Flash 4 - Week 3

 Animation

• Frame by frame animation

Open Flash and start a new movie. Save and name it. Slect frame 1 in the Timeline, activate the oval tool and set the line color to none.
Hold down the shift key and draw a circle. Double click on it go to Insert Convert to symbol and give your new symbol a name.
Turn on the "Preview context". This is the button just on the right side in the timeline.Select frame 2 in the timeline and press F6 to insert a keyframe. Now the circle is doublicated in the new Frame. Move the circle to another place on the stage. Insert keyframe in frame 3. Move your circle to another place...

Position your cursor in frame 1 and add new frames by pressing F5...this inserts new frames between the keyframes. Selct them and press F6 to form them into keyframes...so the circle now is in all of them...just place the circle on different places and test the movie by placing the cursor in frame 1 and pressing enter..

assignment 1 - I draw my hoppel bunny and let it jump

   Notice: each keyframe increases file size. So this technique is not good for large animations!

• Motion Tweens and Symbols

Motion Tweens only works on symbols, groups, bitmaps and text elements. The timeline will show a solid line with an arrow head on it on a blue background to indicate a successful motion tween. So always convert your object to a symbol as now it is grouped and tween motion will work for it. In order to avoid motion tween status in an end keyframe, always place beginning and end keyframes first, before you apply motion tween. doubleklick to the end keyframe and choose tween tab in the frames properties. Set the Tweening to none.

Single layer animation with Motion Tweening. 
Doubleclick on layer 1 and give it a name. Click on frame 1 and select it and draw your object on the stage. Doubleclick on your object to select it and convert it to a symbol. Move your symbol to the place where it should be placed. (Remember Inspector and Align feature!). With the arrow tool active, click on the scale modifier and resize your symbol so that it's about 1/4 inch across. Klick in frame 10 and insert a keyframe. Also in frame 20 and insert a keyframe. Click in frame 10 and activate the scale modifier and resize the symbol so that it fills most of the stage. Click on any frame between 1 and 10. Go to Modify frame click the Tweening tab and choose Motion from the drop down menu. Tween scaling should be checked. Now click in any frame between 10 and 20 and do the same like before.Rightclick on any frame between 1 and 10. Choose Properites. Move the easing over the way to the right (100 - Out)...do the same with any frame between 10 and 20. Now move the easing over all the way to the left (-100 - In)
Dont forget to klick on the last keyframe (right click) Properties and make sure that it says None in the tweening tab.

My assingment part II

• Onion Skins
  Onion Skin feature allows you to see the content of your frames in context with surrounding frames. If you click the onion button you should see your objects in the frames...the dark object is the current frame and the light ones are objects in other frames. You can decide how many frames you want to see at one time by clicking on the Modify onion markers button. Normally only one frame is available for editing (the selected one). You can change that and make all frames editable at once by clickin g on the Edit Multiple Frames button. So you can move the content in all the frames to another location on your stage.
  
• Symbol Library
  open the library and you will see some buttons on the bottom. You can organize your symbols by creating new folders and drag them into the different folders. 
  You can save your own library by creating a flash file and saving it to the folder Libraryies. It resides in the Flash directory in a folder called Libraries. Open an existing library. File - Open as Library.. This will only open the library from the movie not the .fla file itself.
  
• Moving on a path
  

My assignment part III