Building an Animation


After you have decided the output format for your animation, you can start building your creative masterpiece of motion. Again, Fireworks enables you to build animations using the frame-by-frame method, the tweened method, or the animation symbols method.

Frame-by-Frame Animation

Frame-by-frame animation is the most basic method of the three types of animation you can do in Fireworks. Each element in each frame is repositioned or modified to create the illusion of motion. Remember the stick figures you drew on your school notebooks and how you flipped through the pages to make them move? Those flip books used frame-by-frame animation.

Frame-by-frame animation requires the artist to create each frame by hand. Tweening and animation symbols use the computer to automate the drawing process required between frames.

The simplest way to create an animation is to create an object, add a new frame, place the object on the new frame, and modify it in some way (change color, reposition, and so on). Repeat each step of this process until the animation is built.

The rub with this method is that you cannot see the previous frame as a point of reference if you're moving the object. If you've ever seen hand animators at work, they're constantly flipping between sheets of tracing paper (also known as onion skin) to gather their reference points for the animation.

Fortunately, Fireworks offers two solutions to this dilemma: Onion Skinning and the Distribute to Frames command.

Onion Skinning

Onion Skinning pays homage to the traditional animation work process, where animators worked on translucent pieces of paper so they could see several layers of drawings simultaneously. In Fireworks, Onion Skinning simulates that process by displaying nearby frames partially grayed out (see Figure 4.12).

Figure 4.12. Onion Skinning enables you to use surrounding frames to aid in positioning graphics in the animation.


To use Onion Skinning, open the Frames panel. In the lower-left corner is the Onion Skinning button. Click the button to view the Onion Skinning menu (see Figure 4.13). The No Onion Skinning option turns off the feature and shows only the active frame. All other options show a user a selected range of frames. Note that all ranges are relative to the active frame. If you select the Multi-Frame Editing option, all visible objects can be edited, including those on inactive frames.

Figure 4.13. The Onion Skinning menu provides several display options.


Distribute to Frames

Another option is to use the Distribute to Frames command, which takes a group of selected objects and sends each to its own frame in the order in which it is stacked in the Layers panel.

To use the Distribute to Frames command, create all the objects in one layer. Notice that there are several sublayers, depending on how many objects you create. Use the Layers panel to make sure your objects are in the proper stacking order for the animation. Because objects are distributed from bottom to top, make sure the graphic that starts your animation is the bottom sublayer and the graphic that ends your animation is the top sublayer.

Select all the objects you want to include in the animation with Edit, Select All, or Shift-click if you want to selectively choose graphics. Click the Distribute to Frames button in the Frames panel and Fireworks automatically inserts each graphic in its own frame, in order (see Figure 4.14).

Figure 4.14. Use the Distribute to Frames command to automatically place each layered object in its own frame.


Playing Your Animation

After you've created your animation, you'll want to see whether you've effectively created the illusion of motion. Built right into the document window is a set of playback controls, similar to those found in a VCR (see Figure 4.15).

Figure 4.15. Use the playback controls in the document window to preview your animation.


The animation plays back at a high frame rate and loops continuously. To change the frame delay, which determines how long the active frame is displayed, double-click in the frame delay of any frame. Remember that frame delay is measured in 100ths of a second. The default frame delay of 7 indicates the frame is delayed seven-tenths of a second. To hold the frame for 3 seconds, enter a value of 300.

To control the looping properties of your animation, click the GIF Animation Looping button at the bottom of the Frames panel (see Figure 4.16). Select an option (No Looping, 15, 10, 20 and Forever) to set the looping properties.

Figure 4.16. The GIF Animation Looping button controls the looping properties for the animation.


Tweened Animation

After you've worked with frame-by-frame animations, playing with tweened animations will appear to be a piece of cake. To build a tweened animation, you create a visual beginning and an end point, and then define the number of frames, or steps, in between. Fireworks does the rest. Most tweened animations involve visual changes such a position on the stage, rotation, or scale of the beginning instance and the ending instance.

To create a tweened animation, create a vector object and convert it to a graphic symbol by choosing Modify, Convert to Symbol (F8), and selecting Graphic Symbol in the Symbol Properties dialog box (see Figure 4.17). Drag two instances of the symbol onto the canvas from the Library tab or the Assets panel. Or select the first instance and duplicate it (Edit, Duplicate). They must be instances of the same symbol.

Figure 4.17. After creating the first object in a tweened animation, convert the object to a graphic symbol.


Position and modify each instance as desired. Select both instances and choose Modify, Symbol, Tween Instances (see Figure 4.18). Enter the number of steps in the Tween Instances dialog box. Select the Distribute to Frames option to distribute the symbols across frames. If you want to modify the symbols, leave this option unchecked.

Figure 4.18. Use the Tween Instances command to create the tweened animation.


Animation Symbols

Animation symbols are one of the three symbol types in Fireworks (animation, button, and graphic). They are stored in the Fireworks library, and you can use them by simply dragging each symbol onto the canvas. The beauty of using animation symbols is that they hold objects in multi-frame animations together as a single unit. If you move one of the objects, the rest of the visuals inside the symbol are automatically repositioned.

Although animation symbols are similar to tweened animations, there are a few differences. When you use animation symbols, Fireworks sees the entire animation as a single entity. Accordingly, you can make global changes to the entire animation.

Animation symbols are also created from a single object selection and parameters that you control (scaling, positioning, and rotation).

Because animation symbols are treated as a single object, you cannot visually set an endpoint as you could with tweened animations. Instead, you must numerically designate the animation's endpoint along with its other parameters.

Creating Animation Symbols

The first step in building an animation with animation symbols is to create the symbol. To create the symbol, select one or more objects on the canvas. Choose Modify, Animation, Animate Selection to open the Animate dialog box (see Figure 4.19), where you find the following options:

  • Frames Sets the number of frames used in the animation.

  • Move Controls the number of pixels the object is moved over the course of the animation. You can visually reposition the object later by modifying the motion path.

  • Direction Controls the direction, in degrees, the object is moved.

  • Scale To Controls the size of the final object compared to the first object. A relative percentage is used to measure this.

  • Opacity Changes the object's opacity. The first number represents the opacity of the first object, whereas the second number represents the opacity of the last object.

  • Rotation Controls the number of degrees the object is rotated. The CW and CCW radio button options represent clockwise and counter-clockwise rotation, respectively.

Figure 4.19. The Animate dialog box enables you to set the parameters of an animation symbol.


Modifying Animation Symbols

You can modify animation symbols in several ways, including modifying the visual objects that are animated, editing the animation properties, and modifying the motion path.

To modify the object(s) used in the animation, simply double-click an animated symbol instance and the Symbol Editor window appears (see Figure 4.20). You can then add new objects and modify or replace the existing object used in the animation. When you are finished editing the visuals used in the animation, press the Done button to return to your document stage. Note: All objects in the animation can be modified to add or subtract visuals, but the animation itself is not modified.

Figure 4.20. Use the Symbol Editor to modify the animated object.


The easiest way to edit the animation settings is to select the animation instance on the stage and then make changes in the Property inspector. To make these same changes in the Animate dialog box, select the animation instance and choose Modify, Animation, Settings to see the Animate dialog box. Make your changes, press OK, and the animation is updated.

After you've created the animation symbol, select an instance and the motion path appears (see Figure 4.21). This path displays the length and direction of the trajectory. To change either setting, drag the first (green) or last (red) point on the path. All intervening frames are updated.

Figure 4.21. Modify the animation symbol's trajectory by dragging the points of the motion path.


Note that the motion path is a straight line and not a curve. Because you can modify only the first (red) and last (green) points on the motion path, you can change only the length and direction of the trajectory.

You can also change the duration of any part of the animation by going into the Frames tab and double-clicking the Duration column. Enter a new duration in 100ths of seconds and press Return/Enter to accept the change. To view your animation, press the Play button in the bottom of the document window.

Optimizing Your Animation for Export As an Animated GIF

Now that you have created your animations, you need to get them out there for your adoring public to see. You can use the Export tool or the Export command (File, Image Preview) to start the process of creating an Animated GIF.

The Image Preview dialog box appears. Select Animated GIF from the Format pull-down menu under the Options tab.

Tip

The default export format is GIF. If you forget to choose Animated GIF, the Animation tab remains grayed out.


Note

The Image Preview command and dialog box was named Image Preview in previous versions of Fireworks.


Select the Animation tab to set the compression. A key difference between static exports and animation exports is that animated files require compression across frames.

Fireworks enables you to choose from among three levels of frame-to-frame compression (see Figure 4.22):

  • None This yields the largest file size because there is no compression. The Animated GIF describes complete bitmap images for each frame. None is the default setting.

  • Crop Each Frame The Animated GIF describes only the rectangular region where the pixels are changed.

  • Save Differences Between Frames The Animated GIF describes only the pixels that change within the rectangular region. Note that Crop Each Frame must be checked for Save Difference Between Frames to be enabled. Using Saving Differences Between Frames yields the smallest file size.

Figure 4.22. Control the frame compression in the Animation tab of the Image Preview dialog box.


When you're finished setting the export options, click the Export button, name the file, choose where to save it, and you've created an Animated GIF.

Optimizing Your Animation for Export to Flash

To create a Flash SWF animation file, choose the Quick Export button located at the top right of the document window. Select Macromedia Flash and Export SWF (see Figure 4.23). Enter a filename and press Save and you're finished.

Figure 4.23. Use the Quick Export button to easily send your animation to Flash.




Special Edition Using Macromedia Studio 8
Special Edition Using Macromedia Studio 8
ISBN: 0789733854
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 337

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