How to make background animation?

How to get REALLY good with flash animation?

• Before I say anything I just want to let everyone know I'm a total noob at flash animation. I've always been interested in it, and I'm completely fascinated by animations people make and share all over the internet. To animators out there, or people who have a background in animation, what would you say is the best way to go about learning the program and to animate if you're truly dedicated? I own flash cs5, as it came in the creative suite when I joined graphic design at my college. I want to do this not only as a hobby, but as a cool skill to have. I'm sincerely dedicated and self motivated, any and all answers are greatly appreciated!

• Answer:

  Well, first of all, before you get REALLY good, you have to learn the basics(obviously). Basically, how I first learned was from following tutorials from Youtube. If you're familiar with Photoshop, the tools are basically the same. The only thing that can be a little difficult to understand is the timeline. When you first open up a new .fla file, there will be only one layer and the timeline is blank. Once you draw something in the white box, a black dot till appear in the first frame which means that it is a keyframe. I'm not going to go into too much depth about this, because first, it will take too long and second, other people can explain it better to me. Just search "Adobe Flash how to use symbols." There are symbols- movie clip, button and graphic. There are separate tutorials for each. Also, go on Newgrounds.com. It's a flash cartoon sharing website and there are TONS of tutorials posted there. Just take it slow and and don't give up if you don't get it right away. Good luck!