Websites With Flash and AE

[Hunter Christy]

it can be a little from column A, a little from column B.

if you check out http://www.rosebudfestival.org and click the flash page, i did this half in after effects, half in flash.

1. i set up the main animation.
2. i broke it up into different compositions, rendering each out (this is so i can do things like “skip intro” and such and so i knew where the rose had made ONE whole turn.
3. with lots of frame counting, i set up the timeline in flash, and nested the loaded page into another movie so it would loop once the rose turned once.

[Andy Ford]

Nice intro, hunterchristy. BTW, all Macromedia stuff is now Adobe (although the purists may resist calling it that for a while longer). I’m a firm believer in using the best tool for the job, but when it comes to learning programs such as Flash and AE, sometimes you have to use what you know best. If you are far better in AE making an intro that you want, you can import it into Flash, convert the video, and make a custom player (which is pretty easy to do with little to no Flash knowledge). The draw back here is you can’t do things like Skip Intro and other cool Flash features (you could, but we’re going on the assumption that there’s little to no Flash knowledge). So, you solve that problem by making sure there’s the essential video control buttons (stop, mute, volume, etc.) for those website visitors that don’t like sounds on websites (you know you’re out there). The potential pitfall here is making sure your video looks clean and crisp. On the flip side, you can do the intro totally in Flash. Now whether you can do effects as easily as in AE depends on your Flash skill level.

Saying that, if you need specific AE help with something you are planning, ask away. But I would suggest the Flash forum if you’re going that route.