Flash: The Timeline
The key to understanding how to make animation with flash is
understanding the timeline. This page discusses the timeline and its
features.
Flash Timeline
- Stage Selected
- In our example, the stage selected is "Scene 1." The icon in the
corner will change or expand if you start work on another scene, move
to the editing stage for one of your symbols, or create a new symbol.
When there is more than one option available in this corner, clicking
on each will switch your work area from one stage to another.
- Visible, Locked, Layers, Add/Remove Layer
- Each of these features is a common feature for Macromedia programs
and other programs that make use of Layers. If you are not familiar
with this feature, read our introductory
concepts page about layers.
- Actions
- Actions are the core of Flash's interactivity. It is generally
advised that "actions" you program for your Flash movie be included on
a separate layer so they're easy to spot. For more about programming
actions using Flash's special ActionScript, see our section on ActionScript programming.
- Tweened Subject
- The key to using Flash for animation is "tweening," the process by
which you fill in the 'key frames' of the animation and Flash fills in
the frames between them. (The term 'tweening' comes from the process
used by low-level animators in early animation. Their job was to fill
in the progress from one main frame drawn by a lead animator to the
next. Now Flash does that work for you.) When a section of your
movie has been 'tweened,' it turns purple and has an arrow as seen
above. To learn more about this process, see our page about tweening.
- Keyframe
- A Keyframe, an essential moment in the animation, is indicated in
flash by a black dot. Keyframes are the spaces in which you control
the specifics of your animation. To learn more about them, see our
page about keyframes.
- Frame Selected, Frames Per Second
- At any given time, the stage at the center of your work space
displays one frame of your movie. The frame displayed is indicated on
the timeline by a vertical red line and a box on the numberline at the
top. The frame number being displayed is shown at the bottom, and
next to it, the rate at which the movie will play (in fps, "frames per
second").
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