How to Create a Motion Tween in Adobe Flash CS4

In Adobe Flash CS4 they have introduced a great new version to create various types of animation, called the motion tween. In just a few clicks you can take your images and transform them into wonderful arrangements.

In this tutorial I show you how to use a motion tween by creating a simple fade in affect of a simple object. You would create a motion tween for any other type of animation the same way.

Here is how you create a motion tween in Adobe Flash CS4.

  1. Launch Adobe Flash CS4 and create a new ActionScipt 3 file.
  2. Step 2


    Draw a simple object on the screen. As you can see in the picture associated with this step I placed a rectangle onto the stage. Color and size do not matter for this tutorial.

  3. Step 3


    Now click on the black arrow in the tools panel, then click on your object drawing to select it. Press the F8 key on your keyboard. We need to change the object to a movie clip. The window shown in the picture is what you should now see.

  4. Step 4


    On the convert to symbol window, give your object a name. I called mine “My Rectangle”. Then in the drop down box labeled “Type” select “Movie Clip” and then click the ok button.

  5. Step 5


    Down in the timeline panel, on your layer, click the white empty box under the frame marked 25 and press the F5 key on your keyboard. This will create 25 frames.

  6. Step 6


    Right click your mouse anywhere between frames 1 and 25 and on the pop up menu that appears, select “Create Motion Tween”.

  7. Step 7


    The timeline for the layer has turned to a light blue (cyan) color. Now all we need to do is add our fade and we are done. To do that click frame 1 in your timeline for your layer.

  8. Step 8


    Click on your object. On your properties panel (viewable by clicking window->properties or CTRL+F3) you will see color affect. Select “Alpha” for the style and then set the Alpha slider to 0%. In frame 1 it will make your object look like it has disappeared.

  9. Step 9

    Now go to frame 25 and using the steps above, set the alpha for your object to 100%. You are now done. To run your animation, press the enter key.

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