Syllabus --------------------- Calendar/Schedule --------------------- Lecture Notes --------------------- Projects --------------------- Resources --------------------- Student Work				Art 444 Lecture Notes Flash MX 2004 Lecture Notes More Complex Animation Tasks: (Chapter 10) Understanding Scenes: scenes help to organize the content of a long movie. Rather than having one movie with hundreds of frames, it is easier to break up the content into separate scenes which can be linked with interactivity. Access the Scene Panel: Window> Design Panels> Scene. Dbl. click the name to rename a scene. Add a Scene: Insert menu> Scene or use Add Scene (+ icon) on Scene panel Select a Scene to Edit: Edit Scene pop-up menu is on right top of toolbar (middle icon) Delete a Scene: Insert> Remove Scene or trash can icon on Scene panel Change Scene Order: drag a selected scene to reorder it Reversing Frames: select or copy (Edit> Copy Frames) a series of frames that you with to reverse, and from Modify> Frames> choose Reverse. The order of your animation will now be reversed. Converting In-between Frames to Keyframes: select a series of motion or shape tween frames and from Modify> Frames> choose Convert to Keyframes. Animated Masks: masks can be animated with motion tweens to hide or reveal objects. Saving Animations as Graphic Symbols: turning a graphic into a graphic symbol allows you to 'collapse' the layers used to create the animation onto one layer with the animation intact. Animated symbols are tied to the root (main) timeline, when you move to the next frame of the animated graphic symbol you move to the next frame in the hosting movie. Movie Clip Symbol: is like a film loop and is projected within a single frame of the host movie. Movie clip symbols can have interactive functions (animated button, for instance) as well as an audio soundtrack. Movie clip symbols cannot be played within the stage; you must first Publish your movie or use the Test Movie/Scene function to view the animation. Converting an Animation to a Graphic Symbol: select all the frames of your animation in every layer. Choose Copy Frames from Edit> Timeline. In the Insert menu choose New Symbol (type in a name), choose "graphic" as behavior type, click OK. Flash creates a new symbol in the library and switches you to symbol-editing mode with the default timeline for your symbol consisting of just one layer and a blank keyframe. In the Symbol Timeline, select the blank keyframe and choose Edit> Timeline> Paste Frames. The frames of your animation will as layers again.To return to Movie-Editing mode, click the current scene name in the top left of the timeline. Note: remove the original layers/frames used to create the graphic symbol on the root (main) timeline and replace with a graphic symbol instance from your library. Using Animated Graphic Symbols: to use your graphic symbol you must place an instance of it in your main movie. To access an animated graphic symbol, open the library (command + L key) and find it on the list. You can play the animation by pressing the stop & play buttons located below options in the library panel. Saving Animations as Movie-Clip Symbols: follow the steps above for creating an animated graphic symbol. Instead of choosing "graphic" as the behavior type, choose "movie clip". When you add movie clip symbol to your main movie only the first frame of the animation will appear; to view the animation you need to first publish your movie or use the test movie/scene or publish function to view the animation Using Movie Clip Symbols: to create complex animation such as a bird flapping its wings as it moves across the sky first create a movie clip symbol with a bird flapping its wings in place. Go back to your main timeline and bring an instance of this movie clip to the stage. Stretch out the frames of the movie clip instance on the main timeline. Now your bird will flap its wings in place for however long it appears on the stage. Create a motion tween and a even a motion path to "fly" your bird across the sky.

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