Mastering Adobe Animate 2023 - Third Edition

Mastering Adobe Animate 2023 - Third Edition

by Joseph Labrecque
Released February 2023
Publisher(s): Packt Publishing
ISBN: 9781837636266

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Book description

Become an accomplished motion designer, animator, and interactive content producer with the help of expert-led material in this illustrated guide

Key Features

  • Produce rich motion graphics and interactive animations for multiple platforms by exploring the Adobe Animate ecosystem
  • Get acquainted with the key features and enhancements in the latest Adobe Animate release such as depth, layering, and object warping
  • Take your Adobe Animate projects to the next level with creative workflows using diverse animation techniques

Book Description

Adobe Animate is a platform-agnostic asset creation application that enables you to create motion design and vector animations while facilitating interactivity across other Adobe software such as After Effects, Photoshop, and Illustrator. This book comes packed with explanations of essential concepts and step-by-step walk-throughs of practical examples, guiding you in using Animate to create immersive experiences and breaking the walls of creative limitations.

In this third edition, you’ll begin by getting up to speed with the features of Adobe Animate. You'll learn how to set up Animate as a creative platform and explore the enhancements introduced in its most recent versions. The book will show you how to consume and produce media assets for different platforms through the publish and export workflows. You'll explore advanced rigging workflows and discover how to create more dynamic animations with complex depth and movement techniques. As the book demonstrates different ways of channeling your creativity through Animate, you'll be able to build projects such as games, virtual reality experiences, generative art, and apps for various platforms. Finally, this graphic design book covers the different methods used to extend the software to meet various user requirements.

By the end of this book, you'll be able to produce a variety of media assets, motion graphic designs, animated artifacts, and interactive content pieces for platforms such as HTML5 Canvas, WebGL, and mobile devices.

What you will learn

  • Gain an understanding of Adobe Animate foundations and new features
  • Understand how to publish and export rich media content to various platforms
  • Find out how to use advanced layering and rigging techniques to create engaging motion content
  • Explore how to create dynamic motions using variable layer depth techniques
  • Develop web-based games, generative art, virtual reality experiences, and multiplatform mobile applications
  • Make the most of Animate with extensions, application-level scripting, and the creation of custom-integrated tutorials

Who this book is for

This book is for web, graphic, and motion design professionals with basic experience in animation who want to take their existing skills to the next level. A clear understanding of fundamental animation concepts will help you to get the most out of this book and produce impressive results.

Table of contents

  1. Mastering Adobe Animate 2023
Third Edition
  2. Contributors
  3. About the author
  4. About the reviewer
  5. Preface
    1. Who this book is for
    2. What this book covers
    3. To get the most out of this book
    4. Download the example projects, media assets, and code files
    5. Code in Action
    6. Download the color images
    7. Conventions used
    8. Get in touch
    9. Share Your Thoughts
    10. Download a free PDF copy of this book
  6. Part 1: Getting Up to Speed
  7. Chapter 1: Exploring Adobe Animate
    1. Technical Requirements
    2. Understanding Adobe Animate
      1. A Bit of History
      2. Familiar Uses of Adobe Animate
    3. Choosing Between Document Types
      1. Considering the Flash Platform Runtimes
      2. Branching Out to the Native Web
      3. Opening Up to Custom Platforms
    4. Exploring the New Features of Animate
      1. Flexi Bones
      2. Envelope Deformers
      3. Rig Edit Mode
      4. Warped Shapes and Warped Bitmaps in the Library Panel
    5. Building Animations with Premade Assets
      1. Creating a New Document
      2. Adjusting the User Interface
      3. Assembling an Animation Using the Assets Panel
      4. Using Social Share and Quick Publish
    6. Summary
  8. Chapter 2: Creating and Animating Shapes
    1. Technical Requirements
    2. Working with Shapes in Animate
      1. Understanding the shape tools
      2. Creating a new document
      3. Drawing shapes in the Stage area
    3. Animating with shape tweens
      1. Defining object properties with keyframes
      2. Exploring shape tween properties
      3. Manipulating shape properties across tweens
      4. Exploring the Timeline tools
    4. Animating text as shape objects
      1. Creating a new document
      2. Adding text elements
      3. Working with the Timeline
      4. Adding starter shapes
      5. Animating the text shapes
    5. Options for exporting your creations
      1. Exporting video files
      2. Exporting animated GIFs
      3. Exporting image file sequences
    6. Summary
  9. Chapter 3: Animating with Symbols, Classic Tweens, and Motion Tweens
    1. Technical Requirements
    2. Working with Symbols in Animate
      1. Creating a New Document
      2. Symbols and the Library Panel
      3. Converting Content to a Symbol
      4. Exploring Symbol Types
    3. Working with Classic Tweens
      1. Animating with Classic Tweens
      2. Using Classic Motion Guides
      3. Exploring Classic Tween Properties
    4. Working with Motion Tweens
      1. Examining the Starter File
      2. Converting Artwork to Symbols
      3. Designing Nested Animation
      4. Creating and Modifying Additional Plant Instances
      5. Making Use of Motion Tweens and Motion Guides
      6. Exploring Motion Tween Properties
    5. Summary
  10. Part 2: Animating with Diverse Techniques
  11. Chapter 4: Enhancing Animations Using Advanced Layers Mode
    1. Technical Requirements
    2. Working with the Advanced Layers Mode
      1. Assessing the layer mode benefits
      2. Switching between layer modes
    3. Understanding the Camera
      1. Examining the starter project
      2. Activating and manipulating the camera
    4. Understanding and manipulating layer depth
      1. Activating the Layer Depth panel
      2. Modifying Layer Depth
      3. Using Layer Depth without the camera
    5. Animating the Camera
      1. Setting camera keyframes
      2. Adding motion and easing to the camera
      3. Creating text and attaching layers to the camera
    6. Applying layer effects and filters
      1. Adding effects to the camera
      2. Adding filters to a layer
      3. Publishing ActionScript 3.0 documents
    7. Summary
  12. Chapter 5: Setting Up Characters Using Layer Parenting
    1. Technical Requirements
    2. Animating a Character with Layer Parenting
      1. Preparing assets for Layer Parenting
      2. Establishing a layer hierarchy
      3. Importing external content
      4. Animating using Layer Parenting
    3. Exploring additional character animation features
      1. Making use of Graphic symbols
      2. Importing audio for Stream Sync
      3. Configuring our Graphic symbol frames
      4. Assigning visemes and automating lip-syncing
    4. Summary
  13. Chapter 6: Physical Motion with Inverse Kinematics
    1. Technical Requirements
    2. Building an Armature using Inverse Kinematics
      1. Understanding Inverse Kinematics versus Forward Kinematics
      2. Customizing the Tools Panel
      3. Using the Bone Tool to Rig Symbol Instances
      4. Refining the Rig Properties
      5. Using the Bone Tool to rig shapes
      6. Using the Bind Tool to refine shapes
    3. Animating an IK Armature
      1. Creating Additional Poses
      2. Managing Armature Poses
    4. Sharing a Completed IK Rig
      1. Saving a rig for reuse
      2. Importing a rig within the Assets panel
    5. Summary
  14. Chapter 7: Creating and Manipulating Warped Objects
    1. Technical Requirements
    2. Using Warped Objects and the Asset Warp Tool
    3. Creating Warped Objects and Animating with Pins
      1. Building the Warped Object Mesh
      2. Animating Warped Object meshes
    4. Animating Warped Objects with Envelope Distortion
      1. Creating a Warped Object with Envelope Deformation Enabled
      2. Animating with Envelope Deformations
      3. Finishing the Animation with Symbol Instances
    5. Summary
  15. Chapter 8: Modern Rigging Techniques
    1. Technical Requirements
    2. Animating Warped Objects Using Armatures
      1. Hard Bones, Soft Bones, and Flexi Bones
      2. Manipulating Bone Properties
      3. Editing a Warped Object Rig
    3. Animating a Spooky Tree with Modern Rigging
      1. Creating Armatures using Modern Rigging
      2. Animating Rigs with Modern Rigging Techniques
    4. Summary
  16. Part 3: Exploring Additional Capabilities
  17. Chapter 9: Making Interactive Art with Creative Coding Techniques
    1. Technical Requirements
    2. Exploring HTML5 Canvas Through Creative Coding
      1. HTML and JavaScript
      2. The Canvas Element
      3. The CreateJS JavaScript Libraries
    3. Writing an Interactive Drawing Program
      1. Drawing Visuals with Code
      2. Animating with Code
      3. Programming Image Export Functionality
      4. Publishing HTML5 Canvas Documents
    4. Summary
  18. Chapter 10: Developing Web-Based Games
    1. Technical Requirements
    2. Understanding the Game Concept
      1. Starter Document Overview
      2. Exploring the Timeline and Stage
      3. Exploring the Project Library
    3. Preparing the Game Timeline, Stage, and Library
      1. Labeling the Timeline
      2. Creating Dynamic Text and Clickable Overlays
      3. Adding Linkage IDs within the Library
    4. Programming the Game with JavaScript
      1. Creating Global Variables
      2. Programming the Start Screen
      3. Programming Player Actions
      4. Programming Enemy Behavior
      5. Programming the Game Loop
      6. Programming the End Screen
    5. Finishing the Game Project
    6. Summary
  19. Chapter 11: Producing Virtual Reality Content
    1. Technical Requirements
    2. Overview of Virtual Reality Documents
      1. Managing Scenes for Virtual Reality
      2. Capturing Photographs for Virtual Reality
      3. Adding Textures to Virtual Reality Scenes
    3. Adding Additional Content
      1. Importing Transparent 3D Renders
      2. Animating with the Asset Warp Tool
      3. Animating the Spectre Warped Object
    4. Writing Code for Virtual Reality Interactions
      1. Moving from Scene to Scene
      2. Interacting with Animated Objects
      3. Refining Perspective within the VR View Panel
      4. Publishing Beta Document Types
    5. Summary
  20. Chapter 12: Building Apps for Desktop and Mobile
    1. Technical Requirements
    2. Exploring the Adobe Integrated Runtime
      1. Adobe AIR
      2. Adobe AIR and ActionScript 3.0
      3. Adobe AIR and HARMAN
      4. AIR for Desktop
      5. AIR for iOS
      6. AIR for Android
    3. Working with the Adobe Integrated Runtime
      1. Installing an AIR SDK in Animate
      2. Configuring an AIR for Desktop Project
      3. Testing Your AIR Project
    4. Building a User Interface
      1. Working with Button Symbols
      2. Using Components within an AIR Project
      3. Exploring Advanced Movie Clip Symbol Settings
    5. Programming an AIR Application
      1. The ActionScript Programming Language
      2. Establishing a Document Class
      3. Writing ActionScript Code
    6. Publishing and Converting AIR Document Types
      1. Converting an AIR Application from Desktop to Mobile
    7. Summary
  21. Chapter 13: Extending Adobe Animate
    1. Technical Requirements
    2. Creating Custom In-App Tutorials
      1. Generating Animate Asset Files
      2. Generating Animate Preferences Files
    3. Writing JSFL Scripts
    4. Understanding the Animate Custom Platform SDK
    5. Summary
  22. Index
    1. Why subscribe?
  23. Other Books You May Enjoy
    1. Packt is searching for authors like you
    2. Download a free PDF copy of this book

Product information

  • Title: Mastering Adobe Animate 2023 - Third Edition
  • Author(s): Joseph Labrecque
  • Release date: February 2023
  • Publisher(s): Packt Publishing
  • ISBN: 9781837636266