How to Create a Motion Tween in Flash

A motion tween is a way of creating automated animations in Flash. You can use a motion tween to move or rotate a Flash object on your stage over a chosen period of time, without having to define the object's position for every frame of the animation. For a basic motion tween (with "tween" short for "in-between", an animation term referring to the drawings between keys) you can simply set the starting point and ending point...and let Flash do the rest of the work.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• A working installation of Adobe/Macromedia Flash MX or higher.

1. On your Flash stage, either draw a new object or select the object that you want to animate.

2. If the object isn't already a symbol, convert it to one (PC shortcut F8). You can only apply motion tweens to symbols; fills, strokes, and imported objects won't work unless they're contained inside a symbol.

3. On your first frame, move the object to its starting position (where you want it to be at the start of the animation).

4. On your timeline, click on the frame that will mark the end of your animation. If you left your fps (frames per second) at the default of 12fps, then clicking on frame 12 will mean that your animation will last for one second. Clicking on frame 24 will mean that your animation will last for two seconds, etc.

5. Right click on the chosen frame and select "Insert Keyframe". This will copy the contents of the first frame to your last frame, with static in-between frames filling out the space between.

6. Click on the second keyframe to make sure it's selected.

7. On the stage, drag the object that you're animating to its ending position (where you want it to be when the animation ends). Alternately, if you're just rotating the object without moving it, you can use the Free Transform tool to rotate it to the desired position.

8. Right click on your timeline between the first and last keyframes, and select "Create Motion Tween." (You can also click Insert -> Create Motion Tween on the main menu.)

9. If your tween was successful, you'll see the frames between your keyframes turn light purple, with an arrow stretching from the first keyframe to the last. If you press the Enter key while on the timeline, you'll be able to watch your animation glide, roll, or tumble across the screen as Flash automatically fills in the frames between the two keys.

10. If your tween was unsuccessful, the frames will turn purple, but you'll see a dashed line between the first and last frames. This happens most often when your symbols don't match from one keyframe to the next, you have a graphic in place of a symbol on one frame, or you have extra objects on one frame that weren't on the other. Remove the tween and start again.