ZOOLOOK | Web Designer Issue 154 – Take Your Flash films to new HD heights

Animation Genius goes all high definition on us!

The man behind the hugely cool ZOOLOOK returns to our panel of experts for another exclusive Flash masterclass. This month he’s revealing trade secrets behind animating in high definition , and frankly we cannot wait to see the results. All hail Da Silva!

BACK IN 2003, Nicholas Da Silva produced his first television program, the FlashTV series, using nothing but Flash and Quicktime. He was so excited to view FlashTV on a public access channel, he continued to produce content on Flash, adapting it to multiple formats including creating content for the mobile space.
A few years ago, he purchased his first HDTV, the Sony Bravia, 42 inch, and immediately began imagining the Cavedudez in high definition. This dream fuelled his desire to make his first HD Movie (in production), Cavedudez: TGSNT.

He began experimenting with different stage sizes, smaller at first, and exporting to a larger movie size. The results didn’t look as crisp as he wanted and he thought that Flash would react the same way Illustrator reacted when you resize a vector object larger than its present size. So he decided to work in a larger stage size, 1280 x 720. Now, we know what you’re thinking; more work because of a larger workspace? Not exactly. He created one stage area so that each of the Cavedudez could interact with each other during the song. And that was when everything began to fall in to place…