Vector Graphics Tips for Macromedia Freehand 9 - Page 4

Animation

Vectorcurves

Vectors are the ideal medium for rapid, file-size-effective animation, because the code simply describes curves, rather than setting a colour for each and every individual pixel. It's also very simple to make curve shape, comer and position adjustments for every single frame. If you're animating a stick man, it's easier to move line-drawn limbs '2 times for every second than redraw the pixels.

Tweening

Flash offers two types of tweening, which means you set the style of a line or object and one frame, then change it for another frame later on, and Flash will calculate what should go between. The user's player plug-in does the calculations, too -so the download file size only contains info for the two frames and the type of tween. Use this as much as you can.

Shape Tweening

For animating drawings, the most powerful type of tweening is Shape tweening. Motion tweening is the other type, which you can use to simply move the position of an object, as well as change its colour, rotation, scaling, transparency and so on (hit F8 to turn the object into a symbol first). Use Shape tweening only if you need to change the curves of an illustration, like morphing.lt's a bit tricky to get great results initially, and sometimes the effect is truly diabolical- but with the right skills you can achieve almost limitless, professional animation.