'La Linea' style

[funksmaname]

Hey, not been around for a while
I have a question for you guys:

I need to create a character sort of like 'la linea', (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VWcqILJam4)

effectively, the only way i can think of doing it is having the complete outline of a character as one shape which makes it very difficult to animate... it would be useful if there is any way (maybe using masking??) to crate a common outline for a set of intersecting objects (i.e. arm over body or foot over floor, when lifted has a line but when intersecting the floor doesnt...

am I making any sense?

I can sort of do it using a non ofset layer shaddow with shapes of the same colour and no outline beneath, but a) this wont work with flash export, b) i can't control line thickness around the character so it would be a 'block line'...

maybe a script can be created that takes the point thickness information from the underlying object and uses that to effectively draw a new line made up of 'the silhouette' of intersecting objects??

i dunno, open to suggestions!
Thanks for reading.

[jahnocli]

Don't know if this is what you want, but you could try putting all the elements into a group layer, then having an outline around that. (Don't know whether this will export to Flash either -- I suspect not...)

[funksmaname]

yeah thats what i was saying... but the line is uniform...
Doesn't matter they went with a slightly different style now (but still would be fun to work it out if there IS a solution)

Thanks!

[Mikdog]

Check out this thread:

http://lostmarble.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=13726

[benny666]

ehehehe "la linea", the line of Cavandoli, very famous tv-adv for "Lagostina" pressure cooker in the 70s here in Italy.

[Mikdog]

I remember reading that La Linea started out as a commercials for kitchen products or somethin'

[benny666]

I remember reading that La Linea started out as a commercials for kitchen products or somethin'

Yes, pressure cooker. The line cartoon character speaks "dialect" italian of Milan( there are more than 20 dialectal languages in Italy), and it's very fun to listen...maybe foreginers miss 50% of the power of this cartoon.

[Mikdog]

Oh. I always thought he was mumbling mumbo-jumbo.

I know the character's fondly referred to as 'Badum Badum' (I think taken from the theme song which goes 'badum badum (tune) badum badum' (?)

Anyways, I love la linea and its the greatest interstitial license I can think of, next to PINGU which still airs today. Somebody told me they license episodes of PINGU out for $10.00 an episode, and it was made YEARS ago. Really making bucks off the back-end.