Dave Wolfe Plugs In
Dave Wolfe has taken matters into his own hands. Dave is an LA-based Flash animator whose gone and created three Flash extensions, or custom commands, that he’s offering to the Flash community for free. After spending some time last week at Flashforward, it’s become all too clear that the Dave Wolfe’s and the Warren Fuller’s of the world are going to advance the software for our community FAR more than the guys at Adobe/Macromedia. That’s not to say that the advances in Flash 8 aren’t interesting and somewhat useful, but we’re just never going to get the type of detailed animation-specific tools from a development team that’s more focused on interactive websites.
So with that said, here’s Dave’s extensions. You’ll need to have Macromedia’s Extension Manager 1.6 or later to install (which comes with Flash 8, but earlier versions need to download). Once you download these, you just double-click the mxp files (the three below) in Extension Manager and off you go. Dave recommends that you tinker with your keyboard shortcuts once you install, because there’s a bug in Flash that screws these up when you install custom commands. Just open the keyboard shortcut panel and click ‘OK.’ The shortcuts should go back to their proper places.
(right-click or control-click on these and ’save as’)1. LayerColor - This will let you change the outline color for selected layers all at the same time instead of changing the color one at a time in the layer properties panel.
2. NewAnimClip - This will create a new empty symbol on a new layer, registered to the stage. If you have an animation clip for a character and you decide you want to nest it inside a symbol, the old way would be to copy all the frames, insert a new symbol, paste the frames, then drag that symbol onto the stage and try to line it up. With this extension, all you have to do is copy or cut the frames, run the NewAnimClip command, and then paste the frames. The symbol is already on the stage and correctly registered.
3. Tween2Keys - This works like ‘convert to keyframes,’ but it does it on two’s instead of one’s. You have to be careful with this one, as Dave tried to come up with a way to make it actually create keyframes on every other frame, but each way he came up with to do that ruined the motion tween. So what this actually does is use Flash’s convert to keyframes command first, then it removes any tweens, then it clears every other keyframe. Since you’re physically removing keyframes there is the potential to accidentally clear a keyframe that you want, so make sure that any of the selected frames do not have keyframes on 1’s or they will get cleared. To convert your tween to two’s, select the first keyframe and last keyframe in the motion tween (this will work for multiple layers) and run the command. For large amounts of frames it may take a few seconds for the script.
These are all accessed from the Commands menu in Flash MX 2004 or 8, and you can assign a keyboard shortcut to them from the Edit menu.
Great work, Dave. I’m assuming the audience will have plenty of ideas for your next batch of extensions. Evan Spiridellis and I recently challenged the Macromedia team to create a Warp Symbol tool (might work like a ‘Smart Object’ in Photoshop CS2), but perhaps that can happen by way of an extension. Or what about a global color palette that would allow for asset-specific color. Or the ability to build custom line types - so many Flash teams do this stuff in Illustrator, and I hear it’s possible to build these right into Flash itself. Anyone else?
Tags: Flashforward
March 9th, 2006 at 8:52 pm
If I could have one thing it would be custom brushes…Joy! Like expression but with a timeline.
March 9th, 2006 at 9:20 pm
Oh man, that NewAnimClip is going to be VERY useful. Thanks Dave (and Aaron for hosting)!
I found a few extensions recently that are really sweet.
Stage Scaler
http://www.phireworx.com/files/commands/stagescaler/Stage%20Scaler.mxp
Instead of selecting 100%, 200%, etc for your zoom on the stage or typing it in, you can drag a little slider to zoom in and out.
Pixel Tools v2
http://www.5etdemi.com/blog/archives/2005/03/pixel-tools-v2-available/
This adds a pixel line and pencil tool. Very useful when making pixel art, and the line tool is also quite handy for graphic design work.
Create Frame Sequence
http://www.flashguru.co.uk/downloads/create.frame.seq.mxp
“This extension adds a new command to the Commands menu in Flash MX 2004 [or 8] that will take the frames you have selected and add them to a new layer in the order you selected them, one by one.”
Duplicate Layer
http://www.flashguru.co.uk/downloads/duplicate.layer.mxp
“This extension adds a new command to the Commands menu in Flash MX 2004 that will create an exact replica of a layer.”
March 9th, 2006 at 9:23 pm
Oh and what I want very badly is true parent/child relationships for symbols.
March 9th, 2006 at 9:39 pm
genius!
March 9th, 2006 at 9:44 pm
Thank you for the Plugins! I agree with the other Dave. I true parent/child relationship would be great. So when you double click on a character’s head to edit an eyebrow on frame 1245 you don’t have to scroll all the way down the timeline again to make that adjustment.
March 9th, 2006 at 10:06 pm
That layer coloring one is such a welcome thing. Thank you!
I would love to see a Command that could guide on or off selected layers in a similar fashion.
March 9th, 2006 at 10:13 pm
Thanks Dave, you are a true magician!
March 9th, 2006 at 10:18 pm
the animclip is EXTREMELY helpful, I never fnished abunch of animations because it was hard to do what i needed to with the symbol. With this Animclip is going to help me be 5x more productive! thanks so much guys!!!!
Steve
March 9th, 2006 at 10:26 pm
Dave, 3 of the files dont work. The pixel tools, Duplicate layed and Create frame sequence. When i click go to the link all that pops up are codes for those 3.
Steve
March 9th, 2006 at 10:49 pm
thanks, the animClip is a real time saver, and the stage scaler is handy to have. I think Aaron is right about Flash8, I was talking to another animator today about how we wre pretty stoked before 8 came out, and now that its out, wre not really using any of the “new features” we don’t even remember what they were. the things we most remeber/use are things like animSlider, and ToonTitan, etc. big thanks to people like Ibis and dave wolfe
for making flash much better.
March 9th, 2006 at 11:05 pm
This man is a coding monster! I introduced Dave to JSFL about a month and half ago and he’s already cranking out some great tools! I’m sure we’ll see some more cool stuff from him in the future.
Flash tools by animators for animators!
March 9th, 2006 at 11:13 pm
These guys make the best animation tools in the biz. Big thanks to Warren and Dave. Rock on!
March 9th, 2006 at 11:58 pm
Sorry Anon #3. Try right clicking and saving these links.
Stage Scaler
Create Frame Sequence
Duplicate Layer
March 10th, 2006 at 1:15 am
Everyone rejoice and sing the praises of Dave! All the folks at Animax are better off for what he’s done. Especially since he only started dabbling in AS a few months ago.
March 10th, 2006 at 4:08 am
Thanks for the comments guys, and thanks to Aaron for hosting these files. I have a list of features I’ve wanted for years, and now that Warren’s got me started on jsfl I’m going down the list and adding them myself! Some of the suggestions posted here are already on my list, so with luck you’ll be seeing more extensions in the coming weeks/months.
March 10th, 2006 at 10:02 pm
Ooh, I just had a thought, what about a squash and stretch plugin? So when it’s enabled, scaling a symbol would keep its mass (so like you scale it down to 50% in x and it makes it 150% in y to keep the mass). That wouldn’t be too hard to do, would it?
March 10th, 2006 at 10:52 pm
Yeah the NewAnimClip feature pretty kicks “the Pringle” in the ass….
March 11th, 2006 at 9:09 pm
Thanks Dave (and Aaron). I also appreciate the links to the other helpful tools. Man, I wish I’d known about Pixel Tools 6 months ago.
March 13th, 2006 at 1:53 am
R.I.P
“The Pringle”
2001- 2006
- a faithful work around for the prehistoric days of Flash
March 15th, 2006 at 6:13 am
*tippin’ a 40*