INTRODUCTION TO FLASH ANIMATION ® Copyright 2012 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All rights reserved.

Flash file types The format in which you edit Flash documents has the file extension FLA. The format in which you export Flash documents for viewing in the Flash player has the file extension SWF. By default, SWF movies contain XMP metadata—information about the file available to web search engines and viewable in Adobe Bridge. The format that lets multiple people work on separate parts of the Flash file, and that works with Adobe programs such as After Effects, has the file extension XFL.

Flash workspace Menu bar Panels Stage Motion Editor Tools Timeline Layers

Stage You compose movie content on the Stage. Set Stage size by selecting Modify > Document. To specify the Stage size in pixels, enter values in the Width and Height boxes. The minimum size is 1 x 1 pixels; the maximum is 2880 x 2880 pixels. To minimize document size, select the Contents option to the right of Match (but first create all of the objects on the Stage). To set the Stage size to the maximum available print area, select the Printer option.

Tools panel Tools create the content of a movie. Selection tools: Select, scale, distort, rotate objects Drawing tools: Draw, paint, create text, and erase objects View tools: Zoom and pan Color tools: Set stroke and fill colors Options: Modify the currently selected tool

Panels Panels provide additional tools for creating and editing movies. Click the panel to view additional options for the current panel. You can hide or show panels by using the options on the Window menu. Panels

Timeline panel You can organize and control the content of a movie over time. Playhead Frames Layers

Frames and keyframes Frames: Like films, Flash movies divide lengths of time into frames, which are organized on the timeline. Keyframes: Frames that define a change in what is displayed in a movie or include frame actions to modify a movie. When you open a new blank movie document, it contains one layer with one blank keyframe.

Frames and keyframes Keyframe with content Empty frames Blank keyframe Empty slots for new frames

Layers Layers are like multiple film strips stacked on top of each other, each with a different element that appears on the Stage. Graphics Animations Text Sounds Buttons Frame actions

Symbols and libraries Symbols are elements you reuse within a movie to reduce file size. Types of symbols include graphics, buttons, movie clips, sound files, and text. A library is where you store and organize symbols. When you drag a symbol from a library to the Stage, you create an instance of the symbol.

Advantages of using symbols Easy editing: If you change the symbol in the library, all instances of the symbol are updated automatically. Smaller file sizes: Symbols are downloaded only once, regardless of the number of instances you include in the movie. This reduces the size of your published movies and decreases download times.

Animation with tweening Tweening: A tween is an animation that is created by specifying a state for an object property in one frame and another state for that same object in another frame. Flash calculates the values for that object’s properties in between those two frames. The term tween comes from the phrase “in between.” Flash supports three different types of tweening. Motion tweens are powerful and simple to create. Motion tweens allow you to create most tweened effects. Classic tweens are more complex to create, but provide certain capabilities that motion tweens do not. Shape tweens allow you draw a shape at one specific frame in the Timeline, and change that shape or draw another shape at another specific frame. Flash then interpolates the intermediate shapes for the frames in between, creating the animation of one shape morphing into another. Inverse Kinematics (IK): IK is a method for animating an object or set of objects in relation to each other by using an articulated structure of bones. Bones allow symbol instances and shape objects to move in complex and naturalistic ways with a minimum of design effort. For example, with inverse kinematics you can easily create character animation, such as arms, legs, and facial expressions.

Motion tweening Motion tweens can only have one object instance associated with them and use property keyframes instead of keyframes. Motion tween spans can be stretched and resized in the timeline and are treated as a single object. With motion tweens, eases apply across the entire length of a motion tween span. Easing only specific frames of a motion tween requires the creation of a custom ease curve. The Motion Editor enables you to view all Motion tween properties and their property keyframes.

Classic tweening Classic tweens use keyframes. Keyframes are frames in which a new instance of an object appears. Classic tweens consist of groups of individually selectable frames in the timeline. With classic tweens, eases can be applied to the groups of frames between the keyframes within the tween.

Shape tweening Shape tweens work best with simple shapes. Avoid shapes with cutouts or negative spaces in them. Experiment with the shapes you want to use to determine the results. You can use shape hints to tell Flash which points on the beginning shape should correspond to specific points on the end shape. You can also tween the position and color of shapes within a shape tween. To apply shape tweening to groups, instances, or bitmap images, break these elements apart. To apply shape tweening to text, break the text apart twice to convert the text to objects.

Inverse Kinematics (IK) Inverse kinematics lets you can create natural motion. You can use the Bones tool to add IK animation to symbol instances and shapes. To animate text by using IK, first convert the text to a symbol first. Add bones to separate symbol instances or to the interior of a single shape. When one bone moves, the other connected bones move in relation to the bone that initiated the movement. To animate by using inverse kinematics, you need only to specify the start and end positions of objects. You can use IK in Flash in two ways. The first is to articulate a series of symbol instances by adding bones to connect each instance to another instance. The bones allow the chain of symbol instances to move together. The second way is to add an armature to the interior of a shape object. The shape can be created in merge drawing mode or object drawing mode. The bones allow you to move and animate parts of the shape without the need to draw different versions of the shape or create a shape tween.

Sound First, import a sound file into the library. Add sound to a movie by dragging an instance of the sound into a frame. To minimize file size, loop shorter sounds (to make them repeat).

Actions ActionScript statements instruct a movie to do something while it is playing. ActionScript can be attached to a frame or to an object: Frames: ActionScript attached to a frame is triggered when the movie plays that frame. Objects: ActionScript attached to an object is triggered when the viewer interacts with the object, such as moving the pointer over a hotspot or clicking a button.