Übersicht: Tipps, Tricks und Tutorials im Vektorgarten

Creating animations in Illustrator

See German translation here.

You can combine Illustrators 3D-effects, the blend-function and the SWF-export to create simple 3D-animations as an SWF-file like the rotating cube here:

Follow thesse simple steps to dreate it:

  1. Create a new file. SInce the SWF will be viewed on screen, choose a document profile like „Web“ or „mobile and devices“.
  2. Create 6 rectangles with different fill colors (size doesn't matter) and make a symbol out of each of those. Press F8 for making a symbol. Symbol options don't matter.
    Symbol panel
  3. Draw a square of 60 by 60 pixels with a white fill and no stroke.
  4. Apply Effect > 3D > Extrude and bevel. Choose a depth of extrusion of 60 Pt. Click on „Map Art“ and choose one of the colored symbols you created in step 2 for each of the cube's sides. For each of the sides also click on „Scale to fit“.Create cube
    Map Artwork
  5. In the layers panel, duplicate the object by dragging it on the new-layer-button. In the appearance panel click to edit the 3D-effect and rotate the object so that a different side turns to the front.Duplicate LayerEdit effect
  6. In the layer panel make a copy of the object you just edited by dragging it onto the new-layer-button as well. Edit the effect and rotate it. Repeat this until you have 6 cubes all showing a different front side. Then make another copy to rotate it to the initial position.
    You should take care that the objects are in the correct order in the layers panel. The stacking order has to reflect the animation sequence.
    Ebenen-Palette
  7. Select all objects and choose Object > Blend > Make.
  8. Double click the Blend-tool to set the blend options. Set to specified steps and enter 3.
    Angleichung-Optionen
  9. Choose File> Export with the option SWF and enter a name for that file.
  10. Choose a Frame-Rate of about 10, select Loop and Animate Blends > In Sequence. Set any other options you might need. If you don't have Flash Player installed (which is normal if you don't have installed Flash), also generate an HTML-file in order to be able to view your animation in the browser.
    Flash-Exportoptionen

See my other English tutorials

Mysterious things Illustrator does - Saving files (Video on Vimeo)
EPS – the zombie of file formats
Saving safely
Saving legacy files
Long Shadows with Illustrator
Creating a pentagonal pattern
Problems with align to pixel grid
Aligning and distributing - Special
Freeform-artbrush with a gradient or clipping objects using an opacity mask
Pathfinder doesn‘t react
Stylish guilloches with gradients

Outline object and outline stroke
Optimize your workflow in Illustrator

 

© Monika Gause, 2010/2011 . Impressum/Datenschutz . Grafik . mediawerk