Free Transform breaks Motion Tweens

Sigh! Normally I try to solve problems myself... but Google isn't giving me anything about this so maybe I'm the only one in the world experiencing this particular issue.
I've used Flash for making games for years now, and I got used to using the old motion tweens for making looping animations for characters. I made the leap from AS2 to AS3 a while ago, and felt like I should try to use these new motion tweens as well since I got CS5...
I've found them completely unusable, however, due to a bizarre problem that happens when moving around objects using the Free Transform tool.
For a single character, I'll have a MovieClip with several layers, each with a 'body part' MovieClip on it, then I add the new blue-type motion tweens to all of those layers. At the end of those tweens, I use F6 to (hopefully) duplicate the starting pose; it is meant to loop, after all. Then I'll go about half way between these two keyframes and move bits around to create the A->B->A sort of 'idle' or 'breathing' animation.
The Free Transform seems dodgy though. If I select all the 'limbs' of a character at once and try to rotate them as a group, it works, but they each end up displaced a bit when I release the mouse; they get offset slightly or rotate a bit in seemingly random directions.
For example, compare these two images (it's easiest if they're opened in separate tabs, I suppose): http://scraps.fighunter.com/sparkpupagh1.png and http://scraps.fighunter.com/sparkpupagh2.png
The first one is after rotating it but before I released the mouse button, the second is what the pieces ended up like after I released the button. Most of the pieces ended up where they should be, but the head was offset slightly. This is a mild case; it's usually worse and affects all the pieces, and the slight offsets and rotations build up, too.
This in itself wouldn't be too bad - though it's frustratingly inaccurate - but it gets much, much worse the more I work on a single animation.
(Note: These strange changes don't happen if I rotate all the parts as a group if they're not also contained within new motion tweens...)
Here's a screenshot showing a frame mid-way through an animation, with one of the parts selected: http://scraps.fighunter.com/meepagh1.png
The Motion Editor is shown, though I don't use that directly.
With that feather bit selected, I then rotated it a tiny, tiny amount, but didn't *move* it at all. When I released the mouse, it ended up snapping suddenly to here: http://scraps.fighunter.com/meepagh2.png
That'd be frustrating in itself, but as you can see from the Motion Editor, it's also messed up most of the other frames in the animation, somehow. This becomes unbearable, as you can likely imagine!
If I edit the graph in the Motion Editor directly to alter the Z value and cause a rotation, it works, without problems... but this is horribly inefficient and unintuitive and not a solution. I can't animate by tweaking numbers. It's like trying to draw a portrait using an Etch-A-Sketch!
It seems to only be the Free Transform tool that creates this bizarre problem.
This has been happening since I got CS5 maybe a year or two ago, though I haven't actually had to use the animation tools much until a few days ago so that's why I'm bringing it up now. I've restarted Flash, my computer, etc, etc, many times; I also got the trial version of CS6 today to see if THAT would fix it, but the exact same thing happens in that version too.
I'm wondering whether it's my computer's fault in some way... I don't know enough about hardware and 'specs' and that sort of stuff to describe anything about it, but I'm using Windows Vista and the computer is fairly old and not exactly what I'd call reliable. I'm planning to get a new one soon, so it'd be nice if that fixed this problem... but frustrating if it doesn't.
I'll link to the CS6-flavoured .fla that those screenshots are from: http://scraps.fighunter.com/Meep.fla
I'd very much appreciate it if someone could test this to see if it's happening to only me! If I go to frame 146 (to choose one at random), and try to rotate the foot, slightly, using the Free Transform tool, it breaks in the way that I've described. (Oddly, the head feather rotates without issues on that frame...) If you were to try to do this same thing and it *doesn't* break, it might be a good sign that it's my computer's fault!
If it *does* break though... then I'd very much appreciate any help I can get from someone who understands the new motion tweens better than I do!
It'd be a shame to have to go back to Classic Tweens because of this...

Similar Messages

Moving multiple symbols "breaks" motion tweens

I'm working on a character rotation in Flash CS 5.5 that leads into a basic walk cycle using all motion tweens. The tutorial I'm following (which only uses classic tweens) says to grab all the upper body symbols with free transform and rotate them forward a little. This works fine with classic tweens, but with motion tweens, the parts pop strangely out of place and the more frames I try to move the upper body symbols on, the worse the symbols start randomly sliding around. You can see a simple before/after example posted below. Moving the profile view upper body symbols displaces the arms on the first frame.
Is there any way to move multiple symbols without ruining them? Someone else described at length a problem like this on an old thread, but no one answered: http://forums.adobe.com/thread/1084800
I've tried taking all the upper body layers and sticking them in a symbol, but that won't work because the left hand will pass over the left leg instead of under due to layering.
EDIT - Whatever change is made to the arms during the walk changes the key frames at the beginning, but only if selected with other symbols. If I move the upper body parts down instead of rotating them, the first frame arms will be retroactively be moved down.
Message was edited by: LastNameLeft3000

If you are interested in getting decent results at some point youwill have to looke into the Bone-Tool or use a extension like DragonBones
The reason why you are having "Displacement"-problems lies in the "Math" behind how AnimatorFactory (the system behind Motion Tweens) handles transformations different from Tweens (Its outright misleading to call them Tweens, and Adobe did a poor naming job).
Right click one of the Motion tweens and chosy "copy as Actionscript 3.0" from the context menu then paste the code in any available textEditor and you will see sth like:
import fl.motion.AnimatorFactory;
import fl.motion.MotionBase;
import fl.motion.Motion;
import flash.filters.*;
import flash.geom.Point;
var __motion_Symbol1_9:MotionBase;
if(__motion_Symbol1_9 == null) {
    __motion_Symbol1_9 = new Motion();
    __motion_Symbol1_9.duration = 24;
    // Call overrideTargetTransform to prevent the scale, skew,
    // or rotation values from being made relative to the target
    // object's original transform.
    // __motion_Symbol1_9.overrideTargetTransform();
    // The following calls to addPropertyArray assign data values
    // for each tweened property. There is one value in the Array
    // for every frame in the tween, or fewer if the last value
    // remains the same for the rest of the frames.
    __motion_Symbol1_9.addPropertyArray("x", [0]);
    __motion_Symbol1_9.addPropertyArray("y", [0]);
    __motion_Symbol1_9.addPropertyArray("scaleX", [1.000000]);
    __motion_Symbol1_9.addPropertyArray("scaleY", [1.000000]);
    __motion_Symbol1_9.addPropertyArray("skewX", [0]);
    __motion_Symbol1_9.addPropertyArray("skewY", [0]);
    __motion_Symbol1_9.addPropertyArray("rotationConcat", [0,3.91304,7.82609,11.7391,15.6522,19.5652,23.4783,27.3913,31.3043,35.2174,39.1304,43.043 5,46.9565,50.8696,54.7826,58.6957,62.6087,66.5217,70.4348,74.3478,78.2609,82.1739,86.087,9 0]);
    __motion_Symbol1_9.addPropertyArray("blendMode", ["normal"]);
    __motion_Symbol1_9.addPropertyArray("cacheAsBitmap", [false]);
    __motion_Symbol1_9.addPropertyArray("opaqueBackground", [null]);
    __motion_Symbol1_9.addPropertyArray("visible", [true]);
    // Create an AnimatorFactory instance, which will manage
    // targets for its corresponding Motion.
    var __animFactory_Symbol1_9:AnimatorFactory = new AnimatorFactory(__motion_Symbol1_9);
    __animFactory_Symbol1_9.transformationPoint = new Point(0.499943, 0.500000);
    // Call the addTarget function on the AnimatorFactory
    // instance to target a DisplayObject with this Motion.
    // The second parameter is the number of times the animation
    // will play - the default value of 0 means it will loop.
    // __animFactory_Symbol1_9.addTarget(<instance name goes here>, 0);
    // Call the addTarget function on the AnimatorFactory
    // instance to target a DisplayObject with this Motion.
    // The second parameter is the number of times the animation
    // will play - the default value of 0 means it will loop.
    // __animFactory_Symbol1_9.addTarget(<instance name goes here>, 0);
This is only the code for simply rotating a rectangle over the duration of 24 frames.
You notice 2 two problems right away: while having the registration point in the center, Flash distorts the values:
    __animFactory_Symbol1_9.transformationPoint = new Point(0.499943, 0.500000); //should be (0.5, 0.5)
you can imagine that this "error" gets worse when inherited from nested symbol to nested symbol, it "exponentially" grows with each nesting, and it will soon reach a point were it gets visible.

Missing Free Transform in Motion

This is a bit difficult to explain but, in Motion I've imported a picture I wish to crop and use for motion tracking. The picture should have, when I import it, circles on the four corners that allow me to free transform the picture. But, for some reason these circles never show up, even when I use stock content that came with Motion. If this is difficult to understand, but you can help, I can send you a screen shot of what I'm talking about. I really need anyone's help with this, I can still transform objects with the inspector but this is extremely time consuming.
Message was edited by: FranzyPants

click on the layer you want to transform then hold down shift and hit S.... this is the shortcut to select the transform tool...

Free transform tween not working

This is another common problem that's driving me up the wall:
- At 0 frames, I draw a blue square with no border.
- I insert a keyframe on the 10th frame, then I move the
square a short distance and stretch it with the free transform
tool.
- I create a motion tween between the two frames.
Now by all rights, I should see the square gradually move and
stretch. But all Flash does is animate the motion of the square and
show the end result of the stretch. There's no transformation in
between. How can I fix this?

or - convert it to a symbol forst - then create 2nd keyframe,
use free transform tool and aply
Motion tween. You are making the mistake of using the wrong
tween for the wrong object or the right
tween for the wrong shape.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
--> Adobe Certified Expert
--> www.mudbubble.com
--> www.keyframer.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Glitcher2000 wrote:
> This is another common problem that's driving me up the
wall:
>
> - At 0 frames, I draw a blue square with no border.
> - I insert a keyframe on the 10th frame, then I move the
square a short
> distance and stretch it with the free transform tool.
> - I create a motion tween between the two frames.
>
> Now by all rights, I should see the square gradually
move and stretch. But all
> Flash does is animate the motion of the square and show
the end result of the
> stretch. There's no transformation in between. How can I
fix this?
>

Scale transformation of a symbol within a motion tween

Hi all,
I'm making a very simple animated flight plan with 3 airfields and six airplanes as seen from the top. To imitate the effect of take off and landing I want to be able to change the size of the plane when it flies.
Only trouble is I can do that only with the Free Transform Tool. Even if I select Modify -> Transform -> Scale I have to change the shape of each object manually and they end up having different sizes. I tried editing the size in the properties box but the fields are greyed out. Any idea how I can change that.
Thanks!

If you use Transform... Scale and Rotate... you can set a scale value. Does that help to do what you want?

Motion Tween w/ Rotation Dropping on the Y Axis

Is there a way to prevent a motion tween w/ rotation from dropping on the Y axis? Basically I used Free Transform to change the angle of a line, but it always lowers itself on the Y axis when I insert a motion tween in it.

Hey there,
The properties shouldn't be changing when you insert a motion tween. Could you either attach a file with the object *before* you create the tween, or let me know all the properties of the object before you insert the tween so I can try and reproduce internaly? (X, Y, rotation, scale X/Y, skew X/Y).
Thanks!
Jen.

Flash stickman Motion Tween problem

Hi. I tried to create an animated stickman using Motion Tween
between these two frames:
http://img457.imageshack.us/my.php?image=screenshot00001cq1.jpg
http://img457.imageshack.us/my.php?image=screenshot00000nw4.jpg
but when I applied it to the frames look what happened:
http://img266.imageshack.us/my.php?image=screenshot00002kj3.jpg

the center point is different between keyframes. this will
cause drifting. make sure the center
point (Free Transform tool) is *exactly* the same for all
keyframes.
Chris Georgenes
Animator
http://www.mudbubble.com
http://www.keyframer.com
Adobe Community Expert
*\^^/*
(OO)
<---->
X_NRG wrote:
> Hi. I tried to create an animated stickman using Motion
Tween between these two
> frames:
>
http://img457.imageshack.us/my.php?image=screenshot00001cq1.jpg
>
http://img457.imageshack.us/my.php?image=screenshot00000nw4.jpg
>
> but when I applied it to the frames look what happened:
>
http://img266.imageshack.us/my.php?image=screenshot00002kj3.jpg
>

3d motion tween load problem

Hey all,
I'm having a problem which has made me struggling for two days. I hope i can get some new ideas for my problem here.
I created a fla which includes several 3d motion tween in CS5.5, when it's compiled it works perfect. But when i try to load this swf into my main project, images get blurry and distorted. Below is the screenshot of the situation. The first one is the correct one, and second one is loaded into main project. I read that scaling 3d tweens might cause such problems and tried to fix it by two solutions. As first, i tried to retransform the tween by: myContainer.transform.matrix = new Matrix(); but didn't work out. As second, i tried to rescale the stage which mentioned as a solution is some blogs.
And i don't know if it is some kind of bug as mentioned here: http://forums.adobe.com/message/2258767
I'd really be glad if i can get some ideas, thanks all.

anyone?

Unable to Free Transform

Hi all
I have lost my free transform handles on all objects. I can
transform by typing in values but when selecting Free Transform
after right clicking (or using drop down menu), nothing happens. I
had recently installed a few extensions, namely Toon Titan, Nested
Timeline and IK Motion. I have uninstalled IK Motion and disabled
the other two but to no avail. can anyone help with this? Thanks!
Brent

wow - are you kidding? that is amazing! so remove the tool
from the toolbox and it renders it
useless throughout the IDE? Added this to my list - surely it
is a bug.
oh and yer very welcome :)
catsqueezer wrote:
> Okay, figured it out mine own self. Seems if you remove
the Free Transform
> button from the Tool Bar, it removes the function all
together so you can't
> even access it through the menus. How stupid is that. I
had used that slot in
> the toolbar for the IK Motion picker as I never click on
the Free Transform
> button in the tool bar.
>
> If the Flash Dev team is listening... you may want to
revisit that. Thanks
> Chris for your help and i appreciate all the resources
you make available on
> character animation in Flash specifically. cheers
>

Motion Tweens in AS3

I'm trying to make a screen object(digitB1_mc) move in one of two different directions, depending upon the current cicumstances.
I drew the Motion Tween _B1_12 and saved it as a preset for the first direction.
I drew the Motion Tween _B1_21 and saved it as a preset for the second direction.
Then I tried to find AS3 code to grab one of these two from the presets and apply it to digitB1_mc. Could not find a way to do it.
Then I copied _B1_12 to Actionscript 3.0 code (ie. clipboard) and pasted it into an Actionscript 3.0 function B1_12 and got:
function B1_12() {
import fl.motion.AnimatorFactory;
import fl.motion.MotionBase;
import fl.motion.Motion;
import flash.filters.*;
import flash.geom.Point;
var __motion_digitB1_mc:MotionBase;
if(__motion_digitB1_mc == null) {
    __motion_digitB1_mc = new Motion();
    __motion_digitB1_mc.duration = 11;
    // Call overrideTargetTransform to prevent the scale, skew,
    // or rotation values from being made relative to the target
    // object's original transform.
    // __motion_digitB1_mc.overrideTargetTransform();
    // The following calls to addPropertyArray assign data values
    // for each tweened property. There is one value in the Array
    // for every frame in the tween, or fewer if the last value
    // remains the same for the rest of the frames.
    __motion_digitB1_mc.addPropertyArray("x", [0,7.4116,14.0277,19.6419,23.9742,26.6463,27.1809,25.0619,19.91,11.7411,1]);
    __motion_digitB1_mc.addPropertyArray("y", [0,-14.8969,-30.1606,-45.8179,-61.8789,-78.2953,-94.9161,-111.395,-127.195,-141.658,-154. 35]);
    __motion_digitB1_mc.addPropertyArray("scaleX", [1.000000]);
    __motion_digitB1_mc.addPropertyArray("scaleY", [1.000000]);
    __motion_digitB1_mc.addPropertyArray("skewX", [0]);
    __motion_digitB1_mc.addPropertyArray("skewY", [0]);
    __motion_digitB1_mc.addPropertyArray("rotationConcat", [0,36,72,108,144,180,216,252,288,324,360]);
    __motion_digitB1_mc.addPropertyArray("blendMode", ["normal"]);
    __motion_digitB1_mc.addPropertyArray("cacheAsBitmap", [false]);
    // Create an AnimatorFactory instance, which will manage
    // targets for its corresponding Motion.
    var __animFactory_digitB1_mc:AnimatorFactory = new AnimatorFactory(__motion_digitB1_mc);
    __animFactory_digitB1_mc.transformationPoint = new Point(0.500000, 0.500000);
    // Call the addTarget function on the AnimatorFactory
    // instance to target a DisplayObject with this Motion.
    // The second parameter is the number of times the animation
    // will play - the default value of 0 means it will loop.
    // __animFactory_digitB1_mc.addTarget(<instance name goes here>, 0);
But when I called this function it did nothing at all except increase my swf file size from 3.8 kb to 27.3 kb.
Can anyone suggest a solution that would allow me to swap back and forth between two motions for an object.
Thanks,

The culprit is most likely the garbage collector. If you do
not have any references to your tween object, it will eventually be
destroyed by the garbage collector.
From
Adobe
Flash Quick Start
quote:
Note: Consider variable scope when using the Tween class. If
a tween is created in a function, it is important that the
variable's scope exists beyond the function itself. If a tween is
stored to a variable of local scope, ActionScript garbage
collection removes the tween as the function completes, which will
likely be before the tween has even begun.

Free transform a color matte...

Hi,
There's a very simple thing i'm trying to do that's puzzling me...
I'm working on a split screen. On the right, I have graphics. On the left, i have a talking head. THe talking head frame has 3 different sizes that i juggle with.
I'm just trying to create a thin Vertical line that will act as a border between the graphics and the talking head.
I can ofcourse do this by distancing the two frames, but i'd rather have a thin black line i can just copy paste over.
The obnly way i found to do this was to transform a color matte. But even by changing the aspect in the motion tab, i can't get it thin enough. There must be an easier way to free transform a shape, and to do this directly in the viewer no?
thanks for your help...

Thanks David,
Croping is what i'll end up doing. But isn't there a way to change the aspect directly via wireframe in the viewer. Using the wireframe, i can change the scale, and rotation, but how do i unlock the aspect proportions?
thanks

CS5 - problem with motion tween..HELP!!

Experts out there, please help.
I have migrated from Flash CS3 to Flash CS5. Unlike in CS3, in CS5 when i use motion tween i am unable to use multiple 'ease in' and 'ease outs' in a single tween span. The tween span has to be divided by the 'split motion' command at 'properties keyframes' into smaller tween spans to further apply ease in/out to each one of them. This is not the case with CS3, you just select one keyframe after another and apply the ease in/out command, no divisions required.
Lets say i want control the accelaration and deccelaration of a bouncing ball without breaking the tween span. How do I do it in CS5 without wasting all the sweat?
Please guys i really need this
I'll be greatful
Thanks

The classic tween is the same as the old Motion tween was in CS3 and earlier. You can grab a keyframe and drag it along he timeline to extend or reduce the tween.
The "new" Motion tween was invented to allow for 3D tweening and to allow you to save the tween action exclusive of the elements that were being tweened, so that you can easily replicate a tween on the timeline.

Motion Tweening Components - Will Not Work

I've been using Flash for a few weeks and have scoured and
scoured, trying to solve what I'm sure will turn out to be a small
issue I'm over looking.
Basically, I have buttons, scrollpanes, and FLVPlayer
components on my stage, in separate layers that work fine when they
are on the keyframe that I add them to initially. However, I want
to animate these components moving in and out of the stage (see
www.rossmnewton.com for an example). So I make new keyframes before
and after the keyframe I added the components on, copy the
components, move to the other keyframe, paste in place, move it,
then create a motion tween, and the animation works fine. The
problem is, no matter what I do though, my buttons, scrollpanes,
and any other component, will fail to work as soon as I apply a
motion tween to them. Instantly, they stop working. And I can't
figure out how to animate these types of components without
breaking them.
What am I messing up here? Can you not motion tween buttons
moving around? Or an FLV player?
And I notice that it creates "Tween 1", "Tween 2", etc.,
objects of type Graphic in the Library.

Hi,
The Sample Calendar component download has been fixed for Update 7.
http://developer.sun.com/prodtech/javatools/jscreator/reference/codesamples/samplecomps/calendar.html
Also, the source is available and also is valid.
Please read the brief instructions in NOTES.txt
To build the source, you'll need to use ant
http://ant.apache.org
Then , in the build.xml file included in the zip, correct
the creator.home property setting to point to the installation directory of Creator.
hth
John

How to create a motion tween?? :S

Hii
I know it is very easy. Right click>create motion tween>drag to where I would like the text/object to move
BUT
Sometimes it doesn't seem to work when i drag the text. It will work the first time and for the second text on the frame it won't work. I don't why .....any help???
Can someone tell me the requirements of a motion tween when it comes to text on a single layer in the same frame.
Thanks

You can only tween one object in a layer, so if you are trying to tween more than one it will break the tween. Keep your different textfields on different layers.

Can't get motion Tween to work - just upgraded from a previous version to CS4

I am attempting to create a motion tween between two keyframes. The image is the same...the first keyframe has the image set to an alpha of 0 and the second keyframe some 20 frames down the timeline is set to an alpha of 100%. The keyframes are on the same layer. The image has been transformed to a symbol. Yet when I double click between the two keyframes and create the motion tween so the image will fade from 0 to full view at 100% nothing happens. I don't see the familiar arrow that normally indicates a motion tween between the two keyframes. I've created this transformation a thousand times before but don't understand what is different in CS4 that isn't creating the tween. When I double click on a frame in between the two keyframes it indicates I can remove motion tween so, it makes me believe the motion tweening has been set but, it isn't.
I am quite frustrated and don't understand if I haven't set something in the preferences so the tweening will work or just what is going on.
Help!

And here's the article that was written specifically to update your skills with all the changes between the earlier tweening and new tweens in CS4:
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flash/articles/motion_migration_guide.html

Free Transform breaks Motion Tweens

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for