Creating Tweened Animations

Flash can create two types of tweened animation: motion tweening and shape tweening.

In motion tweening, you define properties such as position, size, and rotation for an instance, group, or text block at one point in time, and then change those properties at another point in time. After you do so, you can apply the motion tween between those two frames. Flash automatically creates the movement between the first and second point in time. You can also apply a motion tween and assign a path for it to follow. For more information on motion tweens, see the next section, Creating Motion Tweens.

In shape tweening, you draw a shape at one point in time, and then change that shape or draw another shape at another point in time. Flash interpolates the values or shapes for the frames in between, thus creating the animation. The shape morphs from the first shape into the second shape. For more information on shape tweens, see the later section, Creating Shape Tweens.

Note: To apply shape tweening to groups, instances, or bitmap images, you must first break these elements apart (Modify > Break Apart). To apply shape tweening to text, you must break the text apart twice to convert the text to objects. For more information, see Using Flash > Working with Text > Breaking Text Apart.

Tweened animation is an effective way to create movement and changes over time while minimizing file size and development time. In tweened animation, Flash stores only the values for the changes between frames. To quickly prepare elements in a document for tweened animation, distribute objects to layers (Modify > Timeline > Distribute to Layers).