Accelerating And Decelerating Sprites; Tweening Other Sprite Properties - MACROMEDIA DIRECTOR MX-USING DIRECTOR MX Use Manual

Accelerating and decelerating sprites

To create more natural motion in tweened sprites, use the following settings in the Sprite
Tweening dialog box:
•
Ease-In and Ease-Out control how a sprite moves from its start frame to its end frame, no
matter how many keyframes are in between. Ease-In makes a sprite move more slowly in the
beginning frames; Ease-Out makes the sprite slow down in the ending frames. This setting
makes the sprite move more like an object in the real world.
•
The Speed settings control how Director moves a sprite between each keyframe. The Sharp
Changes option is the default setting. Using this option, Director calculates how to move the
sprite between each pair of keyframes separately. If a sprite's keyframes are separated by unequal
numbers of frames in the Score, or by different amounts of space on the Stage, abrupt changes
in speed may occur as the sprite moves between keyframe locations. Smooth out these speed
changes by choosing the Smooth Changes option.
Sprite with modified ease-in and ease-out settings
To change the acceleration or deceleration of a sprite:
Use one of the tweening methods to create a moving sprite.
1
Turn on View > Sprite Overlay > Show Paths to see how far the sprite moves between
2
each frame.
Select the sprite and select Modify > Sprite > Tweening.
3
Use the Ease-In and Ease-Out sliders to specify the percentage of the sprite's path through
4
which the sprite should accelerate or decelerate.
Select one of the following speed settings:
5
Sharp Changes
Smooth Changes

Tweening other sprite properties

In addition to tweening a sprite's path, Director can tween the size, rotation, skew, blend, and
foreground and background color of a sprite. Tweening size works best for vector-based cast
members created in the Vector Shape window or in Macromedia Flash (bitmaps can become
distorted when resized). Director can tween all of these properties at once.
To make a sprite fade in or out, you can tween blend settings. To make sprites spin or tilt, use
rotation. To create gradual shifts in color, you can tween color settings.
Note: To prevent Director from tweening a certain sprite property, select Modify > Sprite > Tweening and turn off any
of the tweening options.
188 Chapter 6
moves the sprite between keyframe locations without adjusting the speed.
adjusts the sprite's speed gradually as it moves between keyframes.