Suggestions And Shortcuts For Tweening; Changing Tweening Settings - MACROMEDIA DIRECTOR MX-USING DIRECTOR MX Use Manual

Suggestions and shortcuts for tweening

Follow the suggestions listed here to improve results and productivity while tweening sprites.
•
For smoother movements, tween across more frames, increasing the tempo if necessary.
•
To achieve some types of motion, you may need to split the sprite and tween the sprites
separately. See "Accelerating and decelerating sprites" on page 188.
•
To quickly make duplicates, Alt-drag (Windows) or Option-drag (Macintosh) keyframes. This
technique is useful when you want the start and end frames to have the same settings. This
shortcut also provides a quick way to create a complex path. Insert a single keyframe, drag
several duplicates to the proper frames, and then select the various keyframes and set positions
on the Stage.
•
To extend the sprite and leave the last keyframe in place, Alt-drag (Windows) or Option-drag
(Macintosh) a keyframe at the end of a sprite.
•
To move many keyframe positions at once, Control-click (Windows) or Command-click
(Macintosh) multiple keyframes to select them and then move the sprite on the Stage.
•
To make the animation look smoother, use an image editor to blur the edges of bitmaps.
•
When tweening sprites that have a series of cast members, consider using a film loop instead.
For more information, see "Using film loops" on page 197.
•
To make a sprite jump instantly between settings in different keyframes, turn off all
tweening options.

Changing tweening settings

To change tweening properties for sprites, you use the Sprite Tweening dialog box. You can turn
tweening on and off for certain properties and control the curve of a tweening path and the way
the speed changes as a sprite moves. For information on creating tweened animation, see
"Tweening the path of a sprite" on page 186.
To change tweening settings:
Select a tweened sprite on the Stage or in the Score.
1
Select Modify > Sprite > Tweening to open the Sprite Tweening dialog box:
2
The diagram in the upper left corner of the Sprite Tweening dialog box shows the sprite's path
as specified by the Curvature, Speed, Ease-In, and Ease-Out settings. This does not show the
actual path of the sprite, just the type of curve it will follow.
If the start and end points of the sprite are the same, the diagram is circular, indicating that
the sprite travels in a circle when tweened. If the start and end points are not the same, the
diagram describes a curved path, indicating that the sprite ends at a point different from
the starting point.
To change which properties of the sprite are tweened, change the values for Tween.
3
A check mark indicates that the property will be tweened. The available properties are Path,
Size, Rotation, Skew, Foreground Color, Background Color, and Blend.
190 Chapter 6