Tutorial details:
Written by: Natalie Ebenreuter www.nee.id.au enatalie@unite.com.au
Difficulty Level: Intermediate
Download FLA
This exercise will cover

How to use shape hints
How to animate along a motion path
Creating buttons
Using simple actions

Press the play button below to see an example of what we will be making. Scroll down to begin.

Create a new document, File/New from the above menu that is 4005 pixels wide and 400 pixels high. You can do this via the Property Inspector by clicking on the size button or by going to Modify/Document on the menu bar. Set the frame rate to 25 frames per second, as we will be animating.


Save your document and call it shapeHint_path.fla


In the first scene create twelve new layers and name them as they appear in the graphic below .


On the centre layer use the circle tool to draw a yellow circle that looks something like this

On the stem layer use the circle tool to draw a green circle and use the pen tool or the pencil tool to draw a long stem. Cut the green circle in half so that it sits nicely under the yellow centre circle. Your stem layer may look something like this.

Hold down the Shift key and Select frame 16 of the centre and stem layers and hit F5 to insert a keyframe on each layer. Now it is time to add some petals. On frame 1 of the right layer using the circle tool draw a long circular shape that looks similar to this


Select frame 16 of the right layer and hit F6 to insert a keyframe. On this frame we would like our petal shape to be open so the graphic on this frame needs to look something like this.


The best way to move the upright petal to this shape is to use the scale tool. The first image below has the registration point of the scale tool in the centre of the graphic. The second image has the registration point where we would like it to rotate from (the base). To do this simply drag the little circle registration point down to the base of the petal shape. The Third image is rotated from the new registration or pivot point.