Flash Animation Question

jArgHA

I recently started teaching myself Flash and have been working on my first fairly simple animation. Basically the animation is just a photo of a head with moving mouth (monty python style) and eyes. The mouth moves in sync with a recorded soundtrack.

I am wondering whether it is possible to reposition all layers relating to the head to a new position on the stage, AFTER I have done all the keyframe animation? I have spent a fair amount of time getting the mouth movement close to the audio (speech) but did all the animation with the head at the centre of the stage - now I want to move the complete animation to a different position - when I go to Frame #1, select all, and reposition this seems to be only for Frame #1 and the head begins to Motion Tween back to the centre of the stage after this.

So is there some way of repositioning the layers and their animation movements with respect to the head for all frames? (I guess if I can somehow group the head, chin and eye layers together then they will all move as a unit and retain the correct animation...)

jAH

Gordon

Ouch! I had a problem like that and I hacked it out by doing something that I'm sure there was a better way of doing.

I created a new movie clip and copied the frames into the movie clip. It's a good idea for you to contain your head, mouth etc in a movie clip so that you can do that exact thing (and maybe bob the whole head up and down when you need to for example).

It's a bit convoluted for want of a better word. You make a new movie clip and add as many layers as you have already. Then select ALL the frames you want to copy and right click - copy the frames. Then go to the movie clip and select the first frame in each layer (I think I'm remembering correctly) and right click - Paste frames. There are two types of paste frame option and only one of them is what you want.

That's one way to do it, there may very well be a better way so create a copy of your work and someone here may be able to provide a better solution.

jArgHA

hi Gordon, thanks for the quick response. just so I understand you correctly - basically you create a new Flash document and copy over the head and its components only along with their animation frames and then export this as a movieclip which can then be imported into the main animation sequence?

should the head be exported as a SWF?

EDIT: Ignore above question, I just read about how to convert an Animation into a Movieclip symbol in 'Flash 8 For Dummies' !

cheers again

Gordon

Aye, by create a movie I meant a movieclip symbol, that was unclear of me.

So it's working fine now?

jArgHA

hmm not quite, I created a movieclip symbol as instructed (instructions shown below) and then inserted it onto the stage by dragging from the library and put it in its own layer. however when I play the animation on stage the movieclip symbol of the head seems to have lost all movement.

I went into symbol edit mode to make sure the movieclip still has all keyframe information and it runs fine.... ? just when it is on stage it doesnt animate?

To convert an animation on the Stage to a movie clip symbol, follow these steps:
1. On the layer listing, select all frames in all layers containing the animation
by clicking the first layer and pressing Shift while you click
the last layer in the group.
Alternatively, you can press Ctrl (Windows) or Ô (Mac) and click additional
layers.

2. On the Timeline, right-click (Windows) or Control+click (Mac) and
choose Copy Frames to copy all the frames of the animation to the
Clipboard.
Alternatively, you can choose Edit?Timeline?Copy Frames.

3. With no objects selected (click off the Stage to be sure that no objects
are selected), choose Insert?New Symbol.
The Create New Symbol dialog box opens.

4. In the Name text box, type a name for the movie clip.

5. From the Behavior list, select Movie Clip as the type of symbol.

6. Click OK to close the Create New Symbol dialog box.
Flash switches to symbol-editing mode so that you can edit the symbol.

7. Click the first frame of the Timeline to set the start of the movie
clip symbol.

8. Choose Edit?Timeline?Paste Frames to paste the animation into the
Timeline and create the symbol.

9. To return to the main movie and Timeline, choose Edit?Edit Document.

10. To delete the animation from the main movie (now that you’ve saved
it in a movie clip), select all layers as you did in Step 1 and choose
Edit?Timeline?Remove Frames.

Gordon

Yeah, that's the annoying thing about movieclip symbols on the timeline. I'm not sure how the pro flashers do this.

So it's fine when you publish it but when you skim through the timeline the movieclip doesn't move? If that's the case then as far as I understand that's not how Flash movieclips work. Only graphic clips seem to be able to do that.

When I had that problem I had to change the properties of the movie clip to be a graphic clip temporarily. To do that I simply used the drop down option on the properties window to Graphic. Select the head movie clip and change the property Movie to Graphic. By doing this you can skim through the timeline and watch your head clip move (hopefully!) in sync with the rest of the things in your flash animation. Just remember to change it back to Movie when you're happy with it.

Again, I'm no expert with Flash so don't be afraid to reject this advice as it's possibly detrimental to your particular flash project.

jArgHA

thanks for all the advice. it seems strange that Flash does not allow you to preview a movieclip on the main stage, in any case I'll try both publishing it and switching temporarily to a graphic symbol to see if the anmation comes out OK.

thanks again,

jAH

EDIT: yes when I publish the animation, the animation in the movieclip comes out fine - w000t

decimal

I don't have flash with me right now, so I'm trying to remember how I've done this. There's an onion skin option in flash, it's just below the timeline window (there should be 5 small buttons on the bottom of the timeline window), if you click on that it should place two markers on the timeline. If you drag the right marker to the end of the timeline and then select all, you will be able to move everything on the timeline to a new position.

Hope this helps