“Motion Editor”

With the help of the “Motion Editor”, we can view and edit all “Tween” properties.

By default, this window is located next to the “Timeline” window.

If this is not the case with you for some reason, you can open it by clicking on “Window” in the menu bar and selecting the “Motion Editor” from the drop-down menu.

When you open the “Motion Editor” and there is no “Tween” selected in the “Timeline”, then “Flash” will point out to you that you must first select a “Tween”.

So first select the “Tween” in the “Timeline” by clicking on it, and only then open the “Motion Editor”.

At first sight, this looks like a complicated window but, you will see its not true.

The “Motion Editor” is divided into 5 columns.

The first column shows the different properties of a “Tween” classified by category. This column is called the “Property” column.

Under this column you have, the “Basic Motion” category under which the properties of the x-, y-, and the z-position of the object are located.

Then you have the “Transformation” category under which the properties for the skew and scale of the object are located.

The “Color Effect” category is where you can set color and transparency.

You have the “Filters” with which we can set filters.

Lastly, the “Accelerate” category in which we select the different types of gear.

The second column which is “Value”, reflects the values of the properties for the object.

In the third column “Ease” we determine what type of gear you want to apply to the object.

In the fourth column “Keyframes” we add or remove “Keyframes” in the “Tween”. We can also toggle and navigate between “Keyframes” by clicking the left or right pointing arrow.

To create a “Keyframe” on the “Motion Tween”, first place the play button in the frame, and then click the sign.

To delete a “Keyframe”, place the play button on a “Keyframe”, and then click the Sign.

Finally we have the “Graph” column. This indicates the frames in the “Tween” and determines the play button.

Click and drag the play button in the “Motion Editor”. You will see the animation playing on “Stage”, just as we use a play button in the “Timeline” window.

I’ll give an example how we use it.

In the previous lesson, I had the car drifting across the track from left to right by using “Sub Selection” tool.

But this can be done more precisely with the “Motion Editor” window.

The first thing we do is to place a play button in the frame where you want to make a main frame (1).

Then click the “Main Frame add or remove” button in the “Keyframes” column (2).

Finally give a value for the y-position for this object (3). You can do this by moving the mouse pointer over this value and clicking and dragging, or by clicking the number and value types.

Repeat this for each frame where you want to make a “Keyframe”. Doing so will change the y-position of the object. The y-position is also the vertical position, but you probably knew that already.

To move a “Keyframe”, click and drag the “Keyframe” to another position in the graph (4).

This method is the same for each property. So lets get going.
The only thing I still just want to talk about is, the “Eases” feature but, this will be discussed in the next lesson.

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