Shape Tweening

Summary

In this chapter, you took a gentle stroll around the world of shape tweening, thereby adding another tool to your increasingly powerful armory.

In the case study, you added the lion’s share of your website’s animation. In later chapters, you will control these opening and closing tweens with ActionScript, triggered by button-based interaction.

You saw that

• Shape tweening complements motion tweening. It enables you to morph shapes into other shapes, morph shapes into text, and more.

• Shape tweens operate on lines and fills rather than the grouped shapes and symbols that motion tweens act upon.

• Shape tweening can be combined with color changes and movement.

• Shape hints give you a fine degree of control over the way a shape tween will work.

In the next chapter, you’re going to look at a technique that can add engaging visual effects to your Flash movies, especially when used in conjunction with shape and motion tweens—masking.