Motion Tween with Flash CS5

A Motion Tween is the simplest form of animation using Flash. We can use it to move an object or "symbol" from one location (keyframe) to another. In the example below we will move our newly created boat symbol from one side of the stage to the other side of the stage over a series of frames. Motion tweening can be done on an Instance (a copy of a symbol located on the Stage or nested inside another symbol), group (a number of objects that have been selected as one), or a text block (text that appears within a defined area).

Step One: Let's animate our boat using a Motion Tween. Begin by using the selection tool to drag your boat off to the left side of the stage (the white area). If the entire stage is not visible you may need to zoom out by hitting 'CTRL -' a few times until you can see a the grey 'off-stage' area. This will be the start position of the boat.

Step Two: Right click the Boat symbol and choose Create Motion Tween from the pop-up menu.

Notice that 23 frames have been added to your timeline on the Boat layer, giving you 24 frames in total. With a default framerate of 24 frames per second, 24 frames will last for one second!

Step Three: With the red timeline marker (shown above) on the last frame (frame 24), use the selection tool to move the boat completely off the right side of the stage. This will be the end position of the tween.

Step Four: Play your animation by hitting the Enter key. Notice that the boat moves very fast, in the next step we will slow down the animation.

Step Five: Hover your cursor over the last frame in the timeline (where the black keyframe dot is) until the cursor icon changes to a double arrow. Now stretch the tween block by dragging it to frame 48. The animation now lasts 2 seconds, twice it`s original length.

To see your animation run, choose "Play" from the Control menu OR press the Enter button on your keyboard.  Save as BOAT3.FLA

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