Creating and applying Motion presets

Motion Presets are pre-configured motion tweens that you can apply to an object on the Stage. You can create and save your own custom presets. You can use existing Motion Presets that you have modified, or custom tweens that you have created on your own.

Using presets can save significant production time during design and development of your projects, especially if you use similar kinds of tweens often.

The Motion Presets panel also allows you to import and export presets. You can share presets with people you are collaborating with or take advantage of presets shared by members of the Animate design community.

To apply a Motion Preset:

1. Select a tweenable object on the Stage. If you apply a Motion Preset to an object that is not tweenable, Animate provides you options to convert the object to a symbol.
2. Select a preset in the Motion Presets panel.

3. Click the Apply button in the panel or choose Apply at Current Location from the panel menu.

The motion is applied so that the motion starts at the current position of the movie clip on theStage. If the preset has a motion path associated with it, the motion path appears on the Stage.

To apply the preset, Shift-click the Apply button or select End at Current Location from the panel menu.

You can also apply a Motion Preset to multiple selected frames on separate layers, as long as each selected frame contains only a single tweenable object.

Each Motion Preset included with Animate has a preview that you can watch in the Motion Presets panel. The preview gives you a sense of what the animation looks like when applied to an object in your document. Add your own preview for custom presets you create or import.

1. Open the Motion Presets panel.
2. Select a Motion Preset from the list.
   The preview plays in the Preview pane at the top of the panel.

3. To stop the preview from playing, click outside the Motion Presets panel.

While a tweenable object (symbol instance or text field) is selected on the Stage, you can click the Apply button to apply a preset. You can apply only one preset per object. If you apply the second preset to the same object, the second preset replaces with the first one.

Once a preset is applied to an object on the Stage, the tween created in the Timeline is not related to the Motion Presets panel. Deleting or renaming a preset in the Motion Presets panel has no effect on any tweens previously created with that preset. If you save a new preset over an existing one, it has no effect on any pre-existing tweens created with the original preset.

Each Motion Preset contains a specific number of frames. When you apply a preset, the tween span created in the Timeline contains this number of frames. If the target object has a tween of a different length applied to it, the tween span adjusts to match the length of the Motion Preset. You can adjust the length of the tween span in the Timeline after the preset is applied.

Motion Presets that contain 3D motion can only be applied to movie clip instances. The tweened 3D properties do not apply to graphic or button symbols, or to classic text fields. You can apply 2D or 3D Motion Presets to any 2D or 3D movie clip.

If you create or modify a tweened preset, you can save it as a new Motion Preset. The new preset appears in the Custom Presets folder in the Motion Presets panel.

To save a custom tween as a preset:

Motion Presets are stored as XML files. Import an XML tween file to add it to the Motion Presets panel.

Note: Motion Presets imported as XML files can only be added to motion tweens.

You can export Motion Presets as XML files that can be shared with other Animate users.

1. Select the preset in the Motion Presets panel.
2. Choose Export from the panel menu.
3. In the Save As dialog box, choose a name and location for the XML file and click Save.

You can remove presets from the Motion Presets panel. When you remove a preset, Animate deletes its XML file from disk. Back up any presets you want to use again later by exporting their copies.

To preview any custom Motion Presets, store a SWF file that demonstrates the tweened animation in the same directory as the Motion Preset XML file.