In this post I will cover some important animation principles used to give life and interest to Flash animations.

1. Squash and Stretch
The classic example of this principle is a bouncing ball. When a ball bounces on the floor the shape of the ball is “squashed” because of the effect of gravity. To add a feeling of speed to the ball you can “stretch” it out while it is at its fastest key frame.

2. Anticipation
Anticipation is the act of preparing for action. Think of someone winding up for a pitch. To use this principle in Flash, simply drop your object back in the opposite direction for a few frames and add a slight pause, then let the action carry through.

3. Follow Through
Think of “follow through” as if a person just threw a ball and their arm is continuing to swing downward. The momentum of the swing carries the arm forward and down.

4. Easing In and Out
Easing is slowing in or slowing out of a movement. It can add grace and elegance to an animation, making it more believable by creating the illusion of weight and resistance.

5. Exaggeration
To give a larger-than-life feel to your animation, try exaggeration. Scale your objects on your extreme key frames to add punch. Animate some things larger or smaller than they normally would be. Be careful not overdo it or your animation will become overbearing and garish.

Have you ever wondered how some Flash sites have slick, smooth animations? When it comes to creating smooth animation in Flash, there are some things to keep in mind.

A common mistake for Flash beginners is to use Flash’s preset frame rate which is 12 frames per second (fps). This will invariably cause animation with a choppy, stuttering look. What we really want is a smooth, crisp animation similar to video and film. To do this, we must increase our frame rate.

The frame rate of a motion picture is 24 frames per second. Television uses 30 frames per second. These frame rates are what’s required to create convincing movement of still images.

Flash gives you the option to choose a frame rate between .01 and 120 fps. Chances are, you will never need to go as high as 120 fps or as low as .01 fps. Somewhere in-between is the magic number.

To get a better idea of how frames per second works take a look at the chart below. You can see visually how frame rate can make a big difference between choppy and smooth animation.

I’ve found through many years of animating in flash that a good round number is 30 fps. You can get a good smooth animated punch with this frame rate. I’ve even used up to 60 fps which can have a great snap and crispness to it. Be careful, however, when using a rate this high, as some people may have slower computers and cannot process the information being streamed over the internet.

Next time we’ll discuss the principles of animation and how to utilize them for maximum effect.

What is Lorem Ipsum? Lorem Ipsum, also known as “greeking” in the design industry, is simply dummy text that is used as a placeholder for the actual text that will fill a certain area of a design.

Blocks of text are essentially visual elements in a design. They are groupings of smaller shapes that make up larger ones visually. It is extremely important to keep this in mind when designing, because you may run into a problem when the Lorem Ipsum you’re using does not match the word count of the actual text that is coming from the client. You might have a beautiful design in the beginning and in the end have to redesign entire areas to fit your content.

Think of page layout being similar to putting a puzzle together. If you are missing pieces of the puzzle, it is much harder to put together and can be quite a headache for the designer and later, the client. If there are spaces that are detrimental to the design, then it is all important to acquire the actual text that will be used before starting the layout process. In some cases, the client may be working on the content and can only give an idea of the word count that will be used. That’s when Lorem Ipsum comes in handy!

Another useful attribute of Lorem Ipsum for designers is that clients won’t get hung-up on whether or not you spelled “the” correctly. They may have the urge to read and make comments that are not directly related to the design. Lorem Ipsum keeps everyone on the same page and allows the creativity of a design to be noticed.