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Accelerating and Decelerating
Usually the tween steps are evenly spaced between keyframes, producing a linear animation from one
keyframe to the next. By appending < and > symbols to the front of the object name, you can make
objects speed up or slow down. So naming an object >Name means that it starts fast and slows. The
opposite, <Name, would start slow and speed up.
You can even use these in combinations. So an object name <>Name would start slow, speed up and
then slow down towards the end of the frame period. In traditional animator's terminology this is called
'easing', so you can ease in or ease out, and the command <> would be an ease in/out.
You can control the degree of acceleration or deceleration by using numbers from 0 to 9. So <2Name
would be a very gentle acceleration, while <9Name would be extreme acceleration. Similar >2 in front of
the name would give a slight deceleration. Using the name >Name (with no number) is the same as
>5Name.
Example: there is an example file called Pendulum in the Flash Examples section of the Designs
Gallery (click the Disc Designs button on the Designs Gallery
). The pendulum group uses a combination of <> and the rotate command. Another example called
"Zoom.xar" is also worth examining.
Stop and Goto Commands
You can append Stop or Goto commands onto the Frame names (separated by a semi-colon ;) to
control the sequence flow. So for example if your first frame was named "Frame 1;Goto Frame 6", then
the animation sequence would jump to Frame 6 at the start of Frame 1. This may produce tween errors,
but these can be ignored. It also waits for the specified period of the frame with the Goto command on
before jumping, but frames with Goto or Stop
commands do not tween.
Similarly a frame name with ;Stop
appended to the end of the name would stop when the animation reaches this frame. Why is this useful?
Because you can make the animation jump to any other key frame with either a click or by moving the
mouse over objects. For example you might have an animation that waits for the user to click on or move
the mouse over an object before continuing.
Clickable Buttons & Mouse-over Effects
You can make the animation sequence jump to any keyframe either by clicking on an object or just by
moving the mouse pointer over any object.
To do this select the object you want to use as the trigger, open the Web Properties dialog
(Ctrl+Shift+W) and on the Link tab, select the Jump to Frame
option.
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