Oddball Movie Tricks

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You've seen several ways to make FreeHand movies, but there are other little tricks that you can use to add some quick and cheap effects to your presentation. Remember, you can always export the FreeHand file (as an Illustrator file) and import it into Flash where you can add sound and ActionScripts.

Here's an easy way to make an animation, and an easy way to get in a lot of trouble, all at once. FreeHand's text blocks and animation work together very well. If you set a line of text, and use Release To Layers, the letters that make up the text you typed appear on the screen as though you were typing them. Type Animation is cool! in a 72-point font. With the text block selected, choose Xtras ® Animation ® Release To Layers. Choose the Build option. Now test the movie. The letters appear on the screen one at a time, disappear, and start over. Frames in the Movie Settings must be set to Layers or Layers and Pages.

That was pretty neat, but now choose the Spiral tool and draw a spiral that's about four or five inches wide. While it's still selected, choose Xtras ® Distort ® Add Points. Drag a selection box around the entire spiral in order to select all the points in the path. Select Modify ® Split; then cut the spiral to the Clipboard. Draw a text block (larger than the spiral). Paste the spiral into the text block. Keep the text block selected, apply it to the top layer (click the Foreground layer in the Layers panel) of your previous "Animation is cool!" animation, and use Release To Layers. Keep the option set to Build, and deselect Use Existing Layers. Test the movie. The words appear as before, but as the exclamation point is placed, the spiral begins to appear on the page. This trick comes to you thanks to Ian Kelleigh (www.FreeHandSource.com).

Now you think you have it made — between FreeHand and Flash there's not much you can't do. But wait; there's more. Type Whee with a couple dozen e's after it. Draw a path like a roller coaster course. Attach the text to the path. Release to layers and test the movie. You can almost hear the kids screaming.

Draw a simple graphic, such as a rectangle and two circles that could be construed as a roller coaster car, and copy it to the Clipboard. Create a text block, and paste the little car in the text block as an inline graphic. Paste several more — as many as you like. Draw another roller coaster path, and attach the text to the path (Text ® Attach To Path), and release to layers, with the option set to Sequence. Test the movie. Now the little car travels along the path you've drawn. The only thing holding you back is the opportunity to put this to work.

Summary

This chapter has shown you several ways to make simple or complex movies in FreeHand. You can use these techniques to test an idea that can be used in its own right, to gain client approval, or show other team members how your idea will work. Or, the movie can be exported as a SWF file as the final project. Naturally, it can be imported into Flash and embellished there. Finally, you learned a few tricks with text blocks and animations.

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