A few things about shape hints.

• To remove a shape hint, drag it off the Stage or outside the flash application all together.
• To remove all shape hints, go to the above menu and Select Modify/Shape/Remove All Hints. You must be on an active layer that contains shape hints for this to be effective. It will not remove every shape hint in your entire movie just those on the selected layer.
• As general rule shape hints are yellow in a starting keyframe, green in an ending keyframe, and red when not on a curve.

I can guarantee you will be a master of shape hints buy the time you have added all the remaining petals. They can be quite temperamental at times and as our remaining petals require a few different shapes we should go through some of the tricks you may need to use. The next petal to create will be simple as it will be the opposite of the one we just created. On the left layer you can copy the two petal frames, adjust their position around the stem, add a shape tween and reapply the shape hints. You could try copying everything and modifying it to sit on the left hand side of the stem but copying the shape hint information can be a little messy and unsuccessful.


The next best petal to create and tween would be the centre front petal on the front centrelayer. The images below give you a guide to the shape hints order for this particular petal. I only used two shape hints for this petal as the shape tween is a more simple shape for flash to tween. You will notice that a and b have been reversed to stop the petal from flipping over. This will also depend on how you create your graphics and scale them on frame 16.


The front centre tween can now be modified quite easily for the centre back layer. The next petal is a little tricky as it is for the corner petals and because of their shape and positioning they can take a while to get right. You really only have to get one right and the rest will follow. Below is a guide for the shape hints for the petal on the centre left layer. You will notice that the shape hints b and d swap positions on the 16th frame, this is because the shape began to filp. To prevent a shape from twisting or flipping it usually helps to swap the hints around. This will also apply for the shape hints on the centre right layer.


The Lucky last petals to add will be the front corner petals on the layers front right and front left. You could manipulate the centre right and centre left tween as a starting point. The images below are a guide for the front right shape hints.

Now that all our petals are tweening beautifully with the addition of shape hints your layers should look something like this.



To add a little more animation to our flower it would be nice to have a petal to float to the ground after it opens. To control the direction of how a petal floats to the will require the use of a motion guide. It is time to create a motion guide.

In Scene one hold down Shift and select keyframe 45 on every layer and hit F5 to insert a frame. Now your movie will be 45 frames long. Select frame 16 on the front left layer and hit F6 to insert a keyframe. Select the new keyframe you just added in frame 17 and hit F8 to convert the petal shape to a graphic. We are going to be using a motion tween with our motion guide so we cannot a shape to do this. In the properties panel be sure that graphic is selected, call your graphic front left and hit ok.


At the bottom of the layers pallet are three icons. With the front left layer selected hit the middle icon that looks like a plus sign with a red dotted line to add a motion guide.


Select frame 17 of layer Guide: front left and hit F7 to insert a blank keyframe. With the pencil tool selected in smooth mode draw a long curvy line from the edge of the front left petal to the ground.



If your line looks a bit jagged select it and click the smooth tool to iron out the edges.




While your line is still selected, click on the magnet icon just above the smooth tool to enable snap to objects.



Deselect your line and grab the end of the line that is closest to the petal when you see the little black arrow appear. We are now in the process of attaching the motion guideto our petal. If you move the end of the line towards the centre of the petal graphic a black circle will appear and feel as if it is attaching itself to the front petal graphic.



One layer down to the front left layer, select frame 45 and hit F6to insert a keyframe. Move the front left petal graphic to the end position of the motion guide and you will find that once again a black circle will appear and allow you to snap the petal to the motion guide.

Select frame 17 and in the property inspector next to Tween select Motion. Play around with some of the settings. We went through easing in the previous tweening example so you will be all set to create some effective floating animation.