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Adobe (Macromedia) Flash Tutorial - motion tweens

Motion tweens are important for animation beginners to understand and learn how to use properly from the very start. You will use this technique in just about every flash movie you create. Tweening allows the movie to be displayed smoothly from one frame to another. Or in other words creating motion in your Flash movie.

You can make a motion tween using a shape or a symbol. In this tutorial a cirlce is drawn then created into a symbol instance. It then uses the symbol instance to demonstrate how to create a motion tween that looks like a rolling ball.

Step by step guide for creating a motion tween:

1. Draw a shape with Adobe Flash, for example a circle.

2. Press keyboard V key and double click the circle shape. Depending on your settings you may not need to double click the shape to select it.

3. Press F8 on keyboard to convert it to symbol. Leave the 'type' set on 'graphic' mode when the dialog box appears and name the symbol.

4. Now to animate the instance, click on frame 20 and press keyboards F6 to insert a key frame.

5. Click the circle once (not double click) and drag it to the right of the screen to move the position.

6. Highlight the first keyframe again so the circle looks like its on the left again and look down the bottom of your program to where it says 'Properties Inspector' and in the drop down choose motion. Notice the frames then turn blue. This blue color tells you that they are a motion tween. If you don't see the blue then go back to step one as something is not going right for you at this stage of the tutorial.

7. Press your keyboards enter button to test the animation.

Shown below is a visual demonstration of the motion tween tutorial explained above. To start the tutorial press the go arrow. The software used in this tutorial is Adobe Flash.