Lesson 5

Lesson 5:Animation Part 1- Using Layers ,Key frames and Motion Tweening

Layers are added to the movie so it will be easier to make a picture with different positions (front, behind etc.).

To add a layer, click on the insert layer button, which is shown below.

Figure 5.1

After you add the layer, the window should look like this:

Figure 5.2

Now, the movie has two layers, the pictures at the bottom layer will appear behind whereas the picture in the top layer will appear in front.

You can draw different pictures in each key frame. Right click on the 10th frame, and then click insert key frame to add a key frame.

Figure 5.3

After that, it should look like this:

Figure 5.4

In this lesson, I will show you how to make a simple animation with motion tweening. First, draw a picture in frame one, which can be anything you want to animate. After you draw the picture, the key frame will change it's color to grey:

Figure 5.5

Note that only key frames can be changed. So, the frames 1-9 are the same as the key frame in frame 1. Now, copy (right click then click copy) the picture to the key frame 10(right click then click paste in place so that after you paste the picture, the pictures position will be the same. Otherwise, the picture will be in the middle). Then, move the picture to a different position. After that, it should look like this:

Figure 5.6

Click the first frame and press enter or click control the press play to test the animation. Notice that the picture stays at the same position until frame 9 then it instantly goes to the next position in frame 10. To make it into an animation, you have to use motion tweening. To use motion tweening, right click the key frame then click create motion tween.

Figure 5.7

After that, it should look like this:

Figure 5.8

Press enter again to test the animation and you would see the complete animation of the picture going from the first position to the second position. Motion tweening is useful for making animations much quicker than frame by frame animation. Though frame by frame animation has a better quality than motion tween animations. In the next lesson, I will show you how to make frame by frame animation.