Animations and Interaction - Timeline Effects
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A new feature of Flash MX Professional 2004 is Timeline Effects. You can quickly create the following effects and changes:
Blur
Drop shadow
Expand
Explode
Transform
Transition
To create a Timeline effect, all you have to do is create an object on the Stage, select it, and then select Insert, Timeline Effects, [Effect/Transition] from the menu. Some effects, such as a drop shadow, add no additional frames, but others, such as the blur effect, add several frames, creating a little movie. Figure 4.29 shows a star object subjected to the blur effect.
Figure 4.29 - The blur effect.
When a Timeline effect is instantiated, an Effects folder and additional symbols are added to the Library panel. Note in Figure 4.29 that in addition to Symbol 1, the Library panel contains Blur 1, Effects Folder, and Symbol 2, which were automatically generated by applying the Timeline effect.
When an effect, transition, or transform option is selected, a Timeline Effects dialog box opens and, depending on the effect, provides different settings to adjust. For example, the explode effect shows a preview of the effect and parameters for the number of frames, direction of explosion, arc size, fragment rotation, fragment size change, and final alpha setting. Figure 4.30 shows the Explode dialog box with the fragments in mid-explosion.
Figure 4.30 - Explode effect preview.
Because a Timeline effect adds variable numbers of frames to a document, depending on both the effect and the user parameter settings, you can best control the effect by putting it on movie clip Timelines rather than on the main Timeline.
Dancing Baloney Made Easy - The Timeline effects can have definite uses for professionally developed applications. However, don't be tempted to add these effects simply because they're available, fun, and easy to add to a Flash Pro document. Early Flash developers and designers were accused of adding superfluous "dancing baloney" to their creations. Some of these early animated features were quite good as far as animations were concerned, but after viewing their effects once or twice, users found them to be annoying. Make sure that Timeline effects add to the site being developed and aren't just annoying distractions.
Coordinating Animated Parts When you're working on animation, especially cartoon animation, planning is the key to good results. Likewise, understanding the entire cartooning process using Flash, including creating a story and animating it, is the only way to do more than simple animations. The best resource for this kind of cartooning is Mark Clarkson's Flash 5 Cartooning. Although it deals with an older version of Flash, it lays down the basic concepts of cartooning, including how to coordinate the different parts of a cartoon character. Likewise, Tony White's 1986 pre-Flash work, The Animator's Workbook, provides another good source for cartoon animation and how the professional animator sets up steps for successful cartoon animation. You'll find that the principles of cartooning that apply to drawn animation apply equally to Flash animation.
Planning the Animation Even a simple animation, such as a walking motion, has to be planned. Using Flash you can create a surprisingly realistic walk using three positions, but even three positions have to have all the body parts coordinated. The first thing to plan is the organization of parts on separate layers. Using layer folders helps organize this process. Each part has to be a Graphic symbol so that none of the parts would morph when tweened. Moreover, each part needs its own layer because only a single object on a layer can be tweened. The organization plan is to place each limb in a folder containing the parts of the limb. This proves to be very simple because the left limb parts can be used for the right limb parts as well. The torso is a single part that serves to hold the more animated parts, and the head simply sits atop the torso. So, the most animated parts of the leg are the following:
And here are the most animated parts of the arm:
The arms and legs are divided into left and right folders, and identical graphic symbols are employed in the left and right portions of the figure. You can create a folder by clicking the New Folder icon. As you drag each layer you want into the folder, it indents beneath the folder, as shown in Figure 4.31. Using this setup, coordinating all the parts is much simpler. Figure 4.31 also shows how the Timeline and layers appear once all the parts have been organized and tweened.
Figure 4.31 - Completed Timeline, folders, and layers.
When all the parts are complete, you can move the pivot points to their appropriate positions on the different graphic symbols representing the arm and leg parts. Whenever an instance is dragged to the Stage, the pivot points are all set and consistent.
 This chapter is from Macromedia Flash MX Professional 2004, by Bill Sanders (Sams, 2004, ISBN: 0672326051). Check it out at your favorite bookstore today.
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