Prerequisites
- Adobe Animate User Guide
- Introduction to Animate
- Animation
- Animation basics in Animate
- How to use frames and keyframes in Animate
- Frame-by-frame animation in Animate
- How to work with classic tween animation in Animate
- Brush Tool
- Motion Guide
- Motion tween and ActionScript 3.0
- About Motion Tween Animation
- Motion tween animations
- Creating a Motion tween animation
- Using property keyframes
- Animate position with a tween
- How to edit motion tweens using Motion Editor
- Editing the motion path of a tween animation
- Manipulating motion tweens
- Adding custom eases
- Creating and applying Motion presets
- Setting up animation tween spans
- Working with Motion tweens saved as XML files
- Motion tweens vs Classic tweens
- Shape tweening
- Using Bone tool animation in Animate
- Work with character rigging in Animate
- How to use mask layers in Adobe Animate
- How to work with scenes in Animate
- Interactivity
- How to create buttons with Animate
- Convert Animate projects to other document type formats
- Create and publish HTML5 Canvas documents in Animate
- Add interactivity with code snippets in Animate
- Creating custom HTML5 Components
- Using Components in HTML5 Canvas
- Creating custom Components: Examples
- Code Snippets for custom Components
- Best practices - Advertising with Animate
- Virtual Reality authoring and publishing
- Workspace and workflow
- Creating and managing Paint brushes
- Using Google fonts in HTML5 Canvas documents
- Using Creative Cloud Libraries and Adobe Animate
- Use the Stage and Tools panel for Animate
- Animate workflow and workspace
- Using web fonts in HTML5 Canvas documents
- Timelines and ActionScript
- Working with multiple timelines
- Set preferences
- Using Animate authoring panels
- Create timeline layers with Animate
- Export animations for mobile apps and game engines
- Moving and copying objects
- Templates
- Find and Replace in Animate
- Undo, redo, and the History panel
- Keyboard shortcuts
- How to use the timeline in Animate
- Creating HTML extensions
- Optimization options for Images and Animated GIFs
- Export settings for Images and GIFs
- Assets Panel in Animate
- Multimedia and Video
- Transforming and combining graphic objects in Animate
- Creating and working with symbol instances in Animate
- Image Trace
- How to use sound in Adobe Animate
- Exporting SVG files
- Create video files for use in Animate
- How to add a video in Animate
- Draw and create objects with Animate
- Reshape lines and shapes
- Strokes, fills, and gradients with Animate CC
- Working with Adobe Premiere Pro and After Effects
- Color Panels in Animate CC
- Opening Flash CS6 files with Animate
- Work with classic text in Animate
- Placing artwork into Animate
- Imported bitmaps in Animate
- 3D graphics
- Working with symbols in Animate
- Draw lines & shapes with Adobe Animate
- Work with the libraries in Animate
- Exporting Sounds
- Selecting objects in Animate CC
- Working with Illustrator AI files in Animate
- Applying blend modes
- Arranging objects
- Automating tasks with the Commands menu
- Multilanguage text
- Using camera in Animate
- Graphic filters
- Sound and ActionScript
- Drawing preferences
- Drawing with the Pen tool
- Platforms
- Convert Animate projects to other document type formats
- Custom Platform Support
- Create and publish HTML5 Canvas documents in Animate
- Creating and publishing a WebGL document
- How to package applications for AIR for iOS
- Publishing AIR for Android applications
- Publishing for Adobe AIR for desktop
- ActionScript publish settings
- Best practices - Organizing ActionScript in an application
- How to use ActionScript with Animate
- Accessibility in the Animate workspace
- Writing and managing scripts
- Enabling Support for Custom Platforms
- Custom Platform Support Overview
- Working with Custom Platform Support Plug-in
- Debugging ActionScript 3.0
- Enabling Support for Custom Platforms
- Exporting and Publishing
- How to export files from Animate CC
- OAM publishing
- Exporting SVG files
- Export graphics and videos with Animate
- Publishing AS3 documents
- Export animations for mobile apps and game engines
- Exporting Sounds
- Best practices - Tips for creating content for mobile devices
- Best practices - Video conventions
- Best practices - SWF application authoring guidelines
- Best practices - Structuring FLA files
- Best Practices to optimize FLA files for Animate
- ActionScript publish settings
- Specify publish settings for Animate
- Exporting projector files
- Export Images and Animated GIFs
- HTML publishing templates
- Working with Adobe Premiere Pro and After Effects
- Quick share and publish your animations
- Troubleshooting
Before you begin
Before you begin animation, understand the following concepts:
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Description |
Before working with motion tweens, understand use of the Timeline and editing properties. You can edit individual property keyframes on Stage, in the Property inspector, or using the redesigned Motion Editor. |
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Animate tweens only symbol instances and text fields. All other object types are wrapped in a symbol when you apply a tween to them. The symbol instance can contain nested symbols, which can themselves be tweened on their own timelines. |
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The minimal building block in a tween layer is a tween span. A tween span in a tween layer can contain only one symbol instance or text field. The symbol instance is called the target of the tween span. However, a single symbol can contain many objects. |
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Adding a second symbol or text field to the tween span replaces the original symbol in the tween. Use any of the following methods to change the target object of a tween:
You can delete the symbol from a tween layer without removing or breaking the tween. You can then add a different symbol instance to the tween later. You can also change the type of the target symbol or edit the symbol at any time. |
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When a tween contains motion, a motion path appears on the Stage. The motion path shows the position of the tweened object in each frame. You can edit the motion path on the Stage by dragging its control points. You cannot add a motion guide to a tween/inverse kinematics layer. |
See also
Components of motion tweens
- Is a sequence of frames in the Timeline in which an object has one or more properties changed over time.
- Motion tween span appears in the Timeline as a group of frames in a single layer with a background color.
- You can select the tween spans as a single object and drag them from one location in the Timeline to another, including to another layer.
- You can animate only one object on the Stage in each tween span. This object is called the target object of the tween span.
- Is a frame within a tween span where you explicitly define one or more property values for the tween target object.
- These properties could include position, alpha (transparency), color tint, and so on.
- Each defined property has its own property keyframes.
- If you set more than one property in a single frame, then the property keyframes for each of those properties reside in that frame.
- Use Motion Editor to view each property of a tween span and its property keyframes.
- To choose which type of property keyframes to display in the Timeline from the tween span context menu, right-click any property keyframe and select View keyframes.
Target object of a tween
A motion tween has a single object in a tween span called the tween's target object. There are several advantages to having a single target object in a tween:
- You can save a tween as a preset for reuse.
- You can easily move the motion tweens on the Timeline (drag the tween span around) or on the Stage.
- To apply a new instance to an existing tween:
- Paste it onto a tween to swap it out
- Drag a new instance from the Library
- Use the Swap Symbol.
Tweenable objects and properties
The types of objects on which you can apply a motion tween are movie clips, graphics and button symbols, and text fields. The properties of these objects that can be tweened includes:
- 2D X and Y position
3D Z position (movie clips only)
2D rotation (around the z-axis)
3D X, Y, and Z rotation (movie clips only): set the FLA file target as ActionScript 3.0 and Flash Player 10 or higher in the publish settings. Adobe AIR also supports 3D motion.
Skew X and Y
Scale X and Y
Color effects: includes alpha (transparency), brightness, tint, and advanced color settings. Color effects can be tweened only on symbols and TLF text. By tweening these properties, you can make objects appear to fade in or fade from one color to another. To tween a color effect on classic text, convert the text to a symbol.
Filter properties (filters cannot be applied to graphic symbols)
Creating a motion tween animation
You can create a motion tween using one of the following three methods:
- Create a graphic or instance that you want to tween, and then right-click a frame and select Create Motion Tween.
- Select the graphic or instance that you want to tween, and select Insert > Motion Tween from the main menu.
- Create a graphic or instance that you want to tween, and then right-click the instance on the Stage and select Create Motion Tween.
Usage of ActionScript in animation is optional.
Tweening other properties with the Property inspector
Use the Create Motion Tween command to animate properties of a symbol instance or text field. The properties range from rotation, scale, transparency, or tint (symbols and TLF text only). For example, you can edit the alpha (transparency) property of a symbol instance to make it fade onto the screen.
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Select a symbol instance or text field on the Stage.
If the selection contains other objects, or it contains multiple objects from the layer, Animate offers to convert it to a movie clip symbol.
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Choose Insert > Motion Tween.
If the “Convert selection to symbol for tween” dialog box appears, click OK to convert the selection into a movie clip symbol.
When you apply a tween to an object that exists only in a single keyframe, the playhead moves to the last frame of the new tween. Otherwise the playhead does not move.
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Place the playhead in the frame of the tween span where you want to specify a property value.
You can place the playhead in any other frame of the tween span. The tween starts with the property values in the first frame of the tween span, which is always a property keyframe.
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With the object selected on the Stage, set a value for a non-position property, such as alpha (transparency), rotation, or skew. Set the value with the Property inspector or with one of the tools in the Tools panel.
The current frame of the span becomes a property keyframe.
You can display different types of property keyframes in tween spans. Right-click (Windows) or Ctrl-click (Macintosh) a tween span and choose View Keyframes > property type from the context menu.
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Scrub the playhead in the Timeline to preview the tween on the Stage.
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To add more property keyframes, move the playhead to the desired frame in the span and set a value for the property in the Property inspector.
Adding a tween to an existing tween layer
You can add more tweens to an existing tween layer. Add more tweens to use fewer layers when creating Animate content with animation.
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Do one of the following:
- Add a blank keyframe to the layer (Insert > Timeline > Blank Keyframe), add items to the keyframe, and then tween the items.
- Create a tween on a separate layer and then drag the span to the desired layer.
- Drag a static frame from another layer to the tween layer and then add a tween to an object in the static frame.
- Alt-drag (Windows) or Option-drag (Macintosh) to duplicate an existing span from the same layer or a different layer.
- Copy and paste a tween span from the same or different layer.