Bone Tool

In this lesson you will learn to use the bone tool in order to animate individual parts of an object.

  • The Bone tool enables you to link symbols together quickly and easily in a parent/child relationship commonly referred to as inverse kinematics. 
  • The entire bone structure is also referred to as an armature.
  • You can apply an armature to a series of movie clip symbols or to a raw vector shape that can then be manipulated across time by dragging the armature to a new pose.

Exercise #1: Moving Leg

Exercise #2: Basic Bone Tool

  • Draw a nice big tree
  • Select all parts of the tree by clicking Ctrl A
  • Select the Bone Tool and create your armature by dragging from the parent symbol to the symbol s you will be animating

Exercise #3: Cat Tail

In this exercise you will animate a tail of a cat by using the bone tool.

The tail and cat need to be drawn on separate layers. Apply the bone structure only to the tail. 

Exercise #4: Animate a back hoe

In this lesson you will practice using the bone tool to animate a back hoe.

  1. Download the flash file that contains an image of a back hoe
  2. Watch the video tutorial and follow the instructions I Click to see the video tutorial.
  3. Come up with an interesting scene for the back hoe
  4. Using Frame-by-Frame, animate a growing hole that the back hoe digs

Exercise #5: Runner

In this exercise you will learn to animate a runner using the bone tool. 
  1. Watch the animation below and follow the instructions
  2. Create a complete background scene for your runner (example: buildings, trees, bushes, street....)
  3. Use the motion tween to move the person ahead
  4. Animation is between 70 and 100 frames long
Picture

Assignment

Due date: Friday April 18 2014 (8:00 pm)
In this assignment you have the three choices to create a short animation story that contains text. Your story needs to have at least three scenes. 

Option #1: Re-use Exercise #4
  • Create a three scene animation using exercise #4
  • Come up with a story that includes the digging back hoe
  • Example: You can use the mask tool to pull out things from the hole such as a treasure box...


Option #2: Re-use Exercise #5
  • Create a three scene animation using exercise #5
  • Come up with a story that includes the runner
  • Example: The runner enters the finish line or the runner is running away from somebody


Option #3: Animation story of your choice
  • Create a new animation using the bone toll
  • You need to have at least three scenes
  • The animation needs to tell a story 


ASSESSMENT
  • Animation has at least three scenes.............................3 marks
  • Proper use of the bone tool...........................................4 marks
  • Creative and complete background scene......................5 marks
  • Creative use of different animation techniques.................5 marks
  • Animation tells a story including text..............................5 marks
                                                                                Total:22 marks