Motion Guides
Step 1:
In this example I will be moving the Sun along a motion guide. I always prefer to create movie clips
for my animations so I will be turning my sun drawing into a movie clip by right clicking on it and
selecting ‘Convert to Symbol’
This box should appear. Select Movie Clip and give it a sensible name. Click OK.
.
Double Click on the Sun movie clip to go into mcSun’s timeline.
Step 2:
Rename Layer 1 to ‘Sun’ and then click on the Add Motion Guide button.
Step 3:
Lock the Sun layer and then draw a line on the motion guide layer. Bend it using the black arrow
tool. (I use pink lines because they tend to be easier to see on most backgrounds).
Step 4:
Extend the frames on both layers by clicking on the frame you want your animation to run to. In this
example I will be running the animation up to frame 40. As my animation is running at 20 frames
per second my animation will last 2 seconds.
Step 5:
Unlock the Sun layer and lock the motion guide layer.
Then right click anywhere on the sun layer’s timeline and select ‘Create Motion Tween’.
Note how the timeline changes colour and also shows a dotted line running through it.
Step 6:
On the last frame of the sun layer (in my example it is frame 40) press F6 to copy the frame.
Note how the timeline now has a solid line running through it with an arrow head at one end.
Move your shape to the end of that line. It should snap in place.
Step 7:
Select the first frame and check to make sure your shape is ‘snapped’ to the start of the line.
If it is then Press CTRL+ENTER to test your movie.