Understanding Frame Rate

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The illusion of animation relies on the human brain's ability to fill in gaps in continuity. When we see a series of images in very quick succession, our brain perceives a continuous moving image. In animation, you must display the sequence of images fast enough to convince the brain that it's looking at a single image.

Frame rate controls how fast Flash delivers the images. If the images come too fast, the movie turns into a blur. Slow delivery too much, and your viewers start perceiving each frame as a separate image; then the movement seems jerky. In addition, when you're working in Flash, you're most likely planning to deliver the movie over the Web, and you may not be able to get the precise control you'd like to have to deliver a fast frame rate. The standard rate for film is 24 frames per second (fps). For animation that's going out over the Web, 12 fps is a good setting.

In Flash, you can set only one frame rate for the entire movie. You set the frame rate in the Document Properties dialog box.

To set the frame rate:

  1. To access the Document Properties dialog box, do one of the following:

    • From the Modify menu, choose Document, or press graphics/01icon01.gif -J (Mac) or Ctrl-J (Windows).

    • In the Timeline's status bar, double-click the frame-rate number (Figure 8.41).

      Figure 8.41. To call up the Document Properties dialog box, choose Modify > Document (top) or double-click the frame-rate number in the Timeline's status bar (bottom).

      graphics/08fig41.gif

  2. In the Document Properties dialog box, enter a value in the Frame Rate field (Figure 8.42).

    Figure 8.42. Enter a new value in the Frame Rate field. Flash's default frame rate is 12 fps.

    graphics/08fig42.gif

  3. Click OK.

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Macromedia Flash MX for Windows and Macintosh. Visual QuickStart Guide
Macromedia Flash MX 2004 for Windows and Macintosh (Visual QuickStart Guides)
ISBN: 0582851165
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2002
Pages: 243

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