Reading: Types of animation, About frame rates, Identifying Timeline

Types of animation

Adobe® Flash® Professional CS5 provides several ways to create animation and special effects. Each method provides you with different possibilities for creating engaging animated content.
Flash supports the following types of animation:

Motion tweens:

Use motion tweens to set properties for an object, such as position and alpha transparency in one frame and again in another frame. Flash then interpolates the property values of the frames in between. Motion tweens are useful for animation that consists of continuous motion or transformation of an object. Motion tweens appear in the Timeline as a contiguous span of frames that can be selected as a single object by default. Motion tweens are powerful and simple to create.

Classic tweens:

Classic tweens are like motion tweens, but are more complex to create. Classic tweens allow for some specific animated effects not possible with span-based tweens.

Shape tweens:

In shape tweening, you draw a shape at one specific frame in the Timeline, and change that shape or draw another shape at another specific frame. Flash Pro then interpolates the intermediate shapes for the frames in between, creating the animation of one shape morphing into another.

Frame-by-frame animation:

This animation technique lets you specify different art for each frame in the Timeline. Use this technique to create an effect that is like the frames of a film being played in rapid succession. This technique is useful for complex animation where the graphic elements of each frame must be different.

The following video tutorial provides further explanation of the different types of animation: Understanding tweens (2:36).

About frame rates

The frame rate, the speed the animation is played at, is measured in number of frames per second (fps). A frame rate that’s too slow makes the animation appear to stop and start; a frame rate that’s too fast blurs the details of the animation. A frame rate of 24 fps is the default for new Flash documents and usually gives the best results on the web. The standard motion‑picture rate is also 24 fps.
The complexity of the animation and the speed of the computer playing the animation affect the smoothness of the playback. To determine optimum frame rates, test your animations on a variety of computers.
Because you specify only one frame rate for the entire Flash Pro document, set this rate before you begin creating animation.

Identifying animations in the Timeline

Flash Pro distinguishes tweened animation from frame-by-frame animation in the Timeline by displaying different indicators in each frame that contains content.
The following frame content indicators appear in the Timeline:

• A span of frames with a blue background indicates a motion tween. A black dot in the first frame of the span indicates that the tween span has a target object assigned to it. Black diamonds indicate the last frame and any other property keyframes. Property keyframes are frames that contain property changes explicitly defined by you. You can choose which types of property keyframes to display by right-clicking (Windows) or Command-clicking (Macintosh) the motion tween span and choosing View Keyframes > type from the context menu. Flash displays all types of property keyframes by default. All other frames in the span contain interpolated values for the tweened properties of the target object.
  
  
• A hollow dot in the first frame indicates that the target object of the motion tween has been removed. The tween span still contains its property keyframes and can have a new target object applied to it.
  
  
• A span of frames with a green background indicates an inverse kinematics (IK) pose layer. Pose layers contain IK armatures and poses. Each pose appears in the Timeline as a black diamond. Flash interpolates the positions of the armature in the frames in between poses.
  
  
• A black dot at the beginning keyframe with a black arrow and blue background indicates a classic tween.
  
  
• A dashed line indicates that the classic tween is broken or incomplete, such as when the final keyframe is missing.
  
  
• A black dot at the beginning keyframe with a black arrow and a light green background indicates a shape tween.
  
  
• A black dot indicates a single keyframe. Light gray frames after a single keyframe contain the same content with no changes. These frames have a vertical black line and a hollow rectangle at the last frame of the span.
  
  
• A small a indicates that the frame is assigned a frame action with the Actions panel.
  
  
• A red flag indicates that the frame contains a label.
  
  
• A green double slash indicates that the frame contains a comment.
  
  
• A gold anchor indicates that the frame is a named anchor.
  
  
  
  
  Guide Book:
  http://help.adobe.com/en_US/flash/cs/using/index.html