ADVANCED TWEENING AND ADDING VS. EXTENDING FRAMES IN TWEENS

Tweens can be used for more than just one sequence of animation. In the previous post, I outlined how to do one sequence of animation. But, say you wanted it to now move to the right, rotate another 90 degrees and get bigger again. You can do that in a single tween.

STEP 1
First, you have to get your object set up as a symbol and apply a tween (see previous post). You can animate on any point of the blue rectangle. For this example, I'm going to use a 48 frame animation, the middle of the tween as the point where the object goes to the left, scales down, and rotates.

STEP 2
Select the 24th frame. Move object left, scale down, and rotate it 90 degrees.

 

STEP 3

Then, select the 48th frame. Move the object to the right, rotate it 90 degrees, and scale it back up.

And the results...

ADDING VS. EXTENDING FRAMES IN TWEENS

STEP 1

You can always extend the length of your tween by rolling over the end of the last frame until it turns into a double arrow. This is good if you want to make your tween animation occur over a longer or shorter amount of time. However, if you need to add frames to the tween (instead of making a 1 second animation sequence turn into a two second animation sequence) then you first have to select the frame after the last frame in the tween.

STEP 2

Hold the SHIFT key down and select the desired frame you want your tween extended to.

STEP 3

Navigate to the toolbar, roll over INSERT, then TIMELINE, and click FRAME.

And that's how you add frames!

  

Go to this link to download the original file:

__http://www.megaupload.com/?d=CEO4QOQQ

Enter the 4 character password on the right. Click DOWNLOAD. Wait for the time to elapse (lower right hand corner of table structure) and then download.

 

HOW TO ANIMATE AN OBJECT IN FLASH

This is a brief tutorial on how to animate, or "tween", an object in Flash.

STEP 1
The way Flash animation works is through tweens (there are other ways, but tweening is by far the easiest). To start animating, first you have to select the object that you want to animate by clicking it. If you haven't already, you need to convert that object into a symbol. This is how Flash keeps track of each object that you animate. To do this, move to the toolbar and click MODIFY and then CONVERT TO SYMBOL.

STEP 2
Name your symbol, (leave the other settings at their default), click OK, and you are ready to animate.

STEP 3
After selecting your object on the stage, go up to to the toolbar, click on INSERT and select MOTION TWEEN.

STEP 4
In the timeline there will be a certain amount of blue bar. This can be adjusted by clicking and dragging to the desired amount of time taken to complete the animation. For example, if you want an object to take one second to animate, you would drag the bar to the 24th keyframe.

STEP 5
The way tweens work is through a start and an end point. Flash fills in everything in between with a gradual animation. The start point is inside the blue rectangle on the timeline and is noted with a black dot. This is the first frame that appears to the viewer. Select the 24th frame. As an example, let's say you want the square to move to the right, get smaller, and rotate 90 degrees. In the 24th frame you would move the object to the left, scale it down (using the scale or free transform tool in the tools pallet on the right of the screen), and rotate it 90 degrees (using the rotate or free transform tool).

And this is what we end up with:

To download this video...go to

__http://www.megaupload.com/?d=BXI478V0

Enter the 4 character password on the right. Click DOWNLOAD. Wait for the time to elapse (lower right hand corner of table structure) and then download.

Further reference:

Below is a link to Flash tutorial book on Amazon.com