Flash CS4 All-in-One For Dummies- P9: Welcome to Flash CS4 All-in-One For Dummies. Our goal when writing this book was to share our enthusiasm for Flash and, at the same time, demystify the application. You can do so many things with Flash that it becomes mind boggling. The minibooks in this reference are designed to take the boggle out of your mind and show you how to use Flash to create Web banners, animations, and other delights. We also delve into the topics of ActionScript and Flash video. | Creating a Frame-by-Frame Animation 217 Figure 2-1 Creating an animated background with the Art Deco tool. Book III Chapter 2 Creating a Frame-by-Frame Animation A frame-by-frame animation is similar to the way cartoonists work. A cartoonist creates a separate drawing for each frame of the cartoon and when the frames are compiled they play back smoothly. You might have created flip books when you were young in which you draw stick figures at the top of the pages on a small pad change the character ever so slightly on each page of the pad and then quickly thumb through the pages to make the stick figure move. This process is similar to a frame-by-frame animation and you know that it involves a lot of work. In a nutshell what you do is create an object on a keyframe. Then you create additional keyframes and change the object ever so slightly in each keyframe. When the keyframes are played back you see relatively smooth motion. We don t show you the steps for creating a frame-by-frame animation in this chapter because it s not used often with graphics. It s useful when you re animating text though so we show you how to create a frame-by-frame animation in Chapter 3 of this minibook. 218 Making a Motion Tween Animation Making a Motion Tween Animation Motion tween animations have been around forever in Flash. In Flash CS4 you can create a motion tween animation more easily much more easily than you could do it in previous versions of Flash. When you create a motion tween animation in Flash you use keyframes which is where the changes in motion take place. Flash interpolates the motion on the in-between frames. When you play the animation you see smooth motion. To create a motion tween follow these steps 1. Create a new document and create an object and then position the object where you want it on the Stage. For the purpose of this exercise create an oval any color you like. When you create your own animations you can place the object anywhere you want. For the purpose
