flash8.0 Guide Path animation explanation and example

Simply rely on the setting of key frames, sometimes still can not achieve some complex animation effect, there are a lot of movement is curved or irregular, such as the moon around the earth rotation, fish in the sea and so on, in Flash can make this effect?

The answer is yes, this is "guided path animation."

The animated form of linking one or more layers to a motion guide layer so that one or more objects move along the same path is called a "guided path animation." This animation enables one or more components to complete a curved or irregular motion.

1. Ways to create a guided path animation

(1) Create a guide layer and be guided layer

One of the most basic "boot path animations" consists of two layers, the top layer is the "boot layer", the layer icon, the following layer is "guided layer", the icon is the same as the normal layer.

Click on the "Add Guide Layer" button on the timeline panel on the normal layer to add a guide layer above it, and the normal layer indentation becomes "guided layer", as shown in Figure 3-6-1.

Figure 3-6-1 Boot Path animation

(2) The Guide layer and the object in the guided layer

The boot layer is used to indicate that the component runs the path, so the contents of the boot layer can be drawn with a pen, pencil, line, oval tool, Rectangle tool, or brush tool.

The objects in the guided layer follow the guide line, and you can use movie clips, graphic symbols, buttons, text, and so on, but you can't apply shapes.

Since the guide line is a trajectory of motion, it is not difficult to imagine that the most common form of animation in the "guided" layer is motion tweens, where one or more components move along the motion path when the animation is played.

(3) Adding components to the guided layer

The most basic operation of "boot animation" is to make a motion animation "attach" to the guide line. Therefore, in particular, the operation should pay attention to the "guide line" at both ends, the boot of the object starting, the end of the 2 "center point" must be aligned to the "guide line" of the 2 headers, as shown in Figure 3-6-2.

Figure 3-6-2 Component Center Cross alignment guide line

In Figure 3-6-2, we specifically set the "component" transparency to 50%, so that you can see through the components below the guide line, "component" center of the cross star right to the end of the line segment, which is very important, is the premise of the smooth operation of the guide line animation.

2. Tips for applying guided path animations

(1) When the object in the "guided layer" is booted, it can also be set more carefully, such as the direction of motion, and the "path adjustment" on the "Properties" panel is ticked before the object's baseline is adjusted to the motion path. If you tick before aligning, the registration point of the symbol is aligned with the motion path, as shown in Figure 3-6-3.

Figure 3-6-3 Path adjustment and alignment

(2) The contents of the Guide layer are invisible when playing, using this feature, you can define a separate "guide layer" without the "guided layer", where you can place some text descriptions, component position references, and so on, at which point the Guide layer's icon is.

(3) When you do a boot path animation, press the Align Object function button on the toolbar to make the object attached to the guide line easier to succeed.

(4) Too steep a boot line may cause the boot animation to fail, while a smooth rounded line segment facilitates the successful production of the animation.

(5) The center of the guided object aligns the cross stars in the scene and also helps to guide the success of the animation.

(6) When a component is placed into the guided layer, at the beginning of the animation and the end of the key frame, make sure that the registration point of the component to the beginning and end of the line segment of the endpoint, otherwise can not boot, if the component is irregular, you can press the tool bar on the arbitrary deformation tool, adjust the registration point.

(7) If you want to remove the boot, you can drag the boot layer off the boot layer, or right-click on the layer area's Guide layer, select Properties on the pop-up menu, and select Normal as the layer type in the dialog box, as shown in Figure 3-6-4.

Figure 3-6-4 Layer "Properties" panel

(8) If you want to make the object in a circular motion, you can draw a circular line in the "Guide layer", and then use an eraser to erase a small section, so that the round segment appears 2 endpoints, and then the object's beginning and end points are respectively aligned to the endpoint.

(9) The guide line allows overlap, such as spiral Guide line, but at the overlap of the line segments must be rounded, so that flash can identify the direction of the outlet segment, otherwise it will cause failure of the boot.