How to make a Leviathan in Macromedia Flash 8

People have been asking how I made this, so I took some screen shots:

1. Basic segment shape
1. Basic segment shape

2. Segment tweened on a semi-circular path, concave
2. Segment tweened on a semi-circular path, concave

 

3. Segment tweened on a semi-circular path, convex
3. Segment tweened on a semi-circular path, convex

 

4. Head made of two symbols (upper and lower), animated snapping its mouth
4. Head made of two symbols (upper and lower), animated snapping its mouth

 

5. Snapping head tweened on a semicircular path (convex not shown)
5. Snapping head tweened on a semicircular path (convex not shown)

 

6. tweened segment symbols layered and offset by 3 frames, in a new symbol (note I build everything out of nested and layered symbols)
6. Tweened segment symbols layered and offset by 3 frames, in a new symbol. I build everything out of nested and layered symbols.

 

7. Convex and concave symbols layered and offset to make a snake (it is "growing" and moving from right to left here)
7. Convex and concave symbols layered, positioned and offset to make a snake. It is growing from right to left here.

 

8. A 68-frame section of the growing, moving snake is tweened left-to-right to remain in a stationary position while it waves
8. A 68-frame section of the growing, moving snake is tweened left-to-right to remain in a stationary position while it waves.

I flipped the whole thing around and voila:

Leviathan_Snake68_2

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Author: Nina Paley

Animator. Director. Artist. Scapegoat.

4 thoughts on “How to make a Leviathan in Macromedia Flash 8”

  1. That’s a really great tutorial, Nina!

    I love the motion guide technique and how you compensate the offset in the last step.

    I’m so stuck into cycles ‘on the spot’, I would have probably tried to do it by just bouncing the symbols up and down and that would have been a dynamics disaster.

    Hypnotic!

    ps. Flash 8!!! Flash CS6 or CC2015 are just the same 🙂 Adobe have absolutely no idea what to do with the program.

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