Flash :: Animating Shapes (Tweens?)

Animating Vertices In Shapes
hello guys

i have a question regarding the drawing api and animating the resulting drawn images.

im using flash cs3 (actionscript 3 of course) and need to draw in some skewed rectangular shapes, where i can control where each of the 4 points of the rectangle are (because the shapes are not necessarily straight angled). from what i've seen, i need to use the lineTo commands (as opposed to drawRect) because of this.

then, i need to animate each of the 4 vertices of these shapes in an independent fashion. i really want to use the new Tween libraries (seem to be more effiicient than enterFrames), but these seem designed to animate only the object as a whole (and not just the vertices of the object). because of this im being forced to use enterframes to redraw the shape, which i feel is missing the poing entirely of the Tween libraries.

is there an effiicient way of doing this?

thank you very much,

federico

Animating Large Vector Shapes And Visual Integrity
When animating a symbol (say the letter "A") that is twice the size of the stage, across the stage, on playing the rendered movie, I get these horizontal glitches in the edge of the A shape. I think I read somewhere that this is caused by screen redraw keeping up or something. I'm using 30fps and I want to have the A move across the screen diagonally in about a second or two. Anybody with clarification on why this is happening and how I can fix?

thanks,
Dennis

Animating Without Tweens
Hello:

I am quite sick and tired of using animations with tweens.
It takes forever to load up when I use tweens. I was wondering could somebody please help me to understand how I could animate without using tweens. Just a small example at that would help me alot. Or a small tutorial on a website would help me also. Thankyou:

Xanthus

Shape Tweens, Graphic Symbols, Motion Tweens
I am working on learning assignment for school and i want to make sure i did this right. i do not have a manual to look this up.
i am supposed to use shape tweens, Could someone tell me a definition and how to create them.
I also need a definition between a graphic and raw artwork?

i am making a small animation and I need to use shape tweens using raw artwork? i used the rectangle tool and the brush tool and made a scene on its own layer. i did not convert it to a graohic symbol. is that an example of a shape tween or am i totally off? and it plays behind the motion tween animation i created on various other layers.

anyone?

Text Animating And Zoom Animating
Hey im a beginner at animating and i need advise on how to animate text. Like when the viewer is watching my movie I don't want a whole paragraph to come out of no where I want it like word by word or letter by letter like someone was typing it right then and there. I tried figuring out a way but the only thing was adding a key frame for each individual letter. any tips? and also any advise on how to make the text come in with flare? like fading in or coming in from the top?

Also another thing. Let's say I make a city from far away on the stage. I want to zoom in on a person (a stick figure) for a couple seconds and then zoom back out to it's original position. Is there a way I can do this without having to disassemble the city and make the person zoomed in and then make it look zoomed out construct the city from scratch again?
I would like any help please.
Thanks in advance.

Regarding Shapes...
Is there any way to dynamically edit a shape while the movie is running, such as cutting out parts of it? I'm trying to make a program where the user is able to 'destroy' chunks of a shape. I also need to know if it's possible to detect a pixel-collision with a shape, since it isn't rectangular.

Sorry if I'm asking a mouthful. :)

Shapes
ok i'm attempting a small project of mine, which starts of witha small rectangle which fades in and out.

I'm well aware that i have to convert them into a symbol so i can chagne the alpha settings, but what i wish to do after it's done the flashing, is expand.

when i attempt to expand the symbol the border is to large obviously cause i'm stretching it.

so my question is, can i motion tween a symbol back into a vector so i can make the rectangle expand like a border?

or do you guys know any other way which might be helpfull?

many thanks

xXAresXx

Shapes
i saw these sites:

2 Advance and http://purepulse.co.kr/.

i like how it does the shape transitions when it loads the sections of the site.

i know how to load other swfs into one but how do you do the shape transitions and stuff like that?

is there any tutorial or can anyone help?

Shapes
I have a shape that I created in Photoshop. I want to scale it in flash using a tween
but
the problem is that the shape becomes jagged and looks bad when scaled up.

Is there a way to replicate this shape using flash's own drawing tools?

Is there a trace feature?

Where The Shapes Go?
hi,
it will a newbie question and thanks for the help in advance. i am trying to create a masking effect. so, i have an image where i draw a rectangular shape to outline the mask area. every single time i draw, the shape goes under the image. how can i make sure that it sits on top of the image?

Metamorphosis In Shapes
I need some in changing shapes from one form to another. like a circle gradually changing into a square.

My intial plan was to create legs that would bend at the knees to make it more realistic.

if anyone has ideas or links to my suggestion, please let me know

thank you for your time and effort

ali a sheikh

Transparent Shapes?
I've seen it done before alot, and i was wondering if there was an easy was the make a shape semi-transparent, where when the box was over it, the stuff in the layers under it would appear slightly darker.

If you need an example then look here.
(it's the part where he points out the BOSS)
http://games.sohu.com/fightgame/fight3.swf

Thanks

Scalable Shapes
hi everyone,

i am trying to create a triangle that has draggable vertices, this in itself is not a problem, however......
i am trying to fill the center of the triangle but i have run into a few problems.

is there any way to create a fill effect from actionscript that can be scaled and changed as the user drags the triangle into different shapes?

any ideas would be useful on this as my mental capacity has been exhausted

thanks

Manny

Dynamic Shapes
I want to basically create a colour field for each of the polygons in the shape of this movie:
http://www.kawaguchi.ca/test2/in1.html

I've been trying to implement the dynamic shapes script here: http://www.flashkit.com/movies/Scrip...24/index.shtml

The problem is that while the code is great, it doesn't seem to work very well (as in it's choppy and eats up alot of the compute cycle). Does anybody know if there is a more elegant solution to this problem?

Any help is very much appreciated. Thanks in advance!

How To Import 3D Shapes
Please tell me how I import 3D shapes to animate. I want to bring in boxes and other geometric shapes.

Modfying Shapes
I want to chage the shape of an object in ActionScript.

You can do this on a frame when you draw an object with the rectangle tool, no lines and then select a corner and drag it to change the object size and shape. Is there any way to do this in ACtionScript

Cheers

Mpg/avi To Vector Shapes
HI!,

well...first time submiting something to the forum so take it easy on me

Well I have a mpg/avi that I recorded with my digital camera, and I want to put it in a flash movie, but I don't wan't the video to be just like it is, I want it to appear like a cartoon, so I want to transform the video into vector shapes, just like "Trace Bitmap" function in the modify menu does, to bitmaps...

Does anyone know how to do this?

Regards,
SiMoVsKy
simao@bliter.com

Smoothing Shapes...
I just created a cool logo that I want to use on my website and I need to implement it in flash, the only problem is that when I import it from Corel Draw it looks choppy and not as smoot, how can I keep my object smooth without losing quality but keep it editable?

Another question I have is how to copy images in flash. I made a bitmap and I want to trace certain parts of it with shapes in flash, so do I have to do this manually using berziers and stuff to create curves or is there a way that I can take this image and copy it as a flash editable vector image?

A Difference In Shapes
I'm creating a flash intro for a websit, and I started creating an affect.

I set a very tiny circle at the center of the workspace, and tweened it for ten frames, where on the tenth frame it is larger than the canvas. So basically its supposed to appear like a circle blowing up from nothingingness and the edges go outside of the screens view.

As a side note, the affect is than replicated but shifted 5 frames over and in a different color. It is than done over and over so that it gives the affect of traveling very fast through a tunnel.

ANYWAY, the problem is, while working on the project the Circle is a circular shape, but when I export or test the movie, the Circle becomes octagonal. So why does the circle loose its curve, and how can I adjust things so that it retains it.

Thank you for any help you can provide

How To Change Shapes In SWF
Hi,
is there any solution, or program, wich can replace shapes, or symbols in SWF files?
thanks
georgmorb@ip.osgf.ge
g e o r g e

How To Replace Shapes In SWF
Hi, is there any program or solution wich can replace shapes or movie clip symbols in SWF?
thanks in advance

georgmorb@ip.osgf.ge
G e o r g r

Expanding Shapes
Hi,

How do I get the expanding shapes effect, where a square expands in size, but the expansion looks very smooth?

The effect I am talking about is used at the below sites:

http://www.fcsbowls.com

and

http://www.kurtnoble.com

Outlines For Shapes
i made a shape with no outline, and now i need to give it one, but when i go to properties and try to give it one, it wont let me

Resizing Shapes?
How do you resized a movie clip without redrawing it?

Human Shapes
Hi everybody !! I would like to do some simple 3D animations. I already have the 3D Swift V4, but I don't know how to use it very well. I want to make a cube but with no fill. Is there any other software that does it ? I saw some animations with characters used as masks, is there a software where I can draw simple human shapes ??

Mask Shapes
Any suggestions as to how I could create a mask with rounded corners? In other words a rounded rectangle.
When I bring a rounded rectangle in from fireworks, it shows the rounded edges, but the mask retains a squared shape.
Allrighty then,
J

Jpeg Shapes...
hey

i am cutting up a jpeg in photoshop so i can then animate parts in flash. the trouble is, say i cut out a circle in photoshop, when i import it to flash its placed on the stage as a square with lots of white around the circle which obviously i dont want as it looks awful and messes up the shape.

does anyone have any hints or tips on how to get funny shaped jpegs into flash without the white bits around it?

hope that makes sense?

jb xx

Drawing Shapes
hi ive got a script that generates the internal angles of a regular polygon based on how many sides it has (thats the input)
it then shows you one internal angle and the sum of the internal angles

i would like to know how i would make flash draw the shape dynamicly using AS
if any1 knows then plz help

Shapes That Draw Themselves
What is the easiest way to make a square that draws itself? Just a blck line with no fill that draws itself around? A mask? Shape tween?

Thanks!

Symbol Shapes...
Is it possible to make the symbol shape form fitting to your art, or does it have to be a plain square? What I mean is, let's say that I made a header with a the lower right corner area cut-out so that I could put some search engine html in that space. I can't put the search engine in that area because the .swf file just appears as a big square on my page. What's the deal with that?

Drawing Shapes...
this is my next script, for drawing rectangles, please work your magic on this for me and make sure it is within a shape 'grid'.

CODE

if(rectangle = true) {
this.createEmptyMovieClip("canvas_mc", this.getNextHighestDepth());
var mouseListener:Object = new Object();
mouseListener.onMouseDown = function() {
this.isDrawing = true;
this.orig_x = _xmouse;
this.orig_y = _ymouse;
this.target_mc = canvas_mc.createEmptyMovieClip("", canvas_mc.getNextHighestDepth());
};
mouseListener.onMouseMove = function() {
if (this.isDrawing) {
this.target_mc.clear();
this.target_mc.lineStyle(size1, colour1, alpha1);
this.target_mc.moveTo(this.orig_x, this.orig_y);
this.target_mc.lineTo(_xmouse, this.orig_y);
this.target_mc.lineTo(_xmouse, _ymouse);
this.target_mc.lineTo(this.orig_x, _ymouse);
this.target_mc.lineTo(this.orig_x, this.orig_y);
}
updateAfterEvent();
};
mouseListener.onMouseUp = function() {
this.isDrawing = false;
};
Mouse.addListener(mouseListener);
}

also i tried to create a clear button, but it did not work, can you also try and correct that for me, this is my code:

CODE

on(press) {
canvas_mc.clear();
}

Animated Shapes
I came across this site today: https://bba.bloomberg.net/login.asp?...ntDetection=On

I was wondering how I would be able to make a shape, any shape, sort of 'draw itself' like the curved rectangles on that site?

KaM

Random Shapes Placed
Hi There,

I have a whole lot of flower outline drawings, I want to put them around the edges of a frame. I really like how joshua davis achieves that randomness with his vector images... The shapes seem to resize and twist and get placed differently each time... Anyone know some good examples?

[F8] Expanding Shapes
i'm trying to get the box to expand smoothly
but i'm having trouble having to loop the syntax within the onEnterFrame
any one has a clue?

http://img205.imageshack.us/my.php?i...ripting0zc.swf

stop();
function MoveClip(MC:MovieClip, xyz:Number, MC1:MovieClip) {
MC._alpha = 10;
MC.onEnterFrame = function() {
MC._x += xyz;
MC.onRollOver = function() {
xyz = xyz/2;
tellTarget (MC) {
gotoAndPlay(2);
}
MC._width = (MC._width*2);
MC._height = (MC._height*2);
MC._alpha = 100;
};
MC.onRollOut = function() {
MC._height = (MC._height/2);
MC._width = (MC._width/2);
MC._alpha = 10;
xyz = xyz*2;
};
MC.onPress = function() {
MC.startDrag();
};
MC.onRelease = function() {
MC.stopDrag();
};
MC.onReleaseOutside = function() {
MC._height = (MC._height/2);
MC._width = (MC._width/2);
MC._alpha = 10;
stopDrag();
};
//position controller
if (MC._y>312) {
MC._y = 312;
} else if (MC._y<0) {
MC._y = 0;
} else if (MC._x>550) {
MC._x = 0;
MC._y = random(400);
}
//shape controller
if (MC._width>178) {
MC._width = 89;
} else if (MC._height>178) {
MC._height = 89;
} else if (MC._width<89) {
MC._width = 89;
} else if (MC._height<89) {
MC._height = 89;
}
};
updateAfterEvent();
}
MoveClip(box, 5, box1);
MoveClip(box1, 3);

Movieclips And Shapes
Hi.

I want to create walls for a car game i'm building. But how can i make movieclips wall[0] , wall[1] ....... and draw shapes (like a rectangle or circle) in them in actionscript?

bmolbach

Physics With Odd Shapes
Ok, I want to have physics apply to a shape when it is thrown across the screen. I don't want what a circle would do, but also a square and rectangle, or any odd shape. Also ( this is probably the hardest part ) I want it to bounce of Movie Clips or "landscape" I draw, not just some pre-set boundaries made with Action script. Any help?

Merging Two Shapes Together?
I have two shapes that I draw is as3.
I'd like to merge them together.
I didn't come across any methods for that.

Would I have to figure out where the lines intersect and redraw the image?
Am I talking complicated graphics stuff?

Help With Shapes Not Appearing?
I have an image that I am trying to place drawn shapes on top of. The image is loaded into a loader and then added as a child to an MC called imgHolder. The shapes I am trying to draw on top are part of a Region class. This is what the Region class looks like:

Code:
package main {

import flash.display.MovieClip;

public class Region extends MovieClip {

var title:String;
var type:String;
var wd:int;
var ht:int;
var x_coord:int;
var y_coord:int;
var callout_url:String;
var callout_text:String;
//var myRegion:MovieClip = new MovieClip();

public function Region() {

}

public function drawRegion() {
this.graphics.clear(); //clears the sprite
this.graphics.beginFill(0x000000, 0.85);
this.graphics.lineStyle(4, 0x00ffff, 1)
this.graphics.drawRect(x_coord,y_coord,wd,ht);
this.graphics.endFill();
}

}

}
And in the main code, I call the drawRegion function and then add the regions to the imgHolder MC as well. I don't get any errors, but the shapes don't show up on the image.

Code:
var regions = myXML._feedContentArray[imgNum].regions
var numRegions = regions.length;

for (var i=0; i<numRegions; i++) {
var thisRegion = regions[i];
thisRegion.drawRegion();
imgHolder.addChild(thisRegion);
}
If anyone can help me figure out what's going on, I would be very grateful. Without any errors to work off of, I'm kind of stumped.

Shapes Look Jagged :(
hello!

anybody have any idea how i can get rid og "jaggies" around circles and other shapes?
i've tried smoothing and optimizing them, but it doesn't help. under the compression settings i have "quality: best".

thnx for any help!

Mysterious Shapes
I have built about 4 web sites using flash....a couple from scratch and a couple from templates but not much of the original template was left when I was done. So I'd say I am definitely a beginner but getting close to intermediate.

But, I have what could be a pretty basic question regarding shapes. I know that you can create shapes within flash and convert them to symbols. I know you can import jpgs or gifs. And I know you can create art in Illustrator and import them into flash as either a swf or a shape.

So heres my question. In this particular Flash template I am looking at, in one of the layers, there is an image comprised of various forms and colors and visually it looks like raster image....like a jpg or something.......yet it is listed as a "shape" in the property inspector. But if it was a shape, it seems I should be able to select and edit the individual shapes and colors that make it up.....but I cannot. When I do select the shape, the whole thing has the dot pattern over it indicating it is selected and I could turn the whole thing into one solid color, but I don't want to.....I want to be able to edit each differnt color area seperately.........I Know I could by editing it in Photoshop etc, but I am mostly just curious whats going on here?? To further my curiousity, when I click on the shape, a thick black outline appears around it, when I click off it, the outline goes away.

It amost seems like a raster image was somehow imported into Flash as a non-editable shape, rather than a jpg or gif.
I hope my description and question made sense.
Thanks for any insight.
Ken

Combining Shapes
Hi there.

I am trying to use one shape layer to crop another shape layer; given two intersecting shapes, A and B, I want to erase every part of A that does not lie within B. In principle, this should be as simple as selecting both shapes and choosing Modify->Combine Objects->Crop. Unfortunately, only the "Union" option under Combine Objects is selected -- the "Intersect", "Punch", and "Crop" objects are always grayed out, no matter which two shapes I select or how I try to select them. I have spent over an hour trying to figure this out, to no avail. What am I doing wrong?

Thanks,
Degenerate Spectrum

Merging Shapes
How do you merge two shapes so that they cannot be separated? Like with the brush tool with default settings, individual strokes become merged and are no longer individual vectors. I want to accomplish the same thing with shapes and lines.

Cannot Fill Shapes
For some reason, when I draw a simple shape using the shape tool (rectangle or whatever), only the outline appears. It will not fill. I have checked the layer properties and lock fill for the paint bucket. I have also checked edit preferences. Can anyone help?

Thanks

Arranging Shapes
I'm new to Flash and having a couple problems.

1) Why can't I do an arrange on shapes? If a draw a circle in object mode, then immediately draw it in shape mode, the object will arrange and the shape will not.

2) I realize that Flash does this by default, but how to I turn off the feature where it cuts shapes out of other shapes. I don't understand why it does this. It would seem like if I wanted it to cut one shape out of another, I would actually do just that instead of have it happen all the time.

Anyway, please help. If you know the back story for why it works the way it does it would be cool to know.

Thanks!

Edited: 11/02/2008 at 07:38:01 PM by Daryl_White@stream.com

Text Shapes
I need help figuring out how to get my text into a non-linear shape like a circle, arch or wave. Is there a way to do this without an extension? Is there a way to use a motion guide-like shape but not have the text tweening on that shape - just standing still?

[MX] Blending Shapes
Greetings,

First of all, congratulations for this forum and for the site itself, with very good and nice tutorials and eamples.

I'm almost new to actionscript, but been programming and working with OOP for some years.

Here's my problem:
I have a movie clip (a circle with a line border) and duplicate it to the stage (10 copies).
If 2 or more circles intersect i would like to blend them and get a unique border.

Here's a «working» example (of course, not made by me...)
http://www.friendsofed.com/fmc/david...s/blobs10.html

It can be made with actionscript? or this blending effect is made by some trick layers, trick masks, trick anything?

Thx in advance,
Rui

Text Shapes
Is it possible to add a curv to text?

I would like to write out a sentance and then make it curve without having to do each letter induvidual and rotating by a bit each letter.

How can i do this?

Ugly Shapes
Hey all,
I am having a big problem with anti-aliasing (I think??!!).
I am drawing rectangles in Flash, with a corner radius of "5". My problem now arises when I test the movie in Flash, the corners look horrible and blurry. They look even worse if I test the movie in a broswer (IE6). I have this problem with a lot of shapes in Flash, What needs to be done to fix this??