Animation and Effects with Macromedia Flash MX 1002004 [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

Using the Property Inspector

The Flash Property inspector is a useful, context-sensitive tool. When you select an object on the Stage, a frame, or a tool (in the Tools panel), the Property inspector updates to reflect your selection. Various relevant tools, text fields, buttons, sliders, and controls appear as a result, depending on that selection. You use the Property inspector to modify the properties, location, or instance name of a selected object. In some cases, you can modify properties over time by using keyframes and tweening. You can create the appearance of animation or movement over time using the Property inspector.

For example, you can change the color tint of a movie clip using the Property inspector and make it animate between the two tinted colors using a motion tween. Imagine that you have a movie clip on frame 1 that is orange. If you want the movie clip to tween between orange and another color by frame 10, you need to create a key frame on frame 10. You select the movie clip located at frame 10 and then select Tint from the Color pop-up menu in the Property inspector, as shown in the following figure.

After you select the Tint option, a number of additional options appear in the Property inspector. You can use these options to select a color to tint the orange movie clip by frame 10. After you select a color for the keyframe at frame 10, you can create a motion tween between the two frames, and the color animates when the SWF file plays. Exercise 5 shows you a variety of ways to create animation by using the Property inspector.

Understanding motion tween properties

When you select a frame on the Timeline (not an instance), you can choose to modify properties of the motion tween itself by using the Property inspector. For any motion tween in your Flash document, select a frame and open the Property inspector (Window > Properties). Changing the properties of a tween is different from changing the properties of an instance. Instead of modifying the appearance of the instance itself, you modify the way the motion tween animates (for example, its change in speed and rotation).

First of all, if you are scaling an object in your motion tween, make sure that Scale is selected in the Property inspector.

Another choice in the Property inspector for a motion tween is to ease in or ease out. Ease in and ease out are ways to soften the movement in your animations in a naturalistic way. As an object moves, it usually accelerates from a resting position or slows down instead of stopping instantly. When you ease-in, you accelerate the object gradually so it speeds up. When you ease-out, you slow an object down until it stops.

The Property inspector also enables you to add rotation to the motion tween so the instance that it is tweening rotates. To do this, choose Auto, CW (clockwise) or CCW (counter-clockwise) from the Rotation pop-up menu. Select None for no rotation or choose Auto to rotate the object one time in the direction that requires the least amount of rotation.

Exercise 5: Adding properties

As discussed, there are many properties you can animate when motion tweening movie clips in a SWF file. In this exercise, you fade the clouds movie clip, add scaling and easing to the bird movie clip, tint the grass movie clip, and modify the brightness of the mountains movie clip.

1. Open the Property inspector (Window > Properties) and then select the instance on the Stage at frame 40.

2. In the Property inspector, select Alpha from the Color pop-up menu. A text field and slider bar appears in the Property inspector, which you use to change the alpha of the instance, which refers to the amount of transparency the object has. Drag the slider to set the alpha level to 0.

3. Click and drag the playhead above the Timeline to scrub between frames 1 and 40, and notice how the clouds gradually fade out as they motion tween across the Stage.

4. Select the bird-body movie clip on the Stage at frame 40, and then select the Free Transform tool in the Tools panel. Mouse over one of the corner handles of the movie clip until you see a double-ended arrow cursor, as shown in the following figure.

Click and drag the handle toward the center of the instance while you press and hold the Shift key. Make the instance only slightly smaller, which makes the bird appear as if it is moving away into the distance. Make sure that the Scale check box is selected in the Property inspector when you select one of the motion tween frames on the bird layer.

The Snap to Objects button causes the rotation to snap to set degrees. You can make subtle changes if you disable the Snap to Objects button in the Tools panel. Disable the Snap to Objects button if necessary.

5. Select frame 1 of the bird layer and find the text field next to Ease in the Property inspector. Enter 100 into the text field so the movie clip eases out. The bird animation will slow down gradually at the end of the tween, instead of coming to an abrupt stop.

6. Now select the grass movie clip on frame 1. In the Property inspector, select Tint from the Color pop-up menu. Several color controls appear after you select this option, and you can choose a color to tint the grass. Select a darker green color, and then enter 25 into the Tint Amount text field.

7. Select Control > Test Movie to test the animation in the test environment. You should be able to see the bird movie clip animating across the Stage, decreasing in size, and slowing down toward the end. The ease-out effect will be very subtle. You will also see the grass movie clip tween from a darker to lighter green between frames 1 and 40.

Now that you have used most of the movie clip tweening properties, you should add a button to the document that controls the overall animation. Save your changes before proceeding to the next exercise.