204
USING FLASH CS4 PROFESSIONAL
Timelines and Animation
When you select a tween span in the Timeline or a tweened object or motion path on the Stage, the Motion Editor
displays the property curves of the tween. The Motion Editor displays the property curves on a grid representing the
frames of the Timeline in which the selected tween occurs. The playhead appears in both the Timeline and the Motion
Editor, always in the same frame number.
The Motion Editor represents tweened property values using a two-dimensional graph for each property. Each
property has its own graph. Each graph represents time horizontally (from left to right), and the change to a property
value vertically. Each property keyframe for a specific property appears as a control point on the property curve for
that property. If an ease curve is applied to a property curve, a second curve appears as a dashed line in the property
curve area. The dashed line curve shows the affect of the ease on the property values.
Some properties cannot be tweened because they can have only one value for the life of an object in the Timeline. An
example is the Quality property of the Gradient Bevel filter. These properties can be set in the Motion Editor, but do
not have graphs.
You can precisely control the shape of most property curves in the Motion Editor by adding property keyframes and
manipulating the curve with standard Bezier controls. For the X, Y, and Z properties, you can add and remove control
points on the property curves, but you cannot use Bezier controls. When you change the control points of a property
curve, the changes appear on Stage immediately.
The Motion Editor also allows you to apply easing to any property curve. Applying easing in the Motion Editor lets
you create certain types of complex animation effects without creating complex motion paths. Ease curves are graphs
that show how the values of a tweened property are interpolated over time. By applying an ease curve to a property
curve, you can create complex motion with little effort.
Some properties have minimum or maximum values that cannot be exceeded, such as Alpha transparency (0-100%).
The graphs for these properties cannot apply values outside the acceptable range.
For a video tutorial about the Motion Editor, see Using the Motion Editor at
www.adobe.com/go/lrvid4057_fl
.
See also
“
Drawing with the Pen tool
” on page 102
“
Easing tweens
” on page 207
Control the Motion Editor display
In the Motion Editor, you can control which property curves appear, and the size of the display of each property curve.
Property curves that are displayed at a large size are easier to edit.
•
To adjust which properties appear in the Motion Editor, click the triangle next to a property category to expand or
collapse the category.
•
To control the number of frames of a tween shown in the Motion Editor, enter the number of frames you want to
display in the Viewable Frames field at the bottom of the Motion Editor. The maximum number of frames is the
total number of frames in the selected tween span.
•
To toggle a property curve between expanded and collapsed views, click the property name. The expanded view
provides a lot more room to edit the property curve. You can adjust the size of the collapsed and expanded views
with the Graph Size and Expanded Graph Size fields at the bottom of the Motion Editor.
•
To enable or disable tooltips in the graph area, select Show Tooltips from the panel options menu.
•
To add a new color effect or filter to a tween, click the Add button in a property category row and choose the item
you want to add. The new item appears in the Motion Editor immediately.
Updated 5 March 2009
