Flash CS3 Documentation

Learning ActionScript 2.0 in Adobe Flash > Animation, Filters, and Drawings > Scripting animation with ActionScript 2.0

Scripting animation with ActionScript 2.0

You can use ActionScript 2.0 to add animation to your Flash applications, instead of using motion or shape tweens on a timeline.The following sections show you how to use code to animate instances, such as changing the transparency and appearance of the instance, and moving the instance around the Stage.

For information on using the Tween and TransitionManager classes to further automate code-based animations, see ActionScript 2.0 Components Language Reference. These classes help you add advanced easing equations and transition animations to movie clip instances in your application. Many of these effects are difficult to recreate using ActionScript without these prebuilt classes, because the code you need to use involves writing complex mathematical equations to achieve the effect.

For more information about how to animate drawings that you create with code, see Drawing with ActionScript.

The following sections describe how to script animations:

• About animation and frame rate
• Fading objects with code
• Adding color and brightness effects with code
• Moving objects with code
• Panning an image with code

For a source sample of scripted animation in Flash, animation.fla, see the Flash Samples page at www.adobe.com/go/learn_fl_samples. Download and decompress the Samples zip file and navigate to the ActionScript2.0/Animation folder to access the sample.

For samples of photo gallery applications, see the Flash Samples page at www.adobe.com/go/learn_fl_samples. Download the Samples zip file and navigate to the ActionScript2.0/Galleries folder to access these samples:

• gallery_tree.fla
• gallery_tween.fla

These files provide examples of how to use ActionScript to control movie clips dynamically while loading image files into a SWF file, which includes scripted animation.

Flash CS3