Other things we could do is modify the colours in the CarDemo constructor or class file to change the colours of the robot and obstacles.

You may find it useful to download the Flash debug projector when working with scripts. It can be found on the Adobe website.

Other things we could do is modify the colours in the RobotDemo constructor or class file to change the colours of the robot and obstacles.

You may find it useful to download the Flash debug projector when working with scripts. It can be found on the Adobe website.

Now you will need some software which turns your actions captured on the Kinect into a motion capture file (BVH). You can download some free software from the Brekel website.

Now do a little dance, jump up and down and capture your motions. Save them as a BVH file.

You can then import this BVH file into Awesome Animator (make sure you download the latest version) to create a Flash animation. The animation will show your movements as a stick figure but you can change these by double clicking on a rectangle and changing it for a different graphic.

Here is an example of importing a BVH file to Awesome Animator. (This one is of a horse but the same principle applies.) I have changed the head from a rectangle to something more interesting.

If you don’t have a Kinect you may be able to download some free BVH files that others have created.

Once you have made some good animations you can put them on your website or share them with your friends and don’t forget to mention they were made with Awesome Animator!!!

Digital Puppetry
Just because you are a human it doesn’t mean your animation must be of a human. For example, you could use your arms to pretend to be the jaws of crocodile. Then when you import the BVH file into Awesome Animator simply delete all the layers except for the arms (which will now be jaws) and use them as the basis of an animation!!!
You can combine multiple captures. For example first capture your body. Then capture your arm gestures again but this time use them for animating the mouth of your character.
A third capture could use your arms to animate a claw.
You can add different captures for different characters by importing the BVH inside different MovieClips.

Now just export your animation as a Flash (SWF) file!!!

The text here is こんにちは私の日本人の友達が！ which Google translate tells me says “Hello Japanese people!” Which probably means it says no such thing!

Unicode can be used in buttons and text boxes. You will need to use a font supporting Unicode such as “MS Mincho” or “Arial Unicode“. It is best to write out the Unicode first and then paste it in to a Awesome Animator text box because the characters may not show up in the dialog box.

Unicode was requested using our “bug tracking” feature.

The very latest version now supports Unicode in animated titles:

One of the new improvements is that Awesome Animator now allows you to open Flash animation SWFs containing Actionscript 3.0, change the graphic content and then re-export them. (Be aware, however, that changing the content of someone’s animation or game, may violate their copyright.) At present you are not able to edit Actionscript 3.0 code in AA although you can see a list of classes and functions contained in the SWF. If there is a high demand we may add Actionscript 3.0 editing at a later time.

We’ve also added a bug reporting facility which should help speed up the process of fixing bugs. Any bugs that are reported with this facility we shall prioritise. It speeds things up considerably if you can describe how to replicate the bug in the shortest number of steps. As always, we provide all updates free to existing users so it’s a win-win situation! We believe the latest version of AA to be the most stable and fastest yet.

We used the cylinder tool for the candle itself. We used a modified cylinder for the candle holder. We used a ring shape for the handle. The shine on the candle is simply a circle with a radial gradient where the outer colour opacity is 0%.
To create the flames we used the quick particle creator and used an orange colour. This layer is underneath the shine layer to give the best effect.

We draw two spheres and group each one as a MovieClip. Using the frame panel we assign a reference name to each one: earth and moon. For the moon we set up the variables by choosing the MovieClip Events > onLoad action from the action menu. And type in:

And then for the MovieClip Events > onEnterFrame we have:

//work out distance from earth to moon
dx = _root.earth._x – _x
dy = _root.earth._y – _y
r = Math.sqrt(dx*dx + dy*dy)

//get the mass of the earth from the other MovieClip
m = _root.earth.mass

//change the velocity according to the inverse square law of attraction
velocity.x += m*dx/r/r/r
velocity.y += m*dy/r/r/r

//change the position with the values of the velocity
_x += velocity.x
_y += velocity.y

We then repeat these actions for the Earth but  wherever it says earth put moon.  Also, the starting values for the earth MovieClip in the onLoad action should be:

Showing events and references in editor

Other things you might like to add would be a reset button.

First let us create a new animation with size 400 x 300 using the File > Document Properties menu.

Next we draw the ball with the sphere tool. Next we group the ball as a MovieClip.

Next with the ball selected we go to the Action menu and in the MovieClip Events we choose onLoad to set up some values for when the ball first appears on the screen. In the action box we type in:

gravity = 4
velocity = {x:10, y:0}

This sets the strength of the gravitational force to a suitable number and adjusts it for 24 frames a second animation. It sets the initial velocity to a sideways direction in the x-axis.

We close this window. Then in the MovieClip Events we choose onEnterFrame which tells the ball what to do on every frame. We type in:

//the velocity increases downwards every frame
velocity.y += gravity


//the position of the ball change with the velocity
_x += velocity.x
_y += velocity.y


//if it hits the floor reverse the downward velocity
if( _y + _height/2 > Stage.height){
    velocity.y*= -1
    _y=Stage.height -_height/2
}


//if it hits the sides reverse the sideways velocity
if( _x - _width/2 < 0 || _x + _width/2 > Stage.width){
    velocity.x*= -1
}

Close the action window and preview the result!

(You may notice that when it hits the floor we also adjust the position of the ball so it touches the floor exactly. This prevents unusual behaviour such as the ball bouncing higher then it fell.)

The steps are very simple.

Step 1

To change the background colour, open the ‘Appearance’ menu and choose ‘Background colour’.

Step 2

To add the animated text go to the ‘Quick’ menu and choose ‘Title Text”. Type the words in you want. (In this case “Hello World”). Adjust the parameters until you like what you see in the preview window. Click OK to add it to the page.

Step 3

Use the blue cursor to move the text into the right place and the resize tool to make the text the right size.