So bothersome!!

Okay, so background story: I'm working on a Flash project and I wanted a bunch of background people. (I'm using Flash CS5 for this.) But I have this other program that I've used before to make vector art: Corel Printshop 97. Yes, it's that old, but it has this awesome section of clipart and I've gotten pretty good at working with vectors in it. So it should be an easy thing to do; copy vector art from Corel to Flash.

But no, Flash will only accept a crummy picture file. But from experience, I know that Flash will accept copied vectors from Illustrator. BUT when I tried copying the Corel vectors to Illustrator, they got all screwed up. (Instead of straight lines, they turned all wavy... I have no idea why.) BUT I know that vector art that I've drawn in PowerPoint can easily get converted in Illustrator (because I've done the PowerPoint to Illustrator to Flash transition before with some of my art.) Plus, I know that Corel vectors copy fairly well into PowerPoint. But I have to run a command in PowerPoint to turn Corel vectors into PowerPoint Vectors. (Basically, ungroup command.)

So here's my process:

Customize clipart vectors in Corel

Copy to Powerpoint, ungroup

Copy to Illustrator

Copy to Flash (where I have to ungroup it again)

Needlessly complex, yes, but it lets me design the vectors in an older 97 program and then manipulate them in an animation in a 2011 program.

As for the people vector art I was working on; Corel has lots of clipart features to create your own people, including various hairstyles, facial features, and clothing. And where the official stuff ends, I can go in an tweak the vectors to make more customized stuff.

An example of this is when I got bored and made Korra and Lin BeiFong.

Not perfect, but I think they're cool. I custom designed the hairs and then altered various clothing designs to match up with their on screen presence. Yayz.

So that's enough blabbering for now... I need to come up with more stuff to blog about.