October 6th, 2009
by Jen deHaan
A “FAQ” about new motion tweens is how to scale the entire animation after you have created it. New motion tweens “auto-keyframe”. This can be very helpful when animating, because it saves you a step – you can just make your changes and everything tweens nicely. However, it also means that you need to think about things when you need to revise the entire animation. You don’t use “Edit multiple keyframes”, since you really only have one keyframe at the beginning of the animation. So I’ll go over a few of the things you may encounter.
1. Moving an entire animation with a motion path.
If you have a motion path, this is easy – you select the motion path (click it, or marquee-select over your instance), and then drag it to a new location on the stage or use the X-Y hot text for the path.
2. Moving an entire animation without a motion path.
If you do not have a motion path and do not want a motion path, you need to make sure your playhead is at frame 1 of the tween span, and then move the instance to a new location. Make sure you haven’t accidentily placed any position keyframes. If you do have a path, delete it or go to the Motion Editor and right-click the X and Y motion paths and choose “Reset Property” (or click the Reset button for Basic motion if you don’t have rotation applied).
3. Scaling an entire animation that doesn’t have Scale X or Scale Y animated.
You can scale the tween with the motion path. Just go to the first frame of the tween, and select the instance and path using the Free Transform Tool (hold Shift to multi-select), or use the Transform panel for each selection. Scale it as you do any path or instance, and because you’re at the first frame the changes will apply across the entire tween.
4. Scaling an entire animation that does have Scale X or Scale Y animated.
If you have previously scaled anything in the tween, doing this is applied to the first keyframe and the tween would animate to the earlier scaling (the auto-keyframing feature can be a detriment in this situation, especially when it comes to scaling due to the percentages being reset – for this reason Motion Presets also won’t help). In this situation, I recommend scaling using the Motion editor:
1. Go to the Scale X and Y properties in the Motion Editor.
2. Press the Alt key while dragging the curve in each graph up and down. This scales the entire scale animation at the same time (same as edit multiple keyframes).
3. If you need to proportionally scale the motion path for the tween as well, select the path on the Stage and use Free Transform or enter a new value in the Transform panel.
Posted in Flash CS4, Flash CS4: motion, Flash CS4: new features, Migration, Motion Editor, animation, motion path, motion tween, new stuff, symbols, timeline, transform, tweens | 17 Comments »
May 5th, 2009
by Jen deHaan
Justin Putney at Ajar Productions has created some amazing extensions that you can use with Flash CS4 and the new motion model to help with your tweens or create them. Justin’s extensions are not only useful, but well implemented and documented on his blog.
For some helpful detailed info about the extension creation, check out this post on the Ajar Productions site.
For information/download for the MotionSketch extension, which records/creates a tween based on you drawing in Flash (!), see this post.
For the Motion Blur extension, which analyzes the movement of your tween and then creates a motion blur. see this post.
Many thanks to Justin for your hard work, and excellent extensions.
Posted in Flash CS4, Flash CS4: motion, JSFL, animation, downloads, motion tween, new stuff | 3 Comments »
May 5th, 2009
by Jen deHaan
We wrote an article to help you migrate your skills and tweens from old to new in Flash CS4. It accompanys a new Animation Learning Guide on the Developer Center (they go hand in hand, lots of cross links) – and since it is now out, so is the migration article.
Check them out here:
* Motion Migration Guide for Flash CS4
* Animation Learning Guide
Let us know what you think!
Posted in FLA files, Flash CS4, Flash CS4: motion, Flash CS4: new features, Migration, Motion Editor, animation, articles, motion tween, new stuff, tweens | 2 Comments »
May 5th, 2009
by Jen deHaan
It took awhile to produce this due to its length (over 80 pages in word I think), but the Animation Learning Guide for new motion (introduced in Flash CS4 last fall) is finally out:
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flash/learning_guide/animation/
It is divided into a bunch of sections based on topic, so click from this page to the topic you want to learn about. Also note that there is a FLA download of samples to help you out.
For more information on whatever, let us know. If you’re upgrading from classic tweens to new tweens, check this other article out too.
Posted in FLA files, Flash CS4, Flash CS4: motion, Flash CS4: motion runtime, Flash CS4: new features, Migration, Motion Editor, Motion Presets, Motion runtime, Tween instance, animation, articles, masking, masks, motion tween, tweens | 8 Comments »
January 9th, 2009
by Jen deHaan
If you’ve created motion tweens in versions of Flash Past, chances are you’ve pressed F6 a few times in order to insert new keyframes. Doing so has probably become very familiar to you as well – you want to change something for an animation, then you press F6. Automatically. It’s a habit.
You can still use F6 to insert static keyframes on the Timeline (that you might turn into a motion tween), and you can even use them to insert property keyframes within a tween span too. However, within a tween span pressing F6 will insert a property keyframe on every single property currently associated with the target instance. This is usually way more keyframes than you actually need at that frame, so using F6 on a tween span is usually not the best thing to do for your animation – especially if you intend to continue modifying it. You’ll likely end up with unexpected things happening in your animation. So in Flash CS4, you might want to work at breaking the F6 habit.
Instead of pressing F6, you can insert keyframes other ways:
- Simply change the instance. Most of the time, this is all you need to do to insert a keyframe at the playhead’s position. If you need to tween to a new location, move the instance there. If you need it to scale or skew, use the Free Transform tool. If you need the instance to blur, change the value in the Property inspector or Motion Editor.
- Right-click the tween span and choose Insert Keyframe > Type. This adds keyframe(s) for the category you select at the current playhead, which reduces the number of keyframes inserted. For example, if you choose Insert Keyframe > Filter it adds a keyframe on all filter properties. To further reduce the number of inappropriate keyframes, use the Motion Editor.
- Use the Motion Editor. You can use the Add Keyframe button (yellow or gray diamond), graph context menu, or Ctrl/Cmd key over the graph to insert a keyframe on individual properties.
Posted in Flash CS4, Flash CS4: motion, Flash CS4: new features, Migration, animation, motion tween, tweens | 19 Comments »
December 10th, 2008
by Jen deHaan
In the previous blog entry, I linked to a new JSFL that automatically gives instance names to selected instances in a smart way. You can go read about and download the JSFL from this page. This entry shows you how to use this command along with some of the new features in Flash CS4.
read more »
Posted in ActionScript 3.0, Commands, Easing, FLA files, Flash CS4, Flash CS4: motion, Flash CS4: motion runtime, Flash CS4: new features, General, JSFL, Migration, Motion Editor, Motion runtime, Tween instance, animation, downloads, instances, motion tween, new stuff, tweens | 6 Comments »
November 24th, 2008
by Jen deHaan
That’s right – do you want to do more “stuff” with your tweens? Often you have to know what keyboard modifiers to use, because functionality is not revealed in any other way. These modifiers are all documented, but I thought I would put them down in a handy list you could reference or print out (or whatever you want to do).
MOTION EDITOR
- Add a control point: Ctrl-click (Windows) or Cmd-click (Mac) on the curve or dashed line on the graph.
- Remove a control point: Ctrl-click (Windows) or Cmd-click (Mac) a control point.
- Select multiple control points on a graph: Hold Shift and click each control point.
- Convert a control point between smooth and corner: Alt-click (Windows) or Option-click (Mac) the control point to extend or pull in the handles of a control point. This works on all control points except on the X, Y, and Z (spatial) properties.
- Move a curve up and down on a graph without changing the keyframes time values: Alt-drag (Windows) or Option-drag (Mac) the curve between any two control points.
- Separate handles on a control point: Alt-drag (Windows) or Option-drag (Mac) a handle. This makes the handle move independently. Release the Alt key and drag the opposite handle past 180 degrees to make both move together again.
- Move a control point to a different frame and retain its value: Make sure the control point is DESELECTED, and then hold Shift and drag it to a new frame. Or select the control point and don’t release the mouse button, then hold Shift and drag it to a new location.
- Change values by steps of 10: Hold Shift while scrolling the hot text.
- Change values by steps of 0.1: Hold Ctrl while scrolling the hot text.
(Also note that you can do basic math in the hot text as well – to enter 25, you can enter 20+5.)
TWEEN SPANS (in Timeline)
- Select a single frame in a tween span: Ctrl-click (Windows) or Cmd-click (Mac) a frame in the tween span.
- Select multiple frames in a tween span: Ctrl-drag (Windows) or Cmd-drag (Mac) frames in the tween span.
- Extend the length of a tween span without stretching the animation: Shift-drag the end of the tween span to the right.
- Make the tween span shorter without stretching the animation: Shift-drag the end of the tween span to the left (removes keyframes you drag over).
- Duplicate a span: Alt-drag (Windows) or Option-drag (Mac) the span to a new location on a timeline.
- Duplicate tween frames: Select frame(s) within a span (Ctrl/Cmd-click or drag) and then Alt-drag (Windows) or Option-drag (Mac) the frames to a new location on a timeline.
- Insert empty frames between two adjacent tween spans: Hold Alt (Windows) or Option (Mac) while dragging the breakline between the spans.
Posted in Flash CS4, Flash CS4: motion, Flash CS4: new features, Motion Editor, animation, motion tween, new stuff, tweens | 13 Comments »
November 20th, 2008
by Jen deHaan
In Flash CS3, you could set easing on each keyframe in your animation to apply easing between two instances. Because there is only one instance per tween span, you cannot ease the same way using the new motion model. In order to apply an easing effect to a motion tween, you need to use a custom ease or modify curves in property graphs using the Motion Editor. Keep reading to learn how to ease between keyframes using a custom ease.
read more »
Posted in Easing, Flash CS4, Flash CS4: motion, Flash CS4: new features, Migration, Motion Editor, motion tween, new stuff | 17 Comments »
November 20th, 2008
by Jen deHaan
You can then edit the custom ease using the standard bezier editing controls found in other property graphs in the Motion Editor.
To apply the custom ease to a property, you select the custom ease’s name from the Ease menu in the property you want to apply it to. The property graph updates with a dashed curve that displays the actual tweened values after the ease is applied, as it does for the preset eases you can apply using this Ease section of the Motion Editor. Keep reading to learn how to create custom eases.
read more »
Posted in Easing, Flash CS4, Flash CS4: motion, Flash CS4: new features, Migration, Motion Editor, motion tween, new stuff | 15 Comments »
November 18th, 2008
by Jen deHaan
This morning I presented about how you can use some of the preset eases in Flash to create animation really quickly. This post provides a real quick overview about how I built the files, and has the source FLAs for you to look at in Flash CS4.
read more »
Posted in Adobe MAX, Easing, FLA files, FLV, Flash CS4, Flash CS4: motion, Flash CS4: new features, Motion Editor, motion tween, presentations | 1 Comment »