Jarrad Hope On Parenting
Jarred Hope is trying to do no less than rewire Flash for animators. 
He’s currently in the beta testing stage of a plugin called Reanimator, a character animation plugin that allows an animator to build both forward and reverse kinematics (parenting relationships between symbols).
I sat down to tinker with it last weekend, and I can surely imagine Reanimator finding its way into dozens, if not hundreds, of Flash animation studios around the world. There’s still some bugs, and a few confusing elements, but with the right feedback and fixes, Reanimator will allow animators to build intricate character rigs not unlike those found in 3D software or other 2D platforms like ToonBoom.
Over at his website, reanimator.net, Jarrad has launched a SWF preview of his software in motion. If any studios want to be on the beta list, email me and I’ll get you in touch with him.
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March 13th, 2006 at 7:19 pm
And the crowd was just clamoring for this kind of development… Nice work. There is Hope. Any idea how long this took to build, and what it may cost?
March 13th, 2006 at 7:37 pm
It’s great programmers and artists are extending Flash to include absent and much needed features –a camera and simple IK — but it’s a shame that these developments have not come from Macromedia. While Macromedia has given the developer community the tools to extend the program, absent is the ability to seamless integrate the new functionality. Most of the tools I’ve seen are impressive bits of code but are rather kludgy in use. An IK system for Flash is interesting but I wonder how one would manage the character models — the IK rig and the parented artwork — in a production environment.
March 13th, 2006 at 8:47 pm
Well put Ian. I totally agree. An even better solution would be a separate version of Flash, “Flash Animator” that is geared to the needs of the Flash Character animation community. The only thing that I see holding this back is not enough users. I’m guessing only about 10,000 folks world wide that are pushing Flash to do this type of animation.
What do people here think is the total number of Flash Charater animaters in the world?
March 13th, 2006 at 10:06 pm
I’d say around 10,001.
March 13th, 2006 at 10:31 pm
My guess, though maybe it’s just wishful thinking, was closer to 50,000 users. I think with all the independent animators, small studios that don’t get much/any press, and studios in every remote corner of the world (Asia, Africa, etc) there’s gota be more than 10,000.
March 14th, 2006 at 5:30 am
Oh man, that looks very interesting. Can’t wait til its out of beta!
March 15th, 2006 at 3:25 am
Make that 10,002! I too said all along that Flash should have another version of Flash called Flashanimate that is geared strictly for the animator. I bet many more people have wished for this too. I think what Jarred Hope is doing is great as well and I cannot wait to try it!
Todd
March 17th, 2006 at 2:16 am
We (the Flash community) are going to have to do all the heavy lifting on this type of stuff, and shouldn’t expect Adobe/Macromedia to offer a significant amount of assistance. We’re simply too small a community within the greater community of website builders, application developers and other non-animators.
As far as the number of Flash animators in the world - I’ll go with 6,000. I’m sure there’s another 30,000 dabblers and people who can make text fly across the screen, but I think there’s 6,000 people who make a living or spend a significant portion of their week setting keyframes. Just a guess, but I’m sticking with it.
Warren - how does one create JSFL add-ons that are more integrated with the Flash environment?
March 17th, 2006 at 7:54 am
Reanimator took a fair while to build (juggling jobs and lots of tricky things jsfl has)
I have also created a camera that supports all movieclip transformation’s(including rotation), filters and color transformations(opacity), the way its built definatly opens itself up to the possibilities of a 3d camera in flash.
Ian, managing rigs in a production environemnt is the same as how you manage symbols now. Rigs are stored into movieclips and can be shared and even reused for other characters.
For flash animators happy with their current method of animation, I will be releasing a mini version of reanimator, called paperclips that will allow you to parent symbols to other symbols, which integrates into flash perfectly, it behaves just like the free transformation tool.
I have alot more planned for flash animators, I wont give details away right yet but its very cool
March 18th, 2006 at 3:46 am
Impressive stuff, Jarrad! I look forward to their release.
Aarron - I’m guessing that developing
would give a developer better intergration into the Flash API.
6000, probably a large part of that is still using Flash 5 and 6
March 18th, 2006 at 3:53 am
Uhh, the tags didn’t work..
It should read *developing Featured Extesions would give*
March 18th, 2006 at 5:32 am
Thanks for the link
I contacted them today, Hopefully they will reply and I can develop even better apps for everyone
March 18th, 2006 at 6:25 pm
Where are you located Jarrad?
I applied a couple a months ago and haven’t heard anything yet. Hopefully you will have better luck.
March 19th, 2006 at 2:49 pm
Im currently based in the most isolated city in the world
June 21st, 2006 at 10:14 am
Looks promising. Finally catching up to
1991 Animo skeletons
I’d like to see it in action.
December 1st, 2006 at 4:17 am
Hello, I am Stefan and I am interrested in the paperclips plugin.
Did you already release it? Could you tell me where I can test it, please?
Thanks a lot.
Bye