Homestar Runner Wiki Forum

I did lots of searching on the forum and couldn't find anything indicating whether the Homestar Flash animations involve much full frame animation or what type of animation they involve and what versions of Flash they use/have used. I'm just curious to know, I like to learn the behind the scenes of things. That's why I like the purpose of this site.

If anyone could help with information that would be great!
Thanks!

Well, what do you mean by full frame? And they use Flash MX Professional 2004. They have used every concurrent version since the site came out.

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Are you sure? Even their new stuff is made in Flash 5.

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[porplemontage studios]
>>internet entertainment

I'm not sure about that, either. Why would it require Flash Player 7, and use Action script 2.0? Just look at Duck Guardian. All previous versions of Flash don't support Flash Player 7.

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You're confused. We're talking about two different products here. There's Flash Player, the free component for your browser that lets you view Flash files, and then there's Flash, the Very Expensive Software which TBC use to author those Flash files. Right now the highest version of Flash Player is 7 (actually 7.0.19.0) and the highest version of Flash is MX 2004. Now, I don't use Flash very often, but I believe that in Flash, you can choose to publish your movies to target any version of Flash Player you wish. So you could have Flash MX 2004 but save a Flash Player 5 file. Or Flash Player 6, or 7.

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Yeah, he's right. I'll put up an image of it soon...

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Im not intirly sure what your asking, but I might be able to give you some tips/tricks/behind the scenes of how some of the animating is done:

1. All of the characters are pre-made, meaning they most likely have a files set up like : Homestar => character model => leg => leg bent ... or something along those lines

2. Tappers on the characters are most likely made in adobe Illustrator; look at homestar's mouth for reference!

3. Booth frame by frame and motion tweening is used (but then again, who dosn't use that in flash?)

4. I pretty sure flash can convert things from 7 to 4, ect, but some data may be lost.


Wow! That just a little to much flash-knowhow for one post! Anyways, these are just my observations (with some background help from Kam) and im not sure if this intirely implies to the Chap brothers, but im pretty sure.

Hope that helps!

.::Catleen::.

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Homestar manga styled comic coming soon! (I hope! )

As with "requiring" Flash player 7.......recently simply because it knew there was an update, the prompt came up for absolutely anything flash I saw that day, asking "do you wnat to download Flash player 7?" And I said no, sine 6 seems good enough and it wouldn't let me watch anything, old or new. I suppose that's because it wants you to download flash 7. So maybe it doesn't really "need" flash 7 and is indeed exported in flash 5 format..?

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"No, no, no. You gotta get those rings... INSIDE the bottle!"
I'm just an old timer who lurks on occasion. Even in 2020, at least.

Catleen: Thanks for your help.

1. Do you mean they are Library objects in Flash?
2. What are tappers? Also if your refering to pressure sensitive brush strokes on Homestar then that can be achieved in Flash using a decent graphics tablet. If not I have bought Freehand 10, would that suffice?
3. Silly me, sorry about that.

I'm probably sure I could help you.

Yes, they probably have everything set up so it's like a drag and drop. They probably have some master file with all of the poses of the characters possible in the library. I know that this is common, so they probably do it too. (Actually, I have all of my poses set up in Adobe Illustrator, but that's me)

Yes, they use both frame to frame and motion tweeing, but they use more frame to frame then motion tweening in my opinion, because there isnt a whole lot of moving; it's really mostly the dialogue that makes it funny.

Lastly, I'm not sure about the tappers, whatever the heck that is. Leave that one to Cantleeen Ender.

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Representin' since '98.

I'm assuming he means to say tapers like where Hoemstar's mouth thins as it goes towards the back of his head.

I animated my own little Homestar short for my cousin as a birthday present and I think I did it close to the same way as TBC, at least it feels like a very efficent method. Just like other people have said, I made different heads for the different mouth shapes, and different eyes for different expressions; kept in the library as graphics. And then using the great "Swap symbol" feature in Flash I just swapped out the heads and eyes to achieve the appropriate expressions; using swap symbol insures that the heads are placed in the exact same spot on the screen so very little work is needed to animate a simple Homestar-talking-to-the-camera scene.

I used a graphic tablet and erased my lines to achieve the tapering, but I also didn't get real serious about accuracy. I watched a lot of Hoemstar that night and got my drawing pretty close, but it's still a little off. But if you watch closely, the Homestar toons aren't the most elaborate animations, there are only a few mouths for Homestar and the more you study the more shortcuts and animation cheats there are-no Arms for Homestar and Marzipan, simple block mouth for Strong Bad(no need to do detailed lip-synching), no mouth for Coach Z/King of Town, simple mouth for Bubs. Not knocking TBC or anything, just somethings you notice after knowing a little about what goes on 'under the hood' in regards to animation and then look back.

Okay, thanks!
I've got Flash 5. I haven't used it much yet. Does this version have the swap symbol feature or only MX and MX 2004 versions?

I think for the most part, your probably all right about the library thing. I've used flash many times before, but I've never spent the time to figure it all out so most of what i've done so far i've just drawn everything in myself.

But I'd think that since the brothers chap have to pretty much animate something every week.... they have the entire homestar universe saved up in a library.

* Backgrounds
* Character Models
* Sound Effects
* Music

Which is why we see so much of the same stuff in other toons. They've got these things most likely saved up under certain names. Like the candy cane that appears in the decemberween toon that's from the decemberween in july one is probably just named candycane. lol.

I know i'm pointing out the obvious most likely. But I've got a question too. Does anyone know how they animate such "Clean" animation? I can animate in flash, but I do not know how they achieve such clean lines and stuff.

Thanks.
To answer your question. If you want clean animation in Flash a graphics tablet is a must. Also you have to practice a lot at drawing and do pencils of your character background, scan it in and layer it in Flash, then do your stuff.
Is that what you mean?

I would assume that if they used Flash MX 2004 that they would publish their work in flash 7. Although the most current versions of flash are know as "Flash MX", previous versions were just called "Flash 5" or "Flash 4". They could just as easily publish their newest work in Flash 5 from a newer version. They would probably want to always have the newest version, yet keep most of their site in the same Flash verison (some of their older stuff is Flash 4).

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[porplemontage studios]
>>internet entertainment

Why would you assume that? I would assume that if they don't need the features of Flash Player 7 (as would seem to be the case)), they would publish their stuff in a lower version so that people who still have Flash Player 5 wouldn't have to download a new version of Flash Player.

TBC are smart enough not to make their fans download new stuff just because they can.

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To get the clean look, you'd have to use the pen tool as opposed to the brush or pencil. The Cheat probably uses the brush tools and a graphic tablet, but TBC probably use the pen and shape the curves.

I used a pen and tablet, but only for a few little things like the eyes and some erasing. I don't think you could never achieve the cleanness and smooth lines using a tablet, no matter how steady and talented your hand was.

Yeah, I was kind of contradicting myself in my last sentence.

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[porplemontage studios]
>>internet entertainment