Macromedia Flash Tutorial: Shape Tweening Using Flash

Flash provides you with the possibility of changing the position or/and shape of an object in an innovative way. For this, Flash presents Shape Tweening technique that simple transforms the outline of an object to the point it becomes identical to the outline of a different object of your choice.

How It Works

Creating the Shape Tweening is a similar process with the motion tweening. This process includes many intermediary frames, each presenting a new version of the previous frame slightly changed. For Shape Tweening are necessary two key-frames. To complete the process, first frame should contain the original object you wish to transform and the last frame should present the desired object you wish to obtain.

The Shape Tweening only works with vector objects and not with Flash symbols.

Getting Started

There are two important things to consider:

1. Divide in separate layers the objects that you wish to animate
2. The objects you wish to transform should be also placed in separate layers so Flash is going to transform the vector objects into last frame objects

After processing the information, final time line should look as the following picture:

Remember to consider the specific frame numbers as being similar to those used for motion tweenings; apply the same consideration to animations done.

In case that the time line is going to look like this:

You should check the parameters (for example, check if the data you introduced are vectors and not symbols).

Start and Final Frames

In order to create a proper Shape Tweening you always have to respect the motion tweening design. After you obtain the final frame, select the frames in between and after this open Properties Panel. Once you open the panel, choose the appropriate option from Shape and close your application.

Creating Shape Tweenings in Different Phases

Following the same procedure, you can also create Shape Tweenings for different phases. This way, you are able to see the gradual transformation of an object from its initial to final stage. For example, you can find a round shape transformed into a triangle at an intermediary phase and into square at the final phase.

Text Transformation Using Flash

Changing the shape of a text is a very important aspect because texts are important tools. This feature helps you to create logotypes and different transformed information, such as showy presentations.

This method is also applied only to vector objects. Anyway, different texts created on fonts having ASCII table value base are not vector objects. For this reason, you have to transform these objects into vectors, so you can use Shape Tweening. You can also transform them into different letters by using the tool pencil.

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