MACROMEDIA FLASH 8-FLASH, Use Manual, Page: 251 / 678

Extending still images 251
■
A single keyframe is indicated by a black dot. Light gray frames after a single keyframe
contain the same content with no changes and have a black line with a hollow rectangle at
the last frame of the span.
■
A small a indicates that the frame has been assigned a frame action with the Actions panel.
■
A red flag indicates that the frame contains a label or comment.
■
A gold anchor indicates that the frame is a named anchor.
About frame rates
The frame rate, the speed at which the animation is played, is measured in number of frames
per second. 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 12 frames per
second (fps) usually gives the best results on the web. QuickTime and AVI movies generally
have a frame rate of 12 fps, while the standard motion-picture rate is 24 fps.
The complexity of the animation and the speed of the computer on which the animation is
being played affect the smoothness of the playback. Test your animations on a variety of
machines to determine optimum frame rates.
Because you specify only one frame rate for the entire Flash document, it’s a good idea to set
this rate before you begin creating animation. See
“Creating or opening a document and
setting properties” on page 22 .
Extending still images
When you create a background for animation, it’s often necessary that a still image remain the
same for several frames. Adding a span of new frames (not keyframes) to a layer extends the
contents of the last keyframe in all the new frames.
To extend a still image through multiple frames:
1.
Create an image in the first keyframe of the sequence.
2.
Select a frame to the right, marking the end of the span of frames that you want to add.
3.
Select Insert > Timeline > Frame.