Motion Tweening Strategies

Motion tweening lets you interpolate any of the instance properties of a symbol, such as its location, size, rotation, color, and transparency, as well as any filters that have been applied to the symbol instance. Because of its versatility, motion tweening can be applied to a variety of animation tasks, making it the foundation of most Flash projects. Because motion tweening deals with instance properties, it’s a good idea to think of the technique in terms of instance tweening. Regardless of whether actual motion across the Stage is involved, changing instance properties through time requires motion tweening. Thinking of it as instance tweening will help you distinguish when and where to use motion tweening as opposed to shape tweening, inverse kinematics, or frame-by-frame animation.

The motion tween model

You should already know how to create a basic motion tween in Flash Professional CS5. This book will help you move forward and understand tweening’s more advanced features. However, a quick review of the key points in the motion tween model is helpful: