Introduction
Introduction
The shortest distance between two points may be a straight line, but that doesn’t meant that that’s the only line that you’re forced to travel when you’re creating a Motion Tween in Flash.
You can assign Motion Tweens to paths so that you can have an object travel from point A to point B—or in our case, keyframe A to keyframe B—by any route that you choose, without having to insert additional keyframes at major turning points.
In order to do this, we’ll need create an object on our stage so that we can learn how to use Motion Guides. The Add Motion Guide button is the second icon from the left on the bottom of the Timeline panel.
Adding a Motion Guide
When you click the Add Motion Guide button while a layer is selected, a new layer will appear above it with the name Guide: (Layer Name). The line separating the two layers will be dashed, to indicate that they’re linked to each other/affecting each other.
Creating a Motion Path
On your Motion Guide layer, you’re going to draw a line. You can do this with the Pen Tool, the Line Tool, or the Brush Tool, though I’d recommend the Pen Tool for the smoothest line. This line is the path that your shape will follow.
Copy the keyframe created when you drew your path, and paste it further down the timeline; where you paste it will depend on how long you want your shape to take to go from the beginning to the end of the motion path.
Creating a Symbol
Now make a symbol {F8} out of whatever shape you chose to tween; the default, remember, is a Graphic type. If you’ll recall from our first lesson on tweening, motion tweens require symbols in order to work.
Aligning With the Start of the Path
Click on your symbol, and drag it to the starting point of the path. By default, when you bring it close enough, the symbol’s center (the white dot) should snap onto the end of the path.
Aligning With the End of the Path
Copy the keyframe to the last frame in your sequence, and this time move the symbol so that it snaps to the ending point of the path.
Now you insert a motion tween just like you would normally, by clicking any frame between your first and last keyframes and either right-clicking to select Create Motion Tween, or else using the Properties panel to select the tween type.
When you’re done, you’ll have an animation that follows the path that you set out, using only two keyframes to create a rather complex motion sequence.
The shortest distance between two points may be a straight line, but that doesn’t meant that that’s the only line that you’re forced to travel when you’re creating a Motion Tween in Flash.
You can assign Motion Tweens to paths so that you can have an object travel from point A to point B—or in our case, keyframe A to keyframe B—by any route that you choose, without having to insert additional keyframes at major turning points.
In order to do this, we’ll need create an object on our stage so that we can learn how to use Motion Guides. The Add Motion Guide button is the second icon from the left on the bottom of the Timeline panel.
Adding a Motion Guide
When you click the Add Motion Guide button while a layer is selected, a new layer will appear above it with the name Guide: (Layer Name). The line separating the two layers will be dashed, to indicate that they’re linked to each other/affecting each other.
Creating a Motion Path
On your Motion Guide layer, you’re going to draw a line. You can do this with the Pen Tool, the Line Tool, or the Brush Tool, though I’d recommend the Pen Tool for the smoothest line. This line is the path that your shape will follow.
Copy the keyframe created when you drew your path, and paste it further down the timeline; where you paste it will depend on how long you want your shape to take to go from the beginning to the end of the motion path.
Creating a Symbol
Now make a symbol {F8} out of whatever shape you chose to tween; the default, remember, is a Graphic type. If you’ll recall from our first lesson on tweening, motion tweens require symbols in order to work.
Aligning With the Start of the Path
Click on your symbol, and drag it to the starting point of the path. By default, when you bring it close enough, the symbol’s center (the white dot) should snap onto the end of the path.
Aligning With the End of the Path
Copy the keyframe to the last frame in your sequence, and this time move the symbol so that it snaps to the ending point of the path.
Now you insert a motion tween just like you would normally, by clicking any frame between your first and last keyframes and either right-clicking to select Create Motion Tween, or else using the Properties panel to select the tween type.
When you’re done, you’ll have an animation that follows the path that you set out, using only two keyframes to create a rather complex motion sequence.
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