About Motion Tween Animation

For example, if frames 1 and 20 are property keyframes, you can place a symbol left of the Stage in frame 1, and move it to the right of the Stage in frame 20. When you create a tween, Animate calculates all the positions of the movie clip in between. The result is an animation of the symbol moving from left to right, from frame 1 to frame 20. In each frame in between, Animate moves the movie clip one 20th of the distance across the Stage. 

Tween span: 

• Is a group of frames in the Timeline in which an object has one or more properties changed over time.
• Appears in the Timeline as a group of frames in a single layer with a blue background.
• You can select the tween spans as a single object and drag them from one location in theTimeline to another, including to another layer.
• You can animate only one object on the Stage in each tween span. This object is called the target object of the tween span.

Property keyframe:

• Is a frame within a tween span where you explicitly define one or more property values for the tween target object.
• These properties could include position, alpha (transparency), color tint, and so on.
• Each defined property has its own property keyframes.
• If you set more than one property in a single frame, then the property keyframes for each of those properties reside in that frame.
• Use Motion Editor to view each property of a tween span and its property keyframes.
• You can also choose which types of property keyframes to display in the Timeline from the tween span context menu.

The types of objects that can be tweened include movie clip, graphic and button symbols, and text fields. The properties of these objects that can be tweened include the following:

• 2D X and Y position

• 3D Z position (movie clips only)

• 2D rotation (around the z-axis)

• 3D X, Y, and Z rotation (movie clips only): 3D motion requires that the FLA file target ActionScript 3.0 and Flash Player 10 or higher in the publish settings. Adobe AIR also supports 3D motion.

• Skew X and Y

• Scale X and Y

• Color effects: includes alpha (transparency), brightness, tint, and advanced color settings. Color effects can be tweened only on symbols and TLF text. By tweening these properties, you can make objects appear to fade in or fade from one color to another. To tween a color effect on classic text, convert the text to a symbol.

• Filter properties (filters cannot be applied to graphic symbols)

Differences between motion and classic tweens

Animate supports two different types of tweens for creating motion: Motion tweens and Classic tweens.

Similarities between motion and classic tweens

• There can be more than one classic or motion tween on the same layer, but there can't be both types of tween on the same layer.
• Both motion tweens and classic tweens allow only specific types of objects to be tweened.
  

See also

• Working with classic tween animation
• Video: Create animations with the Motion Editor
• Editing Motion Tweens using Motion Editor
• Animation basics
• Frame-by-frame animation
• How to create a character animation in Animate
  

• Drawing on the Stage

• Timeline layers and the stacking order of objects within a single layer as well as across layers

• Moving and transforming objects on the Stage and in the Property inspector

• Using the Timeline, including object, lifetime and selecting objects at specific points in time. 

• Using tweenable and nested symbols 

• Optional: Bezier curve editing using the Select and Subselect tools. These tools can be used for editing tween motion paths. For more information, see Editing Motion Tweens using the Motion Editor.