CS4 new-style keyframing

Question

Hi folks, just another CS4 newbie in a panic about the "new
skool" tweening. I'm sure that I'm going to absolutely love it once
it all sinks in, but at the moment, there are a few things that
strike me as odd and I'm looking for guidance...
Something I noticed last night that was different in terms of
workflow was animating consecutive objects. Imagine the following
simple storyboard:
- a photo appears on the screen and gradually grows in size
while fading out
- after that photo has completely faded out, a new photo
appears on the screen and grows in size while fading out.
Now, "old skool" I would have economized my timeline
real-estate by having both of these images on the same layer. Since
they are not visible at the same time, you can clear (delete) the
first image and drop in the second image and everything is peachy.
I found that this was not the case in CS4. Here's what
happens AFAICR:
- import first image to stage. it appears in a layer
- convert to graphic symbol
- enable motion tween on this object
- animate the object from frame 1 - 20
- I couldn't figure out how to "delete" the object other than
to Split the motion at a keyframe on frame 21 and then delete it
from the stage.
- import second picture with the new (empty) keyframe on
layer 1 at frame 21 selected (I'm expecting the picture to import
into that layer)
- a new layer is created with the picture at frame 1. Fine.
Cut it from layer 2, frame 1 and paste into layer 1 frame 21.
Delete layer 2
- convert this picture to a graphic
- apply Motion Tween
instantly the picture in this new graphic object is actually
replaced (even in the library!!) with picture 1. When I go into the
library and edit the library item and drop in picture 2, the
graphic symbol#1's picture is now changed to picture 2 as well!
Astounding.
So what's the answer here? I ended up just putting one image
per layer, but it seems to me that this will make for a horrible
mess if you're doing a manual timeline-based animation of a
sequence of images - you could potentially end up with dozens of
layers!
Thanks in advance for your insights.
Tom

Answer 1

Ah - I see, timeline was structured differently than I
thought.
Part A: Inserting a blank keyframe is only relevant for an
empty frame. So if you have a tween span at that frame, it cannot
be empty. If you create your initial tween span from frame 1 to
frame 40 (where you want the first tween) and then create the blank
keyframe at frame 41, you can start the second tween there. You can
even copy the properties from frame 40 and paste them on the tween
at frame 41 so the second image matches the one at frame 40. You
would Ctrl+click to select frame 40, right-click and choose Copy
Properties. Then Ctrl+click frame 41 after it's a tween span with
the second image, and choose Paste Properties.
Part B: Images cannot be imported onto tween spans, but we
should reenable it for blank keyframes and statics (this is a known
issue).
Part C: You don't want to F6 for a blank keyframe, you can F7
(or right-click) for one, and then drag your object to the Stage.
Then back to Part A for the rest of the description :) I'm not sure
about the object-based question. The tween has been removed, and
the object that was in the tween is now the static object on the
Stage. A tween has a target object, which can be removed, added,
replaced - etc. You change the properties of that object along a
tween span, which creates the interpolation/tween. You can delete
the object, and the properties remain, so you can apply a new
object to it which inherits those tweened properties (hence the
object-based tweening). Old-school tweening interpolates between
two different object instances, instead of tweening a single
instance as in new tweens. Hope that helps clarify the terminology
(although written in such a short passage... probably not...)
Another thing you could do is just split the span as you did
in the first part, and drag the instance you want to tween
(graphic, movie clip, etc) to the existing tween span without
removing it. Then if you need to align/resize the image to match,
you can copy and paste the properties from the previous one at
frame 41.
Or even easier, just import all of your assets and convert
them to movie clips with proper naming and so forth. Split the
span, and at frame 41 use swap symbol. The new image is
automatically in the tween without needing to remove or recreate
anything, and at the correct placement.