Flash Animation hate has to stop

S

Sylth

New member
I've often seen posts here and on other corners on the web bashing Flash animation. I admit, I was one of them as well, because of shows like Total Drama Island don't animate, all they do is tween a bunch of symbols around on the screen from a symbol library that never changes. Same symbols, same expression, same effects (That look good I admit, but they use them over and over again). Yes there are many shows that use Flash soley as a time and money saver.

However it's time to look at the positives of Flash animation. Flash animation has brought animation back to North America. The majority of animation in the 70's-90's was not animated here. No, they were usually animated in East Asia places like Korea and The Phillipenes because they can pay them what we consider "Slave Wages". The closest thing that someone could do to become a professional animator was a storyboard artist. Fosters was animated right here in the States, and there are several Canadian animation studios around that specialize in flash. Unfortunetly producers have found a way to save even more money: Flash animation in Asia.

If anything, Flash animation looks just as good as the modern traditionally animated cartoons. Even better maybe. The man issue that people probably have with Flash animation is that it's pretty obvious these days when it's Flash animated. Even shows that have "bad" animation like Johnny Test, Total Drama Island and countless others have way better animation than Family Guy or maybe even the recent Simpsons episodes. People complain way too much about bad Flash animation than bad traditional animation. Remember "The Powerpuff Girls Rule" special? That was animated in flash and had way better animation than the past six seasons, yet people still complained about it just because it was animated in Flash. The characters felt way more alive to me, and was just flat out funner to watch. What about Joe Murray's new series "Frog in a Suit". Yeah it may surprise you, but that was animated in flash as well. Frame by frame symbol-less flash. I don't see anyone these days complaining about South Park's animation. It's not animated in flash, but it's animated with animation software. Would people be more critical of the animation if it was animated in flash? What about Family Guy which I don't even consider "Animation" anymore.

So basically my message here is this: Animation is solely based on the animators of the show. Not if a program is used or not, or which program is used or not. Think the animation of Total Drama Island sucks? That's simply the fault of the animators, not flash. Many of the people who criticize flash don't even actually criticize it. They just say something like "Crappy flash animation" yet don't state anything about why the animation sucks.

What are your views on this? Again this is just my opinion overall.
 
I don't hate Flash animation, but I think there's a lot of room for improvement.

I have a feeling that if weekday syndication still existed to where we'd have several new 65 episode series coming out per season, that we'd be seeing the majority of them turning to Flash, especially ones that would get 2nd and 3rd season pickups.
 
Completely agreed. Flash is just a tool. It's what's accomplished with the tool that counts. It's misguided criticism to blame the program itself, like anything made in Flash is, by definition, bad.

Theoretically, it's possible to do full animation in Flash, just like you would on a canvas. I've seen it done, and looks darn good.
 
Agreed. Flash itself isn't the problem, as the program is capable of some perfectly lovely animation (I know some people who just use it for certain features and do the bulk of the animation by hand with a tablet).

People need to take off their nostalgia goggles sometimes - all of those beloved 70's and 80's cartoons? Most of Hannah Barbarra's catelogue? They were probably less animated than your modern cheaply produced Flash cartoon.

It all comes down to budget. Bigger budget = better animation.
 
Not really. Family Guy has a big budget while Spongebob was a low budget cartoon, an SB is the one with better animation.

I wouldn't mind Flash animation so much if many studios at least attempted to make their shows move like Jimmy-Two-Shoes. Heck, ti should even be possible to make cartoons move like Johnny Bravo or The Powerpuff Girls (As the Flash special proves) since their animation consisted of individual poses and fairly limited animation anyway.

For me though, I never liked Hanna Barbera animation to begin with, or 70 - 80's animation. So it's not really Flash animation I hate, because I do enjoy watching Jimmy Two-Shoes and Happy Tree Friends (the ones made for TV) and Foster's, but more like what the average Flash cartoon will typically look/be animated like (Total Drama Island, dislike that show overall for everything).

It's the same thing with CGI, I wouldn't dislike so much CGI movies if they were good looking like Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs or Horton Hears a Who! (Horton is good looking, the script is another thing), but instead we get Megamind (Which I still think is funny, but awful looking) and Fanboy & ChumChum on TV. CGI on television just confuses me overall, it looks like it would be more expensive to make not less, but whatever.
 
CGI is what I have a real problem with. Some things just weren't meant to be animated in that style, especially older cartoons. At least with Flash, it's still somewhat normal looking in 2D.
 
Flah is pure crap.:mad:
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Yeah, I have no idea on what that is.:shrug:


But on the other hand, flash is a tool that needs skill and effort to create something acceptable..
Also, keep in mind that not all hand drawn animation is as fluid as a Disney movie is.
 
Well, duh. Disney has always had the bigger budgets and an incredibly talented pool of animators, even back in the 30s-60s era. I don't think it's theoretically possible for a Flash cartoon to reach the level of a theatrical Disney piece of work.
 
Professional animators animating it with zero symbols, drawing characters, effects, and everything frame by frame.

Yes, it can be done. Flash can simply be an alternative to the traditional penand pencil method. Your wacom pen is your pen, and your computer screen is your paper. Simple as that. I see absolutely no reason why a 2D film like "The Princess and the Frog" couldn't be done in flash while looking almost exactly the same.

As for the 70's and 80's stuff, if flash existed back then, the majority of cartoons from those eras would have been done in flash. Why? To achieve many producers number one goal: To save money and time. Flash has several features to take "shortcuts" in the animation (Which TDI takes advantage endlessly because the series doesn't feature much actual animation). It's not like those cartons were well animated to begin with, so the shortcuts provided by flash would only make those cartoons look better than ever.
 
Response to the fluid animation not possible on Flash thing:

Romeo & Juliet: Sealed with a Kiss
Youtube | Wikipedia

BiteyCastle
Brackenwood Series | BiteyCastle Movies

Blockhead
Newgrounds


There was also a flash series about a little ninja kid whose title I cannot remember, and the later episodes also had fluid animation; and I think John K.'s music video to Weird Al's "Close But No Cigar" was done in Flash? I don't think I can link that here.

But those are just a few examples of fluid animation in Flash. I think it's hard to replicate the look of hand-done things, like, I haven't seen any animations of Flash that look like Snow White or The Lion King in terms of linework and coloring, but I do know that you are able to digitally color things and make them look very good (I think the program is called ToonBoom?). The last season of Ed, Edd, n' Eddy was digitally colored as well as some recent Mickey Mouse/Goofy/Donald Duck shorts I believe.

I think if Studios used Flash as a substitute for paper and digitally colored things, we would have some great looking cartoons, might even bring back some in-house animation jobs.
 
My only gripe with flash is the poor way some people use it. It wouldn't bother me near as much if they atleast used other colors than what's on the default pallete.

Flash, along with other digital tools, has made animation by aspiring artists even more possible now. I think it's great, and only if we used it's advantages instead of disadvantages.
 
The Princess and the Frog was colored in ToonBoom.

I animated this mostly in Flash. It all depends on how you use it and how much effort was put in. For the record, that took 5 months, as opposed to this, which took a few hours.
 
I don't get all the hate either. Sure some of it looks bad, but some of it looks great such as Foster's. There is also bad looking hand drawn animation out there. *cough*Hanna-Barbara*caugh*
 
Maybe in the later years. Keep in mind, Hanah Barbera did create Tom and Jerry. There later stuff is horribly animated, atleast the early stuff looks appealing
 
The medium itself may not be bad, but it just attracts a lot of laziness. Like most inventions of convenience, once it hits the shelves a lot of people suddenly get a lot lazier than before. The only decent-looking Flash animated show I've seen is Wakfu. If you include internet stuff (like stuff on Newgrounds), then I can think of a few more, but that just begs the question why some guy in his free time can use Flash better than people with actual money, staff, and time behind them (Like Foster's or Johnny Test)
 
I really don't hate flash animation. In fact, I'm somewhat neutral to it. Yes, this includes Johnny Test and Disney's Fish Hooks cartoon. But judging cartoons just by how they look shouldn't always have to be an issue. Their contents - plots, character personalities, etc. - should be interesting and provide more depth than what's being animated.
 
The very definition of animation is to give life to. I hear this kind of thing from people slot. And it's a big slap in the face to animators who put time into making these characters appear to be living. Without animation, you'd be watching a blank screen with someone's sound track. The animation should tell the story just as much as what's written.

One can not exist without the other. People try to seperate the story and the story teller, or in this case the writer and the animator. It can't and shouldn't be done.
 
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