Flash CS3 Professional Advanced for Windows and Macintosh: Visual QuickPro Guide

1. Building Complexity

The key to creating complex animations in Flash is building them from simpler parts. You should think of your Flash project as being a collection of simpler motions, just as the movement of a runner is essentially a collection of rotating limbs. Isolating individual components of a much larger, complicated motion allows you to treat each component with the most appropriate technique, simplifies the tweening, and gives you better control with more refined results.

To animate a head that's turning quickly to face the camera, for example, you would first consider how to simplify the animation into separate motions. Animating the entire sequence at the same time would be difficult, if not impossible, because the many elements ...