226
USING FLASH CS4 PROFESSIONAL
Timelines and Animation
When dragging from one instance to another to create a bone, click the first instance at the specific point where you
want to attach the bone to the instance. Release the mouse over the specific point on the second instance where you
want the bone to attach. You can also edit these attachment points later. Each symbol instance can have only one
attachment point.
The first bone in an armature is the root bone. It appears with a circle around the head of the bone.
By default, Flash moves the transformation point of each symbol instance to the location of the joint formed by each
bone connection. For the root bone, the transformation point moves to the head of the bone. For the last bone in a
branch, the transformation point moves to the tail of the bone. You can disable the automatic movement of the
transformation point in the Drawing tab of Preferences (Edit > Preferences).
4
To add another bone, drag from the tail of the first bone to the next symbol instance you want to add to the
armature.
The pointer changes when rolled over the head or tail of an existing bone. To make it easier to drag the tail of the new
bone to the specific location where you want it, you may want to turn of Snap to Objects (View
> Snapping > Snap to
Objects).
Link objects with bones in the order of the parent-child relationships you want to create. For example, if you are adding
bones to a series of movie clips that represent an arm, draw the first bone from the shoulder to the elbow, and a second
bone from the elbow to the wrist, and a third from the wrist to the hand.
As you add bones to instances, Flash moves each instance to a new layer in the Timeline. The new layer is called a
pose
layer
. All the bones and symbol instances associated with a given armature reside in the pose layer. Each pose layer can
contain only one armature. Flash adds the new pose layer to the Timeline in between existing layers to maintain the
previous stacking order of objects on the Stage.
5
To create a branched armature, click the head of an existing bone where you want the branch to begin and drag to
create the first bone of the new branch.
An armature can have as many branches as necessary.
Note:
A branch cannot connect to another branch except at its root.
After creating an IK armature, you can drag the bones or the symbol instances in the armature to reposition the
instances. Dragging a bone moves its associated instance without allowing it to rotate relative to its bone. Dragging an
instance allows it to move as well as rotate relative to its bone. Dragging an instance in the middle of a branch causes
the parent bones to articulate with joint rotation. The child bones move with no joint rotation.
Once you have created an armature and all of its associated symbol instances have moved to a pose layer, you can still
add new instances from different layers to the armature. Drag a new bone to the new instance and Flash moves the
instance to the pose layer of the armature.
Add bones to shapes
A second way of using IK armatures is with shape objects. With shapes, you can add multiple bones to the interior of
a single shape. This is different from symbol instances, where each instance can have only one bone. You can also add
bones to shapes created in Object Drawing mode.
You add bones to a single shape or to a group of shapes. In either case, all of the shapes must be selected before adding
the first bone. Once bones are added to the selection, Flash converts all of the shapes and bones into an
IK shape object
and moves the object to a new pose layer.
Once a shape is converted to an IK shape, it can no longer merge with other shapes outside the IK shape.
1
Create a filled shape or shapes on the Stage.
Updated 5 March 2009
