By Joe Futrelle, who says, “the possibilities are mind-boggling.” Requires Flash player in browser.
Get the Sita Sings the Blues Flash authoring source files here! And remember you don’t have to limit yourself to .swf files, which are unfree and gunk up the intertubes. Feel free to make ogg videos instead.
I’m in this weird position where I used unfree software (Flash) to make free content. I truly hope this motivates someone out there to make a free version of a Flash animation production tool. I know we may never get a free version of the Flash Player; but an equivalent of the Flash editor, sans actionscript, would be sufficient to do everything with the Sita source files.
Hey Nina,
You might be interested to check out Gnash (http://www.gnu.org/software/gnash/), a libre Flash player.
This open-source animation package might be worth looking into: http://synfig.org/
I’ve never tried it myself, but there it is.
Nina Paley said:
“I’m in this weird position where I used unfree software (Flash) to make free content.”
The real question is: Will YOU continue to make Free Content with unfree software?
For the Mainstream, it is usually too difficult to make the transition to free software
because free software is ‘unfamiliar’ and requires a learning curve to use it. However,
once you’ve learned it, you don’t have to learn it again! Once you’ve learned it, it’s
actually easier to use than the Mainstream stuff.
(Shhhh! They don’t want you to know that!)
However, if You are really committed to Free Culture, then Free Open Source Software
is worth the time investment to learn because years from now, your content will still be
available to the whole world. The Whole World, not just the people in the so-called 1st
world countries who can afford to buy expensive programs that only run on expensive
proprietary operating systems published by Convicted Monopolists.
You already know how to make an animated feature. What the Free Software Community NEEDS
is high profile Users, making animated features with Free Software. The more mind share
Free Software gets, the better it becomes. Why not make your next animated short with
Free Software? In 1996 Free Software had about 3,000 programs (+/-). Today they have
about 30,000 programs, because more and more people are using it.
I’m so sorry I don’t know anything about Flash, Premiere, Photoshop, or MS-Windows.
Otherwise, I could recommend alternative software to you. I am just learning animation.
This is what I’ve done so far, on my own, at home:
http://www.archive.org/details/TheValentinesDayAnimationVersion1.0
http://www.archive.org/details/TheValentinesDayAnimationVersion1.0_339
Bear in mind, it is from someone who is not in animation school, but home-schooled.
I hope you’ll publish this.
All the best, Suzy Creamcheeze.
You might want to look into Ktoon for flash animation production:
http://ktoon.toonka.com/
Unlike Synfig, Ktoon is specifically targeted to Flash animation production (on the other hand, Synfig, which is focused on 2-D digital cel animation in general, with auto-tweening being its primary claim to fame, may be more powerful for 2-D animation in general). My biggest concern about Synfig when I investigated it a couple of years ago was that it apparently couldn’t export cels to SVG (I was hoping to use SVG as a bridge to load cels into a game engine, but that’s another matter entirely) — I don’t know if that’s been fixed yet or not. I think I remember reading that someone _was_ working on it, though.
With Ktoon, documentation may be the obstacle. I believe the author is Spanish-speaking natively, and his English can be cryptic. So remember to publish your notes if you do try it out and get it to work for you.
I have to say I haven’t successfully tried either application myself, but I don’t have any animation experience to speak of, either.
As for delivery, Gnash is coming along, though I’m sure it will lag behind the commercial Flash application so long as the latter remains the standard on the web.