking up the settings in AE and boosting the volume a tad in Sounbooth or using ActionScript and a Sound Object to manage the volume would definitely work.
Why did I do it this way? I did it because there are a ton of Flash users out there who don’t have degrees in rocket science or are power users. They need to know some fundamentals so they can then move on to stuff like the Flashden tutorial or Carlos Yanez’ rain tutorials.
I tell people there are “probably 6,000 ways of doing everything in the Digital Studio.” Which is the best way? Your way. Nobody cares how you did it. They cared that you did it. Is there rain on the lake? Great. No one, other than the creator of the pieces, cares that it was done in After Effects, Flash, Combustion, Maya or other apps. The client asked for rain and they got it.
Finally, Daniel Apt saw what I was getting at with this tutorial when he wrote “So don’t think, I could have made this rain just as well with only Flash, think how can I use Fireworks, Soundbooth, After Effects and Flash together to get a great result. Amen.” In general, we tend to identify with a tool in the toolbox rather than looking at how all of the tools work together. Hopefully, I can start that process here at FlashTuts+.
“Is there rain on the lake? Great. No one, other than the creator of the pieces, cares that it was done in After Effects, Flash, Combustion, Maya or other apps.”
Hey man, you should think about having lighter files when uploading to internet, havy files are less accecible tham lighter files, i am sure that your client doesnt care how it was done, but sure he will care how long it takes to load the file, everbody cares about this.
Another thing, for most people it will just teach how to integrate the programs, wich i watched the tutorial and it´s a really great demonstration, but for many people will be a way to create a rain and use in flash, so they will get heavy files.
But anyway it shows what i think that is one of the best way to interact AE + FLASH, and SoundBooth, particular i would export for .mov first them i would convert to .flv in Adobe Media Encoder, i get very lighter files this way.
Tom – Let me say that I am a follower. You have taught me Many basics in Flash. You have earned the honor of being grouped with the 10 influential Flash Designers. I have CS4 Premium so I have never used AE. I would love for you to share more of your knowledge with us using Flash.
Thanks
GUD TO SEE THIS…
Hmmm, some good bits and bobs in this tut but to be honest, the end result doesn’t really look any good. Using Flash, Fireworks and After Effects combined, the end result should be amazing but sadly looks very un-realistic and if you were to go through the whole tut, you’d expect something a lot better at the end.
I would have stuck with AE through most of this and exported it as video for Flash.
Sorry for the crit Tom. The tut itself is good and well explained but the end result is quite poor, seeing as some of the best Adobe products are being used.
I Absolutely agree. The end result is way under the tuts+ standard!