Comments on: Flash CS4: How to ease between keyframes using new motion tweens

By: aharmlesspie

aharmlesspie — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 03:13:07 +0000

THANK YOU. I was beating my head against a wall trying to figure this out! Its my first week with flash, and Im frustrated that it doesn’t work like after effects for animation. But now that I know this I can see why!

By: Jen deHaan

Jen deHaan — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 17:28:14 +0000

@Gary: Ctrl on Win, Cmd on mac. Make sure you don’t drag while holding the button (this is used to select multiple frames). You need to finish the selection first. Ctrl/Cmd click then release to select a single frame, then drag the frame. You can also drag multiple frames but you have to select them, release, then drag the selected frames.

@Mike: Select a single new motion span (blue), or motion tweened object or motion path on the Stage. This feature is only for new motion tweens, not classic motion tweens (purple with the arrow) or shape tweens (green with arrow).

By: mike

mike — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 15:17:15 +0000

Whatever I select, the motion editor just will not open. What am I doing wrong?

By: Gary

Gary — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 08:41:15 +0000

NOPE!! Holding down – Clicking CTRL/Click will NOT enable me to move the diamond tween marker on the Timeline as in CS3 :-( It seems to move the entire tween area instead! LOTS of folk are pretty frustrated over this issue!!

By: Jen deHaan

Jen deHaan — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 20:23:18 +0000

Hi Jeff/Chris – Yes, we definitely know we need to make easing between keyframes easier (and I look forward to your input). This is one of the reasons there are two models (that and a few other things Classic can do that new tweening cannot that we couldn’t add before ship).

@Chris, re moving keyframes – you can as long as they’re contiguous frames on the main timeline, which is pretty much the same as Classic tweens. To select the frames, make sure you hold Cmd/Ctrl first.

By: Jeff

Jeff — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 19:46:00 +0000

I completely agree with you Chris. I rely heavily in easing between frames in my animations. I’ve regressed to using classic tween because of the extra pain involved. Unfortunately I can’t take advantage of the new copy and paste of motions, which is my favorite new feature in CS4. I’m participating in user testing at Adobe for Flash CS6 in a month or so, I’ll be sure to bring up this issue!

By: Chris

Chris — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 20:33:41 +0000

There are certainly some positives to the new easing model, most notably the ability to tween multiple properties independently. However, the implementation leaves a lot to be desired. It is quite a bit more time-consuming to modify eases between keyframes, especially for multiple objects at a time.

Also, it is very difficult to modify the timing of your eases using the new model. Individual key frames along the ease are difficult to move around on the timeline, and I still haven’t figured out a way to move multiple keyframes on different objects at once. Is there a way to do this?

Overall, I applaud Adobe’s efforts to increase the flexibility and efficiency of animation in Flash, but I feel that CS4 breaks a lot of things in order to make a few things better. This is of great concern to me, because a modification of the motion model this significant is difficult to tamper with in future versions of Flash, and I fear that Adobe has taken a big step with no recourse to fix it later.

By: viesturs

viesturs — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 10:27:08 +0000

this new easing really sucks, old one was more usable

By: Isa

Isa — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 20:59:14 +0000

Hey thanks, that was exactly what I was looking for. The example .fla file made it really easy to see that you were talking about.

By: Justin Putney

Justin Putney — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 17:06:17 +0000

Jen,
Here’s a way to apply eases after-the-fact:
http://ajarproductions.com/blog/2009/02/26/the-missing-flash-panel-easecaddy/