I had this idea today for creating preanimated things such as a hand typing, or maybe tapping along a desk nervously. A type of animation that can be done in CTA because of CTA only supports basic hand sprites and not finger level motions. (this is perfectly fine) but I figured I could just make an animated prop featuring the desired motion and just use sprite replacement or attachment to apply the animate motion to the character as needed.

So i ran an experiment, I animated a hand gesturing a "come here" motion in flash. Exported as swf and proceeded to applying render styles to it.

Then i tested it, and lo and behold only the first frame of the animation is affected by the restyle. This could have been such a great workaround. If the animated prop can be colored to match the skin tones of the character then all sort of new possibilities can be opened up. Animated hair that can be applied to character, hand gestures, animated clothing items, or just background props such as a flock of birds that fly past and each bird can be colorized for variety.

I think this is a great feature to look into and would add great value to CTA.





Ibis Fernandez   |   (available for hire)
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Professional Animator, Filmmaker | Creator of the highest quality (modular) G2 rigs for cartoon animator and developer of Toon Titan and Puppet Producer 
Author of Flash Animation and Cartooning: A Creative Guide
>>> be sure to check out http://toontitan.com for professional grade assets, templates, and custom tools for Cartoon Animator and more.

Yes, it's a great idea.

Also need a few "grip" sprites ( like holding pen / glass...etc). You just can't "attach" a prop to the hand when everything else is so good and natural.