Bill's Design Tips - Flash, Graphics, and much more

Animation adds interest to a page, but should not be overdone. It provides a natural focus, if it is designed correctly. As much as possible the graphics in the animation should be smooth, and fade in and out, so that they are gentle on the eye. First we could give a quick introduction to the animation with some text:

This is achieved by inserting text at Frame 1, and then a key from at another frame, then the Create Motion Tweening between the frame, such as:

The first frame is then scaled down, and Frame 24 has the expanded version:

The Flash file can be downloaded here. An agent can be animated by inserting the graphic for the agent, and then scaling it down, and adding a 0% alpha transparency to it. The agent will then appear on the screen, and expand to show the correct size. Finally the agent is faded away.

Our final animation is:

33. Animating Agents