The heart of animation is movement. Movement is achieved by changing shapes from one frame to the next. Change can take many forms: moving a shape from one position to another, moving or transforming points associated with a shape, changing the color of the interior or border of the shape, adding or removing points from the shape.
A symbol is a shape which is drawn once and reused more than once throughout the movie. One of the options in Preferences is to draw shapes as symbols. Drawing shapes as symbols results in the smallest swf file size but puts limitations on how shapes can be changed frame-to-frame.
To run a Flash animation from your web page involves: (1) creating a swf file with KoolMoves and (2) adding javascript code to your web page which references the swf file. Both the swf file and your html file with the javascript are uploaded to your web server. Look under File > Export Movie for different methods to add the necessary code to your web page.
The easiest and safest approach for adding a Flash animation to a web page created with Front Page or any other WYSIWYG editor is to use KoolMoves Add to Existing Web Page tool found under File > Export Movie.
On saving your animation, a backup file is created before the file is overwritten. The name of the backup file is ~backup.fun.
A tween is a frame generated for you automatically by KoolMoves calculated from the positions and colors of shapes from adjacent key frames. To speed up action between two key frames, assign fewer tweens. To slow down action or to make the animation smoother, assign more tweens. The number of tweens can be changed from the Navigation toolbar at the bottom right.
Shapes can be filled using the paint bucket tool with a solid color, color gradient, or an image (which is tiled if the shape dimension exceeds the size of the image).
On exporting to a Flash movie, KoolMoves converts non-indexed color images to jpeg format at the quality factor specified in either File > Export Settings or Movie > Background Image. Use the lowest quality number to achieve the smallest Flash movie.
Bones provides the designer with the ability to attach a skeleton to a figure. Changes in the position of the limbs of a figure can be achieved efficiently by manipulating the skeleton. Bones capability is accessible in the Cartooning mode.
Movie > Dependencies displays a list of all files referenced by the animation -- images, sounds, imported swfs, and go to urls. This is useful for spell checking file paths and for gaining an overview of the dependencies.
There is a rich selection of drawing tools accessible from the left toolbar: freehand, primitive shapes (ellipse, circle, rectangle and square), and shapes/lines drawn point-by-point.
In the shape properties dialog you can add a drop shadow to any shape. This property is in the Effects section.
Undo history found under Edit menu bar displays a list of edits that have been performed on the current frame. You can revert to any previous state by selecting from the list. Redo history behaves in a similar fashion.
KoolMoves provides many powerful effects that can be applied to any shape, group of shapes, text, imported SWF movie, or movie clip. The effects are found under Effects menu bar, on the Effects tab of the Properties popup, and the Effects tab of the Score/timeline view.
Sounds and actions can be added to frames. Select Views > Actions and Sounds Overview or use the Actions and Sounds tab of the Score/timeline view.
To select a shape or points under another shape, select the shape on top and then press CTRL H to hide the shape thus revealing what is underneath. Press CTRL H again to undo the hide.
To name a shape, select a shape by name, or select a hard to get at shape, use the List of Shapes tool. Using this tool, you can select individual shapes or multiple shapes with CTRL and SHIFT select.
To create a tiled background, create a rectangle slightly larger than the movie frame in the first frame and send it to the back. Use the paint bucket fill tool to fill the rectangle with your image. It will tile. Copy the rectangle, go to the second frame and use Edit > Paste to End of Movie.
To make an entire swf a link on a web page, put a rectangle shape the size of the movie frame filled with the background color in all frames, send it to the bottom and make it a button with a GetUrl action.
To add a link to a web page, make the text or shape associated with the link into a button in the shape properties dialog (say yes to Is a Button). In Actions in the same popup, add a GetUrl action to the web page.
Load Movie action loads a new SWF into the Flash player. This feature can be used to string together multiple SWF files. Because the project is broken up into multiple movies, the individual SWF files are smaller in size. Smaller files load faster and manage memory more efficiently.
Movie clips are an advanced feature of KoolMoves. A movie clip is a movie within a movie with its own frames. Movie clips are important because their properties can be dynamically changed via action scripts.
There are three forms of paste -- paste to the current frame, paste from the current frame to the first frame of the movie, and paste from the current frame to the last frame of the movie.
Shape and point selection tools are located on the top part of the left toolbar. These tools are used a lot. In addition to providing selection capability, they also allow you to move shapes and points.
Single step play mode allows you to view morphing changes between each tween and key frame. This analysis can help you to decide if you need more tweens or can do with fewer tweens.
To change the fill of a shape everywhere, select the shape with the selection scope set to All Frames. Whatever you do to the shape is now reflected everywhere. You are prompted first before global changes are implemented.
