So now that you’ve heard all these great CS4 announcements, lets get into some constructive details about Flash CS4 (whoo hoo, I can finally talk about what I’ve been working on!). But before we start, this is the first time I’ve written in detail about a non-released product, so bear with me and please comment about whatever is really confusing or assuming you have the product already, below.
There have been sneak peeks of some of the upcoming features in Flash thanks to conferences and keynotes, and you may have seen that one of the big new features (and to some of us on the feature, *the* big new feature) is a new way of creating animation. So yeah, tweening has changed. Finally. In Flash version 10. No more arrows on purple blackground. Um, now it’s blue with diamonds. And a whole lot better in many ways.
Update: articles on Adobe Developer Center for the new motion model:
* Motion Migration Guide for Flash CS4
More after the jump.
Before you existing tweeners start freaking out (“it’s AS3 all over again! How could you do this to me again, Flash??!”), you don’t need to. New tweening is cool. I know I’m biased because I’ve spent a lot of time only doing these new tweens over and over and over again (don’t ask me how many blue boxes I’ve tweened across the Stage) – but honestly – new tweens are easy, they’re better, and after you use them for only a short while you get used to the new way. Really. No lies. No kool-aid required at 601 Townsend. Even with real tweens that aren’t blue boxes this stuff works fabulously and you grow accustomed to them surprisingly quickly. I was using these new tweens for a couple weeks, then opened CS3 one day and actually had to stop and think about what I was doing there because I was trying to do things the new way in CS3 (after using old tweens for 9 years or something). It could and probably will happen to you, too.
And if you will be new to Flash, you’re lucky because tweens will be way easier to learn (and less quirky) than before. Bonus. (and more about this below)
Why tweens have changed in CS4
So lets look at some of the reasons WHY tweens are changing in Flash before we look at the “how”. Why would you want to relearn something that worked pretty well before? Why would and how could you improve upon perfection? (heh heh) Good question. There are lots of reasons why new tweens are better and will be worth investing the small learning curve for:
- you cannot break a new motion tween – no more “dashed arrows”
- as such, new tweens are easier to use: you directly manipulate objects on the Stage without needing to always think about keyframes. You don’t even need to add keyframes – just manipulate the object and the keyframes are inserted for you.
- granular control over each part of a tween.
- motion paths are shown right on the Stage for all tweens. Highly visual, and directly editable.
- you can use the new Motion Editor with new tweens
- as such, the Motion Editor means tweens are more powerful in general: each property and keyframe on each property is accessible and editable independently. You can tween alpha separately from rotation separately from scale (etc).
- in that Motion Editor you can edit individual properties on a graph
- you can use the new 3D model with new tweens
- you can give your tween an instance name and then give other instances that same tween at runtime
- new tweens are easy to stretch by just dragging the span in the timeline
- new tweens have new eases, which have advanced (and very cool, better, enhanced) eases
- you can create/apply custom eases that do not need to end at 100%
- you can save a tween as a preset and reuse it in that or other documents
- new tweens are easy to move now – either on the timeline (drag the tween span around), or on the stage by selecting the motion path and just moving it on the Stage (lets just say it is WAY easier than edit multiple frames).
- motion paths in general are easier, and you no longer need motion guides. The motion path for a tween is attached right to the tween.
- you can apply a new instance to an existing tween by just pasting it onto a tween to swap it out, drag a new instance from the Library, or use Swap Symbol. you can even have a tween without an instance applied to it, and all properties of that tween will be saved until you apply an instance to it.
How the new tweens are different:
The main difference between old tweening and new tweening is that old tweens create animation between two instances. So you have an instance at frame 1, a different instance at a keyframe at frame 5, and Flash calculates what the animation should look like between those two instances.
The new tween model tweens a single object on a span. This affords many new possibilities, like swapping out the instances, move the tween around the Timeline easily, apply the tween to multiple objects, saved as a Preset, scale the tween longer or shorter so its slower or faster, and so on. But it also means that the way you approach creating a tween changes. The first thing you’ll notice one day when you can install Flash CS4 is you don’t need (or want) an end keyframe before you create a tween — you don’t create your keyframes first and then “Create Motion Tween”. Instead you create the tween and then just change the tweened instance where you want the change to occur and the keyframes are inserted for you (or, you can insert them yourself on the span after you create it).
So remember: Create the tween first, *then* make your keyframe changes for that tween.
And on the subject of keyframes. Because of these changes, “keyframes” within a tween span (after the first frame of your span) are not true keyframes anymore. They are not instances of a whole object – they instead represent property changes within a tween. That’s why we’re now calling them “property keyframes”. And they look like diamonds:
So the “keyframe” is at the first frame of the span, and subsequent changes are at property keyframes along that span.
We’re working on an article for the Developer Center about migrating from the Way of the Old Tween to the Brand New World of the New Tween. Watch for it. It will contain a bunch more stuff like the above, and if history repeats itself the article will be thoroughly edited by other people so it sounds smarter and is easier to understand.
How you will be making new tweens when you get Flash:
- You will draw something on the Stage.
- You’ll right-click that something and choose Create Motion Tween from the context menu, and then click OK to convert it to a movie clip (if you are working with an instance, you wouldn’t see this dialog).
- The playhead will be at the end of the span that was magically created.
(click for full size)
Then you just move/transform/etc the thing you drew, then scrub the playhead.
That’s it. If you moved the object, you would see a motion path on the Stage (the line with the dots over it) –
And you would be able to bend that motion path (or with the Subselection tool) to change where/how the graphic animates.
You can even draw something with the Pencil or Pen and just paste it onto your tween. Motion paths just got a whole lot easier too – no more crazy guides and snapping objects.
Of course, this is only one of the tons of things you can do. For example, you can even tween 3D: Make sure you have Flash Player 10 installed to see the 3D: http://www.adobe.com/go/getflashplayer.
VIEW FULL SIZE ANIMATION (need Flash Player 10)
But that’s another blog post. Oh, and we’re working on the ‘Animation Learning Guide’ (another Developer Center article) for this latest Flash release, which will explain how to use all of the different tweening features. And maybe a bit of 3D.
And if you aren’t completely sold (or there’s something you can’t do with the new one), we left the old way of tweening in there for ya.
Would love to hear your questions, or Motion subjects you’d like me to cover especially leading up to the software release. What do you want to hear about?
Blog news:
Now that CS4 can be discussed, this blog is changing – but it’s for your benefit. This is no longer a solo gig of mine, I’ll be sharing Flashthusiast with the true stars and much smarter members of the motion team — the ones who actually develop the stuff. So if you like animation, or you just need to use it, read this blog and let us know what you think of new tweens in the comments (love or constructive hate welcome). Once you have Flash CS4 and can actually use this stuff, of course.
September 7, 2009 at 4:36 pm
Hi Jen i want to ask you i’m having some problems with motion tween. I hope you could help me with links to lessons cause i love to learn. I learned Flash CS3 by myself but now i’m finding Flash CS4 it difficult in some ways.Now the timeline effects are gone, in CS3 you go to insert – timeline effect – select one of them.
you see i consider myself a beginner in Flash cause i taught myself and need more experience.
Hope you will help me with your opinions. thanks.
September 7, 2009 at 6:55 pm
Hi Fady,
I have written an article for migrating from old tweens to new tweens, you can find it here: http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flash/articles/motion_migration_guide.html
A complete animation guide is here: http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flash/learning_guide/animation/
Hopefully these will help you learn the new ones. If you have further questions, please let me know!
In regards to timeline effects, those have been deprecated. However, you can now use Motion Presets that are pretty flexible and more plentiful in CS4. You can find them under Window > Motion Presets (just select an instance on the Stage and click Apply to get started).
Jen.
September 15, 2009 at 6:21 am
I’m under Linux with Firefox and the flash-animation don’t work.
October 4, 2009 at 7:15 pm
i think with the CS4, you.. the guys from adobe ruined everything, not only that the new tweening is a lot more complicated than the classic ( for example i can’t move the “diamonds” so i could have from point A to pont B 5 frames of ease in and then from point B to point C 30 frames of ease out, if i try to move one of you so called “diamonds” the whole timeline span moves, you guys also changed flash’ interface in a horrid way to be honest, such as the properties inspector which was well aligned bottom on the horizontal in cs3 and flash8, now it stands top right and if you try to move it btm the properties would not stay alligned on the horizontal, they would be alligned on the vertical and you will have to scroll up and down for each little thing you want to use or change such as coorodinates, mc properties any many more which i repeat in cs3 could all be viewed in one second in the horizontal allingment on bottom.
October 4, 2009 at 8:48 pm
and how do i get an animation to loop perfectly ? i mean i want to have the object in the same place the animation started and it figures if that i have let’s say, 3 keyframes, 1 start, 2 middle,3 end (which is the same place, w and h as on frame 1) when i edit the 2nd key frame and make a 3d rotation let’s say the 3rd keyframe of the animation gets the properties of the 2nd keyframe which i just edited instead of keeping it’s properties, between key2 and key3 basically there is no animation now… this new tween is weird, please explain to me why this is happening Jean. thnx
October 5, 2009 at 12:42 pm
@marquize:
You *can* move those diamonds like any frame in span-based selection: hold Cmd/Ctrl and drag it to a new location. This is in the resources listed in the comments above that help with learning this new feature:
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flash/articles/motion_migration_guide.html
A complete animation guide is here: http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flash/learning_guide/animation/
Also, the documentation and this blog covers this and more.
To get an animation to loop perfectly, you will want to copy the properties from the first frame of the span to the last frame. Select that frame (ctrl/cmd click), right-click and choose Copy Properties. Then repeat at the last frame and choose Paste Properties.
I think in your scenario above, the quickest way would be to create the tween, set up the first frame how you’d like it and the last one to look. Then go to the middle keyframe, make your revisions. Then go to the last frame and paste the properties from the first as outlined above.
I think the main thing to remember is that you are animating a single object – a single keyframe at the beginning. The diamonds are property keyframes, NOT full keyframes. You are animating properties along a span, not re-creating full instances of them. This allows you to tween properties independently, which opens up a whole new world of possibilities for animation. However, it does involve a bit of learning to understand how it works. I hope the above linked resources help.
November 6, 2009 at 9:20 am
Jen, I have been pouring over the documentation and running tests with the new Motion Tweens for a couple weeks now. I’m a Flash Engineer and the majority of what I do is allowing designer-created content to work dynamically in the run-time environment. Naturally, the new ability to give an author-time created tween an instance name and to apply it to a run-time created object is PERFECT for what I do. However, I’m running into a few problems, and I feel like the documentation can’t get me any further. You seem to be the person to contact for help and this seemed to be the best place to get a hold of you.
1) There appears to be a bug with the pause() and resume() functions of the AnimatorBase class. Pausing/resuming ANY AnimatorBase pauses/resumes EVERY object that is the target of ANY AnimatorFactory. In short, if you pause or resume one motion, all objects are paused or resumed, even if they’re using completely different motion tweens. While this appears to be a bug, it isn’t hindering my specific development because I’m only using it when I want everything to pause/resume. Regardless, I would like to know what’s going on here.
2) Once a Motion Tween has been defined (in the authoring environment by a designer) and given an instance name, it appears as though there is no way to alter the duration of the tween at runtime in AS3. Now, I know that you can change the duration of a Motion, but this just adds keyframes to the end that contain the same values as the final keyframe. What I want to do is the equivalent of stretching the motion tween on the timeline — moving out the property keyframes so that the same full motion tween occurs over a longer period of time. It appears as though this is not possible. Am I missing something? Because this ability would be PHENOMENALLY useful.
I know there are other issues I’ve been struggling with, but these are the two at the front of my mind right now. Overall, this is very exciting stuff that will allow to do a lot that we were unable to do before. If you don’t want to respond here, feel free to email me. Thanks in advance for the help!
November 9, 2009 at 10:09 am
So far I can’t use it. It won’t let me add keyframes after the tween, which pretty much ruins my whole project. Why can’t other keyframes be inserted on the same layer as the tween anymore?
November 11, 2009 at 1:44 pm
@jon: Keyframes can be added after the tween. Right-click or use standard shortcut F7 to insert a blank keyframe to add new content, or simply drag static content to the tween layer. The only limitation is you cannot have classic/shape tweens on the same layer (technical limitation).
@ AmandaM: Excellent questions! We’re very happy and excited to hear that you’re finding the tween instance feature useful (I love it myself too for everyday projects). I spoke with a developer about your questions, and this was the response I received:
1) It sounds like you’re running into a bug that may be fixed by a related issue in a future build. We have a public beta coming out soon, and according to the dev the bug should be fixed in that. If you were able to test your project in this when it’s out, http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/flashcs5/, it’d be great to confirm that’s indeed the case.
2) According to the dev, it’s not possible with the way things are currently implemented. ‘All the calculations are done by the flash application when it outputs the SWF and it factors in the number of frames when it does the math. All the AS code has is the final results of that math and not all the info about curves, eases, etc.’
Hope this helps, and let us know any other questions you have!
Thanks,
Jen.
November 12, 2009 at 1:11 pm
Jen, thank you so much for the reply!
1) Regarding #2 from my first post, after playing with things more, I figured that was the case. It’s too bad, but what the dev said makes perfect sense — when the .swf is created, a “snapshot” is taken of the Motion Tween that can’t be altered, kind of like when you right-click and select “Copy Motion as AS 3″. It would be nice, however, to be able to read those property arrays. It would allow you to, essentially, modify the animation by hand in the code. When creating a Motion Tween with code, you can use the addPropertyArray() function, but you don’t seem to be able to get those properties after the fact.
2) Related to the above, I would like to be able to duplicate a MotionBase so that I can alter it in code at runtime without affecting the original. Since the MotionBase constructor requires an XML, and since there isn’t a way to get the original MotionBase’s property arrays (to create a new one with), there doesn’t seem to be any way to create a duplicate Motion. Is there some way to do this that I haven’t found yet?
3) Regarding #1 from my first post, it’s good to hear that a potential fix is in the works. Since writing my initial post and doing a lot more testing, I’ve found similar issues with the other animator base methods. For example, if you stop or end one animator, all the others pause. If you pause one, they all pause and if you resume that same one, they all resume… but if you pause one and resume another, only the one resumed actually resumes. All these issues appear to be related to the same problem — individual animators being linked to each other somehow — so I hope the fix will take care of them all. I will definitely try it out as soon as the public beta is released!
4) I have also come up with another very important question since writing my last post. There seems to be no way to stop a motion tween in its tracks and remove it from the object. The stop() method puts the object back at the beginning of the tween, and the end() method jumps the object to the end of the tween. While pause() does stop the animation in its tracks, a resume() call would start the tween up again. I want to be able to remove the motion tween from the object entirely, while still leaving the object in its current state (mid-tween).
I really hope this is possible, because it’s essential for this new functionality to play nice with overlapping tweens (which our code base currently applies to objects using code alone). You see, everything we do is dynamic and it’s possible that there will be a case where a Motion Tween is applied to an object and then, before it is completed, a different type of animation is applied. I need to be able to stop the object where it is, drop the Motion Tween, and apply the new animation type at that point.
Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated!
November 19, 2009 at 7:47 am
This has solidified my new path as an actionscript only animator. I regret paying for CS4 and wish instead that I sent a check to Jack and his TweenMax/Lite. This seems like a very frustrating workflow all around. I cant stand it. I guess after 10 years, the Flash timeline is no longer for me.
December 9, 2009 at 9:26 am
CS4 is extremely difficult to manage/learn. Motion paths are out of wack – especially editing them. A simple walking animation is difficult with CS4! I regret taking a course on this.
December 9, 2009 at 8:13 pm
We have been using Flash as an animation tool for TV broadcast since v4.0. We feel we must take issue with the title of this thread – ‘makes your animations better, faster, stronger’. For our purposes the new Motion Tweens are absolutely useless. They obviously haven’t been designed with nested character animation in mind. CS4 has caused us more headaches than we have time to list here and we deeply regret upgrading from Flash 8.
January 4, 2010 at 9:00 am
I am trying to find where opacity went in CS4. Is anyone else having problem finding this?
I find the entire CS4 package (Flash, photoshop, premiere etc) hard to operate after years of using pervious versions. The changes that were made to make things easier have only created ended crashes and headaches trying to relocate objects and functions we always used.
If you could let me know where Opacity went in Flash CS4, I would really appreciate it as would my grade 11 students.
January 18, 2010 at 4:19 am
1st of all thanks for info. i am making a presentation on flash tweening and this is very helpful to me. can anyone tell me that if CS5 will come then what will they have to do with the tween.
February 1, 2010 at 12:51 pm
What surprises me most about the new Flash Motion Editor is the fact that when there are so many good motion editors out there in other software, demonstrating not only flexible features but world-class interactivity that we get this dog’s dinner of an animation tool.
The two key features seem to be changing the length of animations and applying easing – both of which however are so draconian that they make everything else a nightmare.
3dsmax does both these features so much more intuitively than Flash, and even After Effects (which has a pretty shit graph editor) manages it better than Flash.
The general interaction with the panel is atrocious as well, with property graphs popping open and shut the whole time, having to constantly drag the “viewable frames” wider when things change. Only being able to adjust one curve at a time. Not being able to drag and select multiple keyframes. Not being able to transform keyframes.
Animation was fairly rudimentary in older versions of Flash, but just when Adobe had an opportunity to make something really powerful that took inspiration from all the best animation packages out there they wasted everybody’s time, including their own.
I am honestly stunned at how bad and unintuitive it makes the process of animation. What a complete mess.
February 3, 2010 at 10:00 am
Hi,
great to work with the new animation model! but i can’t still figure out how to create a SWF. 3D Tween on objects are working fine while playing on Timeline (Authoring). But in Export/Testing mode the outpanel says always:
ReferenceError: Error #1069: Eigenschaft null für fl.motion.KeyframeBase nicht gefunden und es ist kein Standardwert vorhanden.
at fl.motion::KeyframeBase/getValue()
at fl.motion::MotionBase/getValue()
at fl.motion::Animator3D/setTime3D()
at fl.motion::AnimatorBase/set time()
at fl.motion::AnimatorBase/nextFrame()
at fl.motion::AnimatorBase$/processCurrentFrame()
at fl.motion::AnimatorBase$/parentEnterFrameHandler()
as temporary solution i converted 3D tween to a frame-by-frame animation, but that doesn’t solve the problem.
Any idea?
i am working with 10.0.2 / Mac
Thanks
Sonja
March 17, 2010 at 3:03 pm
I hadn’t worked with Flash in a few years so you can imagine my horror when I couldn’t get a simple motion tween to work on top of the AS3 thing. I was running around the office cursing Adobe all day. I finally stumbled on this article and now I can get it done. I was this close to having to contract out for something really minor. Thank you so much.
March 18, 2010 at 12:53 pm
Help! Is this a bug??
I’m trying to create different alpha values for my graphic on a motion tween. Start at 0%, go to 100%, stay there, then go back down to 0%, while moving on a path.
I first create the tween, then go in and change my alpha values to look like this 0——100——————100—–0 So the first 0 is the key frame and the other 3 are diamonds. When I try to set the alpha value, the slider will bounce back to some random number as I try to drag it, and also change the other values I had previously set. Is there some sort of special order I need to be setting the values in?
Now, I’m clicking on the diamond key frame I want to adjust, then I select the object, drag the slider to 100, and it bounces back to 99 (typing in 100% doesn’t work either). Sometimes it will bounce to other random numbers, and sometimes it works. This has to be a bug, right??
March 18, 2010 at 1:04 pm
Do you have easing applied to the Alpha? If so, it isn’t a bug — Flash is adjusting the alpha value to what it would need to be for the easing (as it is mathematically dictating the alpha value).
So what you’ll want to do is go to the Motion Editor, disable easing for Alpha (the checkbox), adjust your alpha values (in the Motion Editor or PI), and then reapply the easing.
You may however want to instead ease the Alpha value by applying curves in the Alpha property itself — it’s much easier to get the effect you want that way instead.
March 18, 2010 at 3:15 pm
Ah… I believe that was it! I was trying to ease the alpha just to the first diamond, but I guess it applies it over the whole tween. How can I apply the ease to only certain frames?
Also… how on earth do I move a diamond to a different frame? (sorry I don’t know the technical term for the new keyframes). When I try to move one, it wants to move the entire tween.
March 18, 2010 at 3:53 pm
Scratch that last paragraph…. I just read through all the comments and figured out the ctrl + click frames. Whew, that was some pretty essential knowledge there.
March 18, 2010 at 4:39 pm
@Jenna: To ease the alpha just to the certain frames, just curve its graph in the Motion Editor (like this: http://flashthusiast.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/mmigrate-fig09.jpg) — this is affecting the rate of change over time, just like easing, and will allow you to ease in and out from individual keyframes.
This post here has a few more details: http://flashthusiast.com/2008/11/20/flash-cs4-how-to-ease-between-keyframes-using-new-motion-tweens/
March 23, 2010 at 4:29 pm
There’s a problem with the inclusion of an attribute in the Export Motion XML’.
The XML created looks like this:
Unfortunately, the attribute, [xmlns="fl.motion.*"], causes XMLList to ignore attempts to acquire elements into an XMLList object. Removing the [xmlns="fl.motion.*"] reference then allows the XMLList to be properly and completely created as might be expected. Is this a BUG? Can anyone explain why this happens – or how to remedy the situation without removing the attribute?
The OTHER problem I am having is that I am creating All-AS3 projects where there is only one frame in one layer of the timeline, there is nothing in the Library and there is nothing on the stage – all is performed by programmatically loading/creating objects by way of XML. So, far, I cannot get the Animator class to work in this situation. Is it true that more than one frame is required in the timeline for the Animator class to apply an XML to a Sprite object that has been programmatically loaded and added to the stage?
March 23, 2010 at 4:32 pm
In my previous message – the included EXAMPLE of the XML which presented a problem was removed. Here it is again – with the ‘[' and ']‘ chars substituted for the < and > characters.
[Motion duration="90" xmlns="fl.motion.*" xmlns:geom="flash.geom.*" xmlns:filters="flash.filters.*"]
March 29, 2010 at 3:24 pm
“All” I’m trying to do is take an object and tween it from small to large. I selected the vector object, select create motion tween, enlarge it and voila, nothing happens. I tried setting the “ease” number higher, but it’s still 10 frames of the vector object sitting there. This is my third day of frustration. Any help would be appreciated.
April 29, 2010 at 8:43 am
ARRRGHH!! I am ready to un-install CS4!!! WHY!!! I have wasted so much time this week. Right now I cannot get nested tweens to work when using the classic tweening. Works fine at a symbol level, whan nested in another symbol, will just jump to last (stop) frame. Very :-(
April 29, 2010 at 10:00 am
@Greg: Steps or FLA? Are you using graphics/looping?
April 30, 2010 at 5:38 am
Jen,
I don’t know if the install copy(ies) we have are bad or something but this seems incredibly buggy. Tweens and submovies seem to randomly appear and disappear on the main timeline. We (a major university) have a library of old Flash based material that we need to use as a base for new projects and it seems that everything we touch w/CS4 is now a problem. We have had to rebuild several projects several times and have different bugs and issues each time (mostly w/tween based material). Granted we are attempting to stay in the legacy/classic mode but according to the CS4 support material this was not to be a problem. Extremely unhappy and frustrated. :-(
April 30, 2010 at 9:38 am
Yes, AS2 should work as it did. And for AS2 projects you wouldn’t be running into stagecore problems (that sometimes account for disappearances, although we’re only aware of a few things that should be fixed in 10.0.2). I’m not sure what you’re running into, as we don’t have any reported or known issues related to new tweens causing things to disappear specifically, and I can’t think of any that may be related outside of tweens. Unfortunately we would need to have steps or see a file with steps to reproduce to suggest a workaround, fix, or be able to let you know what’s going on (sometimes it’s a workflow change). More than willing to look into it and help out and try to ease some frustrations.
May 12, 2010 at 8:02 am
Please can you tell why can’t we ease position X & Y coordinate properties directly with handles on keyframes like with other properties? The custom ease curve tends to apply erratically on an animation with multiple position keyframes . We get very random results with it and it’s far from intuitive. Often the custom curve applies the position wrong way and what’s strange, can be remedied just by saving and restarting Flash. I have to often split my object animation in multiple parts if I have multiple position changes and I want position easing and everything behaving the way I intended.
June 26, 2010 at 9:59 am
Actually didnt read all the comments, but because i never made the switch from CS3 to CS4 mainly because of the new tweens that i disliked the moment i met them, i thought (even though CS5 is out now…havent seen it yet) i give some remarks on something the writer of this article states and that’s a common mistake in making and designing tweens in Flash up to CS4.
The point mistaken is the statement ‘Make your keyframes first, and then create the Motion Tween’
Even Adobe evangelists and developers of Adobe didnt know at some point that this order of creating a Motion Tween isnt good. If you instead of this order, use another order… namely first make your Tween and then add possible keyframes.
Whats the difference you might ask?
Well, in the first sample, that most people use…if you want to change keyframes or your basic MC you might need to have to do this for quite a lot, if unlucky all your keyframes.
But if set up a tween in the right order (back from MX to CS3) you could change all of your animation by just changing the basic MC. Badly setup Flashes that i had to fix, took me often hours to go through all keyframes.
Good setup Flashes need only adjustment on the basic MC.
If CS5 brings improvement…well see..
Math
July 11, 2010 at 3:20 pm
Is it possible to ease beyond 100 in the Motion Editor? Can I use Easing in Motion Editor to go beyond my final (x,y) location and then back? The numbers on the easing graph go beyond 100, but none of the presets actually go beyond 100. It is also not possible to draw a curve in a Custom Ease that goes beyond 100. I understand that values beyond 100 percent can’t work for ‘alpha’ but the cerainly can for x,y movements and rotations.
Such eases exist using actionscript. The Elastic Class in fl.transitions.easing allows you to set up really nice “spring” tweens. The nice thing is that I can specify the starting and finishing X or Y coordinate in actionscript. Then flash will move my movieclip back and forth beyond the final resting place, decaying the spring motion until it stops at the finishing location. Example:
var tween_handler:Object = new Tween(ball_mc, “x”, Elastic.easeIn, 1000, 0, 3, true).
Can I accomplish this with Motion Editor?
July 27, 2010 at 6:05 am
Does anyone know what the issue is with the shimming effect in Flash when you enlarging or decreasing an image? (You see if in the moving building image above in this post too). It looks really bad and my clients are not happy with the way it looks but I’m not sure how to get around this in Flash AND I really hate having to just fade images in and out I want to offer some movement of my images. I have a friend that says I shouldn’t be using Flash for this kind of stuff and I should be using After Effects..which I don’t have. It seems like I should be able to use Flash to simply grow or shrink an image by a small amount to give my animation of images a bit of life. Thanks to anyone who can help!
August 30, 2010 at 1:04 am
simple animation on CS4 makes me soooooo super angry!!!! ARGHGHHGH!!!!
- I can’t simply copy+move a keyframe in a tween (alt+drag keyframe in mac) to make a pause in the animation, it stupidly (perhaps it’s supposed to be smartly!) adds a NON-WANTED animation in between those frames! I can’t find a way to get rid of that in between animation even in the motion editor!!! ahhhggrrrr!!!
- increasing the length of a motion tween again stupidly! moves all keyframes and if I have a complex animation I have lost all the time organization AGHHHRRRR!!!! I cannot always use F5 to add frames cause I might have some other frames in that same layer later on that I don’t want to be moved!
- the rest I’ll add later when I have a bit more time to relieve my anger :S
- brenda