Datasheet

Part I ✦ Getting Started with SWiSHmax

There are numerous variations to use with the pre-built animations. Animations involve chang-

ing an object visually over time. The most common animation you may think of is movement,

but you can also animate size, color, and transparency for the layers of a movie.

Using a flying effect

Animation can be used to make images appear to fly across the screen. Whether you use the

airplane in the sample project or a picture of a flowerpot, the background of the image must

be transparent in order to make the effect realistic. Otherwise, you see a flying flowerpot and

its white background move across the screen. Somehow that doesn’t have the same impact!

When you add motion to an object, you see a dotted red line on the workspace that identifies

how the object moves over time. The dotted line is called a motion path and is a useful tool

for evaluating how an effect will look.

To create the effect that an image is flying across the screen, follow these steps:

1. Click the name of the object you want to animate in the Outline panel to select the

image on the Layout panel.

2. Choose View ➪ Preview Frame. You can see the status of the animation at any specific

frame using this viewing option.

There are different ways to preview your work. As you are constructing and animating, make

sure the option described in Step 2 is selected. This allows you to see where an object is at

any frame of the movie. Otherwise, you see only the starting location for the image or graphic.

3. Click the Zoom factor dropdown list in the Tools panel and select 75%. The stage is

shown in the Layout panel with workspace surrounding it as shown in Figure 1-10.

4. Click and drag the image down and left until just the upper-right tip of the image is

within the margins of the stage, also shown in Figure 1-10. The animation you apply

will move the object up and diagonally across the screen.

Figure 1-10: Adjust the Layout before starting the animation.

Zoom control

Caution

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