(15 votes, average: 4.8 out of 5) 
Loading ...One of my favorite things to do in Flash is to program different types of motion. From particle systems to the boss at the end of an advergame—the basic principles for moving things around the screen with code are the same. There was a time when all the different types of motion that I saw happening—back in the Flash 4 days—were a complete mystery to me. I remember spending a long time reverse engineering open source examples from ultrashock.com.
Motion Myth
For some reason lots of people seem to think that ActionScript animation creates smoother animation than the Flash timeline. This is simply not true. The timeline is just as capable of creating “smooth” animations as ActionScript is.
On the timeline, if you want a smoother animation, use a framerate around 30fps and put more space between your keyframes.
ActionScript vs. Timeline
Students sometimes ask me when to use coded animation and when to use timeline animation. The answer is more complicated than you might expect. Here’s a basic set of rules:
TIMELINE ANIMATION IS FOR:
- animation that is always the same (static animation)
ACTIONSCRIPT ANIMATION IS FOR:
- interactive animation
- random animation
- animation driven from an outside source like an rss feed
- complex, static physics simulations that would be hard to animate on the timeline
- complex interactive physics simulation
- time-based animation—that is, animation that always runs at the same speed independent of framerate
