Variation in animation

In the previous lesson, we had made a spider whose legs were animated by a “Bone” system. The problem was that each leg is moved at the same time.

One way to change this is to replace the “Movie Clip symbols” of the leg animation with “Image” symbols.

For this, we open the movie clip of the spider on the “Stage”, and we select each leg in this movie clip.

Please note, select only the legs (1) and not the body.

Open the “Properties Window” (2), and change the type of symbols (3). This does not change the type of the symbol in the “Library” but changes only the instances of these symbols on “Stage”.

Then for each leg, we determine in which frame it should start in the “Timeline”, separately.

The “Timeline” of a leg consists of 20 frames, remember?

I select a leg (1), which leg you select doesn’t matter, and in the “First:” box, enter a number for the frame on which this leg (2) starts.

I repeat this for each leg, but I give each leg a different start frame.

What I do not forget in the film clip of the spider is, to add 20 frames (3). This is because I like the “Movie clip symbol” of the leg that I have made it a “Graphic symbol” and this “Graphic symbol” of the leg has about 20 frames.

A word of explanation:

A “Graphic symbol”, in this case the leg, must have sufficient available frames of the movie clip icon in which it is located, in this case the spider, for it to be able to play back fully.

If this is not so, that is the “leg” symbol was a “Movie clip symbol” as it was previously, it will always play, regardless of the number of frames of the movie clip in which it resides.

Why did we have to change the “Movie clip symbol” to a “Graphic symbol”?

Well, its because we can specify in which frame the symbol should start playing.

I hope you still follow.

Before the smart ones among you begin to boast of knowing “ActionScript”, which we have not learned yet, I think it falls outside the course.

If you have finished your settings, test the movie.

 

3D animation

Now the spider needs to move and look like its moving.

We do this through a “Motion tween”

The first thing we do is add a few frames to the main “Timeline” of the flash movie (1).

Then put a “Motion tween” on this layer (2).

Then select the symbol in the first frame of the”Timeline” (3), and you change the Z position (4). The Z position is actually the depth, for those who do not know about it.

Just click the box ” Rotation Z:” and type a number, eg 1000 (4). This determines the depth of the field in the first frame of the symbol, i.e the spider.

Then insert the play button at the end of the animation (5) and type a value for the Z position for the symbol in the last frame (6).
Test Movie (Ctrl Enter).

If the spider moves too quickly, you can change this in the last keyframe of the “Flash Movie” to shift to eg frame 100 (7).
If you wish to change the “Eases” of the “Motion tween”, no problem because now you know how. Have you the forgotten? Then read more from Lesson 35.

 

“Bind”

When we use “Bones”, especially when we add them to a form, it may happen that things begin to deform (1) in “Flash”, which we do not want.

‘Flash” inserts something namely “Control points” around the shape in which a “Bone” system has been added

You have yellow and blue “Control points”.

The yellow “Control points” are connected to the currently selected “Bone”.

“Flash” changes the shape of the image on basis of these “Control points”.

But sometimes it can go wrong here where we insert some control to a form in yellow that is nothing to do with this “Bone” (2).

To avoid this, we need to remove these excess yellow “Control points” (3).

For this, first select the “Bind” tool. You can find this under the “Bone” tool.

Click on the “Bone” in the figure, in this case, the “Bone” of the forearm.

 

This shows all the yellow “Control points” that are connected to this “Bone”.

As you can see, it has also placed a few on the head of this person (2), and we must remove it.

Just click the yellow “Control point” with the Ctrl key on your keyboard pressed.

The yellow point is now blue and is no longer connected to the selected “Bone”.

Repeat this for all the excess yellow “Control points”.

If you are ready, test the bone by clicking and dragging with the “Selection” tool.

If you want to add one or more yellow “Control points”, then click the blue control points with the Ctrl key on your keyboard pressed.

 

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