As a kid, something that always amused and perplexed me was a particular animation effect from the Cartoon Network show Chowder. On all of the characters’ clothes, there was a static pattern that never moved as they moved. It was almost like every piece of clothing was a window into a different background. The effect can be seen in this video:
Until I started taking my digital animation class, I was completely stumped on how to re-create this effect in a convenient manner using flash. The creator of the video above states that he/she simply filled in the clothes with a single static color and then added some kind of green-screen effect to the clothes using After Effects. While this method is very effective, I’ve thought of a different sort of method to accomplish the same effect. My method involves using the mask technique in flash to reveal a layer, below the layer that the character is on, which contains the entire pattern. By giving the mask the same shape and position as the clothes on each frame, you’re essentially making a moving window into the pattern layer. While this method may be a bit more time consuming, it just goes to show that there can be many ways to accomplish a single goal when it comes to animation.
cglasheen 