Chapter 1: Basic Animation Concepts

Overview

What well cover in this chapter:

• What is animation?

• Frames and motion

• Dynamic vs. static animation

Flash, at its core , is an animation machine. From the very earliest versions, Flash has supported animation through tweenswhere you create a couple of keyframes that are different and let Flash fill in what is in between. However, this book is not about tweens. This book is about the powerful language built into Flash, called ActionScript. This book covers programming, math, and physics techniques used to make things move with ActionScript. As youll see, this gives you levels of power, control, and interactivity that you could never hope to match with tweening.

But before we dive into specific techniques and formulas for moving things around with ActionScript, lets take a quick look at exactly what animation is, some of the basic techniques behind it, and some concepts that you can use to make your Flash animations more dynamic and interesting.

Sure, you can skip this chapter if you are just dying to write some code. But I strongly suggest you come back to it at some point. If nothing else, youll find some interesting insights into the subject.