Representations Of Animations In The Timeline; Frame Rates - MACROMEDIA FLASH MX 2004-USING FLASH Use Manual

Representations of animations in the Timeline

Flash distinguishes tweened animation from frame-by-frame animation in the Timeline as
follows:
•
Motion tweens are indicated by a black dot at the beginning keyframe; intermediate tweened
frames have a black arrow with a light blue background.
•
Shape tweens are indicated by a black dot at the beginning keyframe; intermediate frames have
a black arrow with a light green background.
•
A dashed line indicates that the tween is broken or incomplete, such as when the final
keyframe is missing.
•
A single keyframe is indicated by a black dot. Light gray frames after a single keyframe contain
the same content with no changes and have a black line with a hollow rectangle at the last
frame of the span.
•
A small a indicates that the frame has been assigned a frame action with the Actions panel.
•
A red flag indicates that the frame contains a label or comment.
•
A gold anchor indicates that the frame is a named anchor.

Frame rates

The frame rate, the speed at which the animation is played, is measured in number of frames per
second. A frame rate that's too slow makes the animation appear to stop and start; a frame rate
that's too fast blurs the details of the animation. A frame rate of 12 frames per second (fps) usually
gives the best results on the web. QuickTime and AVI movies generally have a frame rate of 12
fps, while the standard motion-picture rate is 24 fps.
The complexity of the animation and the speed of the computer on which the animation is being
played affect the smoothness of the playback. Test your animations on a variety of machines to
determine optimum frame rates.
Because you specify only one frame rate for the entire Flash document, it's a good idea to set this
rate before you begin creating animation. See
properties" on page 12.
"Creating or opening a document and setting

Frame rates

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