extra bits


create a motion p. 52

  • An animation is a series of static images (frames), where objects change incrementally from a beginning point to an end point. In Flash, we can define the beginning and end states with keyframes and let Flash generate the incremental frames. This method of creating the in-between frames is called tweening.

  • There are two types of tweens in Flash: motion and shape. Motion tween is a bit of a misnomer, as it can be used to create changes not only in placement (motion) but also in alpha transparency, size, rotation, skew, and color effect. Motion tweens are applied to keyframes in a layer and only work when the layer contains only groups, symbol instances, and/or text blocks.

    Shape tweens work on shapes, not groups, symbols, or text blocks, and are used to change or "morph" the appearance of the shape.


complex animation p. 55

  • Ah, the Flash intro to a Web siteprobably the most reviled Web phenomenon since the HTML Blink tag. The interminable wait to see the content you came to the site for in the first place and the frantic search for a Skip button, hoping the developer included one, made it all too much to bear and sent many viewers fleeing without ever getting into the site.

    So what will we do? Create an intro, of course! However, we're going to create one that's done the right waythe evolved way. Here are the rules we'll follow to ensure that the animation doesn't irritate our viewers and doesn't get in the way of our content, which is, after all, the reason for having the site. The guidelines and how we're following them are as follows:

    Make it simple and meaningful. Our animation will be elegant while actually furthering Timeless Blooms' marketing message of capturing the emotion of special events.

    Don't let your intro obscure real content and navigation. Allow users to "get on with it" without waiting for the intro to finish. Our content and navigation buttons will be available from Frame 1, and the animation occurs outside the main content area.

    Once viewers have seen the animation, don't make them view it again when navigating back to the home page from other areas of the site. This is why we created two keyframes in our main Timeline and created two background symbols, one for the intro and one for home.


pause an animation p. 68

  • You've already seen that you can add time between animations by adding blank frames. We could add frames between the animation segments here, but we want a five second pause, which would require adding 60 blank frames, and our Timeline is already long and unwieldy. Instead, we'll use ActionScript to pause the Timeline.

  • As a beginning Flash developer without deep understanding of ActionScript or other programming languages, you can often find code examples to use without understanding the technicalities of what they do.

    There are many resources on the Web that provide such examples. Visit the Macromedia Developer Forums at www.macromedia.com/support/forums/. Also, you can type a question like "how to pause a movie in Flash" in a Web search engine like google.com and get pointers to multiple developer sites offering code help.

  • The code we use in this step is very simple. You can copy and paste it into any of your projects to create a pause in animation. To change the amount of time, simply change the number. Time is in milliseconds (1000ths) so 5000 equals 5 seconds.




    Creating a Web Site with Flash. Visual QuickProject Guide
    Creating a Web Site with Flash: Visual QuickProject Guide
    ISBN: 0321321251
    EAN: 2147483647
    Year: 2005
    Pages: 113
    Authors: David Morris

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