Timeline Special Effects

Animate Text

This movie requires a text word, that is then distributed into a series of layers, each holding one letter. The letters then can be animated with motion tweening.

How to do it

1. Create a new FLA document
2. Change the name of layer1 to text
3. Insert a new script layer with a stop(); action in keyframe 1

Set up the word movieclip

1. Insert>New symbol to create a new movieclip symbol named word
2. Type a short word on the symbol editing screen with the text tool
3. Click Modify>Break Apart to break the word into individual letters
4. Click Modify>Timeline>Distribute to Layers to put each letter into its own layer.
5. Delete the empty layer
6. Select the first letter in the first keyframe and click Modify>convert to symbol and create a new graphic or movieclip symbol
7. Repeat for the other letters in their first keyframes.
8. Hold down the shift key and click on keyframe 5 in all the layers, and hit F6 to insert keyframes.
9. Repeat to create keyframes in frame 30 of each layer.
10. Click inside each layer between keyframes 5 and 30 and create a motion tween
11. Move each letter to a different place in the last keyframe, and change its appearance in other ways (size, color, rotation, filters)
12. Add other keyframes and changes between frames 5 and 30, as desired.
13. When all the letters are animated, select all the layers from keyframes 5 to 30, right click and click copy frames on the popup menu.
14. Select all the layers in frame 31 and rightclick on the selection
15. Click paste frames.
16. Select the pasted frames in all the layers and click Modify>Timeline>Reverse frames.
17. Insert the word movieclip into keyframe 1 of the text layer.
18. Save and click Commands>test movie.

---

Example

The word movieclip has a difference blend applied to it in the property inspector, which alters the color of the text as it moves across the background

---

Exploding a symbol

• Drag a graphic symbol into keyframe 1 of a layer
• Select Insert>Timeline effect> Explode
• Adjust the settings.
  • Indicate number of panes
  • size of fragments
  • direction of explosion
  • alpha level of final results (visibility)
• To see the effect click the update preview button
• When you are happy with the results, click OK
• The movieclip on the frame-by-frame animation page uses the explode effect

Expand a symbol

• Click Insert>Timeline Effect>Expand
• type in the number of frames you want the effect to last
• Choose Expand, Squeeze, or Both
• Adjust other settings
• To preview effect click the Update Preview Button
• When you are happy with the effect, click OK

This example uses the expand effect on the stick figure.

The background of the CLA building photo is a movieclip that is faded in. The movieclip is blurred in the first keyframe and the blur is removed in the last keyframe. The layer between the two keyframes is motion tweened.

The stick figure also is a movie clip that has different filter effects as well as blends applied to it.