Flash Tutorials
Flash Actionscript Method for Game Launch
This video demonstrates how to use the Switch / Case function, combined with Random and LoadMovieNum to launch different games from one flash movie.
Flash Preloader Component Tutorial
This video demonstrates how to put together a preloader for your games or animations in about 5 minutes.
Flash Movie Within Movie Technique Tutorial
This Flash tutorial shows you how to create a movie within a movie which is a valuable technique for creating more complex animations; in this example, we make a clock with a hand that spins around while the clock moves through space.
This Flash tutorial shows you how create a believable animation using Flash. We get into symbols, free transforms, pivot adjustments, keyframing, onionskinning, and some of the physics of falling objects, as we have a ball knock a bottle off a table, and have the bottle bounce on the floor.
Flash – How to Collapse Layers / Timeline
This Flash tutorial shows you how manipulate an existing animation that is comprised of multiple layers and keyframes, so that it is collapsed into one keyframe on one single layer. This is useful if you want to animate the animation, ie, move it around as a whole, or if you want to transform it by scaling or rotating.
Flash – How to create a Walk Cycle
This Flash tutorial shows you how to create a walk-cycle with a reference to the work of Muybridge, a photographer in the late 1800′s who documented how people and animals move with timed photos. We have put together a Flash file with these public-domain images setup as templates as well as pre-set layers to make this easy for you. Get the template here.
Flash – Bouncing Ball Tutorial
This Flash tutorial shows you how to create a bouncing ball that uses Ease-in, Ease-out, and Squash & Stretch. Here’s the 800×600 version you can download
Flash – Bouncing Text Tutorial
This Flash tutorial shows you how to create a bouncing text that comes to a stop. Here’s the 800×600 version you can download
This Flash tutorial shows you how to create a tweened text that is animated in position, scale, and opacity.
Flash – Car Animation Tutorial
This Flash tutorial shows you how to create a Car Animation where wheels turn, smoke comes out of the exhaust, and the exhaust pipe shakes.
3ds Max Tutorials – Modeling
This video tutorial walks you through some of the basics to 3ds Max – the interface, menus, viewports, and how to create primitives.
Imperial Walker Modeling Tutorial # 1-11
This 3ds Max modeling tutorial takes a model donated by a beginning 3ds Max artist and discusses how to improve models so that they can be more efficient and useful for rigging and animation. See the entire series of 11 modeling tutorials on the 3dcognition Youtube channel.
3ds Max Rigging and Animating Tutorials
Bones / Spider Walk Video Tutorial
This video tutorial demonstrates the basics of how to create bones, inverse kinematic links, and how to animate those links – also goes over how to create a basic organic model, and how to “Skin” the model so that mesh vertices can recognize bones. Click here to see the HTML tutorial. Scroll down further to see tutorials for a spider rig with more legs.
Car Animation Video and HTML Tutorial
Video and HTML tutorial. Demonstrates how to build the hierarchy for a car using wheels, a chassis, a body, how to get the wheels to turn with an equation, how to make the car follow a spline path, and how to make the car exhibit body lean while cornering.Click here for the HTML tutorial.
Though this video is really more about the Torque game engine, and consists of a series of CD excerpts from the Creating Game Art for 3D Engines book CD, we include it here because it has some animation information that may be useful to you.
Though this video is really more about the Torque game engine, and consists of a series of CD excerpts from the Creating Game Art for 3D Engines book CD, we include it here because it has some rigging and animation information that may be useful to you.
This video tutorial covers how to create bones and skin them to a book model so that you can animate a book opening or pages turning.
Chaos Truck Animation Video Tutorial
This video tutorial takes you through the process of keyframing a vehicle as it bumps into an object, and adjusting those keyframes for a realistic impact on the object and the vehicle.
Bones + Skin Serenity Lander Video & HTML Tutorial
This video tutorial walks you though setting up meshes and bones linkages to get the same effect as seen when the Serenity lander lands and the biomechanical legs flex to absorb the shock. Includes skin modifer discussion as keyframing.Click here to see the general Serenity Rigging HTML tutorial
Serenity Struts Video Tutorial # 2
This is the second video that pretty much takes off where the first video ended. In this one we demonstrate a bit of how to keep bones from twisting when you don’t want them to, and how to set up controllers.
Chaos Truck Animation Video Tutorial # 2
Demonstrates creating a Link Constraint to a box so it is linked to the truck body, and then to the ground, so it follows the truck until if falls off and bounces on the ground, and how to make a camera follow a moving vehicle by copying and modifying a path.
Chaos Truck Animation Video Tutorial # 3
This segment of Chaos Truck describes how to build the truck tailgate, link it to the truck so it moves with the truck, and how to adjust the pivot of the tailgate so it rotates properly when you keyframe it flying open later in the animation.
Fix the Rig Video Tutorial # 1
Demonstrates how to directly assign vertices to bones, bypassing the envelop settings. Sometimes envelopes are too unwieldy and the direct approach, setting weights for each set of selected verts, works better. This tutorial is continued in Fix the Rig #2.
Fix the Rig Video Tutorial # 2
This video tutorial goes a little further, working with the rig in it’s animated state to reassign weights to key sets of vertices. This is a continuation of Fix the Rig #1.
This tutorial goes into the process of rigging a Spider using 3ds Max. This is excerpt #1
This tutorial picks up where excerpt #1 left off.
Super-Simple Humanoid Bones Rig
This tutorial demonstrates how to rig a super-simple bones character.
3ds Max Materials and Lighting Tutorials
This video tutorial demonstrates some aspects of how to preview character textures, and how to modify those using 3ds Max and Photoshop. The 3ds Max Edit UVs interface is discussed somewhat.
Reflective and Refractive Surfaces Tutorial
This video tutorial covers how to create a reflective and refractive material using Raytrace.
This video tutorial covers how to adjust lights and how to generate a shadow in your render, as well as some discussion about the Light Lister.
This video tutorial demonstrates two ways to create multiple materials – the Detach method and the Multi/Sub-Object method.
3ds Max Effects Tutorials
Exploding Teapot HTML Tutorial
This HTML tutorial shows you how to use particles, bomb objects, and deflectors in order to create an explosion that not only creates fragments from the original model, but allows those fragments to bounce off of faces you choose.
3ds Max Camera “Pull Focus” Technique
This camera technique, described in the Theory pages under Animation > Camera Techiques, gives you a technique to draw the attention of the audience to the foreground or the background, making for more dynamic and interesting camera work.
Torque Tutorials
This is a compilation of excerpts from some of the video tutorials that come with the book CD for Creating Game Art for 3D Engines. There are over 90 minutes of video tutorials dealing with 3ds Max and the Torque engine. Some of the things covered include modeling a character, creating a run cycle, and adding model elements to the game environment via the Torque editor.
This is the second half of a compilation of excerpts from some of the video tutorials that come with the book CD for Creating Game Art for 3D Engines. There are over 90 minutes of video tutorials dealing with 3ds Max and the Torque engine. Some of the things covered here include creating a semi-opaque material in Photoshop, fitting the Biped to the character model, adjusting bones, adding helper bones, adjusting keyframes with trajectories for a run cycle.
Torque Scripting Video Tutorial
This video tutorial walks you through some of the basics of scripting for the Torque game engine.
Unity Tutorials
This free, 15-minute, hi-res (950×700) video tutorial demonstrates the process of taking Biped-based characters from 3ds Max into the Unity 3D game engine, including how to setup and control the character in the engine. Please note there are two versions of this tutorial out there – a low-res, 8 minute version and this version, which is the one you will probably want to watch instead.
This tutorial covers how to import bones-based characters (a spider in this case) into the Unity engine. The most important thing is that you are using FBX2009 as you FBX export plug-in. This video is 800×600 so it will be easier to see the menu selections, etc.
Web Development Tutorials
Flash and Video Embeds that Pass XHTML Validation
This page describes the swfObject method of adding Flash content to web pages so that the Flash functions correctly and the page will validate as XHTML 1.0, as well as how to add Youtube and WMV video formats to XHTML pages that validate.
Video Embeds that Pass HTML5 Validation
This page describes methods of embedding standard YouTube videos that pass HTML5 validation.
HTML5 Canvas Rotational Animation
This page has an example of how to do a rotational animation using Canvas (and Javascript).
This page has an example of how to do a linear animation using Canvas (and Javascript).
This page has an example of how to get a parallax effect to work with HTML5 and Canvas.
This page has some simple examples of CSS3 (rounded corners, drop shadow, gradients, and transitions).
This is a quick overview of HTML5 and CSS3. It is a work in progress, hope to be done by end September.
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