I’ve been working with ToonBoom Digital Pro on my current assignment so I thought it’d be nice to show a couple of my favourite images here. Bernard Derriman is doing character animation and I’m doing backgrounds and special effects.

While I never signed an NDA, it would be unprofessional of me to reveal any details of the project. I therefore won’t be releasing higher res images or answering questions, plus I’ve removed Bernard’s characters from the shots.. suffice to say the episodes look amazing, I love working in ToonBoom and I’ll reveal more about the show when I can. Until then, enjoy a couple of the shots I’m particularly happy with:

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If you’ve read and understood parts 1 and 2 of this article, by now you’ll have a pretty good idea of how to construct shadows in a scene. The great thing is: that’s all you really need.. a pretty good idea of how it’s done.

Let me just say here, that perspective can be an extremely technical subject. Combine that with the intricacies of light and you have the potential to get bogged down with complex details and bore people to death! So I’m covering a few essential basics.. partly because there’s no room here to explain things in great depth but MOSTLY because I get by only using the knowledge I need and there’s so much more to learn.

(click the Read on link below)

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In Part 1 you saw how the shadow root sits directly below the light. I created a shadow by tracing light lines, intersecting them with shadow lines. The points of intersection created the perimeter of the object’s shadow.

With a simple light source such as a lamp or flame, it’s relatively simple to plot the shadow root on the floor.

(Click the Read on link below)

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No, this isn’t some bizarre type of tuber found growing in the Yuyu realm. Though there’s probably a real word for it somewhere, the shadow root is a term I invented that describes the source of shadows in a scene.

This will be a 3-part article covering some mildly technical aspects of adding shadows to your scene using basic ray tracing and perspective techniques. If you don’t know anything about perspective, you may find some of the following article confusing, but really it’s just basics.

(Click the Read on link below)

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After some testing of 4 different SWF-to-video programs, I was pleased to discover that the swf-to-video converter I use, FlashAnts SWF2Video Pro truly is the best available. The software (still in v1.0) hasn’t been updated for a while and they no longer respond to technical support or sales email (or is it just me?).

I’ve sworn by FlashAnts in the past but have had consistent recommendations from people about one or two other programs that reportedly do the same thing better and/or cheaper.

So I went googling and after downloading and running a few trial versions, I finally settled on Sothink’s SWF to Video Converter. There’s one or two elements of Sothink’s converter that I’d like to see improved, but overall I found it has most of the essential features, it’s relatively easy to use and does a decent job.

Both retail for US $79, but the difference between the two:

• FlashAnts SWF2Video Pro - renders true individual frames
• Sothink SWF to Video Converter - records real time playback

Comparing the export process

Here’s my comparison of using the two programs and a few comments on various features.

FlashAnts:

The thing I love most about FlashAnts SWF2Video Pro is that it renders true individual frames and takes its time to do it properly. If there are 5000 frames in the movie, FlashAnts will capture 5000 frames, even if they contain any actionscript, movieclips and the heaviest, most intense graphics that would otherwise lag terribly in the Flash Player.

Capturing a movie, whether an image sequence (.png or .tga) or .avi was - and always is - extremely simple with FlashAnts. You start SWF2Video Pro, go to File > Open > your.swf. Then File > Create. Here you choose AVI or an image sequence, plus the options for each.

 

It’s well worth noting here that FlashAnts has an option in the .AVI settings to disable compression. This is absolutely ideal for exporting your work to a DVD or other broadcast format. Compulsory video compression = bad.

 

The program then displays each frame and captures it in turn. Crucially, it allows itself time to capture each frame perfectly. Where there are intense graphics, the program will pause on that frame and let it soak in.

Sothink:

From what I can gather while testing Sothink SWF to Video Converter, it records real time playback. I guess this is a little bit like a video camera recording a television screen with a DVD playing, in that if you pause the DVD the video camera goes right on recording, so the final duration of the movie will be longer than the movie should be. Far from ideal.

I chose to export as an image sequence (.png), assuming that with a 14,346 frame movie it would capture 14,346 frames. In the image below, you can see it has all the important options for you to choose from.

• A - Unfortunately there’s no option for Uncompressed Frames. Therefore you must compress using a compression codec installed on your machine.
• B - With ‘Frame by frame’ selected, the capture doesn’t recognise animation within movieclips, so only the first frame of the clip is exported (yeah I know). Choose ‘Interactive’ instead.

During the capture, Waterlollies was slowing down a little through the heavy particle and graphics scenes.. Sothink continued snapping happily away at its Flash Player as if there were no lag. So by the end of the process, instead of having captured 14,346 true frames, it recorded 16,178 frames. Hmm, that’s no good. Somewhere amongst those 14,346 frames, there are several consecutive identical frames (captured during laggy bits). Putting this image sequence into the After Effects (or Premiere or Final Cut Pro) timeline wouldn’t sync with the audio.

So I chose to capture an .avi instead of an image sequence. In the audio options, I activated ‘Record from .swf’. This seems to force the capture to keep up with the audio, so that no extra frames are recorded if the player slows down. What I found though, was wherever the movie was graphically intense, the player dropped frames from the playback in its effort to keep up with the audio. This is another undesirable result, especially if you’re putting your stuff onto a showreel DVD.

I did manage to get something reasonable out of Sothink but take a look at the YouTube version of Waterlollies and you’ll see there are skipped frames. Eventually I will re-record it with SWF2Video Pro and update it, so if you’re reading this article, you’ll see the difference.

In Summary

FlashAnts SWF2Video Pro:

• US $79
• very simple to use
• captures true individual frames and takes its time doing so
• Trial version available
• My score 10/10

Sothink SWF to Video Converter:

• US $79
• fairly simple to use
• renders the real-time playback, resulting in possible skipped frames and sync/duration discrepancies
• Trial version available
• My score 8/10

If you have trialled a SWF to Video converter and you’d like to tell me about it, please drop a comment with a link to the software and I’ll check it out.

FYI: the other 2 programs I tested before settling on Sothink were swf>>avi and Moyea SWF to Video

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