Animated Ball
Flash MX 2004

This is a beginner flash tutorial that shows how to create a simple animation using a simple shape. Click here to see the finished product.

First create a new document. Select File/New/Flash Document and click OK. Now we will want to select the Oval tool and draw out a circle. You can push the shift button while dragging to make a perfect circle.

I have put a solid black border of 2.75 around the circle using the property inspector. You can change the color of the border or the circle by clicking the drop down arrow next to the corresponding color tile and selecting a new color.

Make sure that the ball is selected. If it is not, grab the selection tool (keyboard short cut V) and drag a box around the entire ball. You can tell if it is selected by all the little dots on it as shown below. Choose Modify/Convert to Symbol. From the flyout menu name the symbol "Ball", and select graphic for the behavior.

Now we need to right click on the first frame and select Insert Keyframe.

Next go to frame 60 and insert another Keyframe as above. Making sure that frame 60 is selected, move the ball somewhere else in the document. If you hold down the shift key, you can drag it perfectly horizontal.

Right click on any frame between 1 and 60 and select Create Motion Tween.

You should now be able to click and drag left and right on the little red scrub bar that shows where you are on the time line, and the ball should move with it.

From the file menu select File/Publish Preview/Flash to view your movie. You may notice that it looks a little choppy. Double click on the window that shows the frames per second (fps). Change this to 25 or higher and see what happens.

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