How to Cheat in Adobe Flash CS4

Background Blurring

IF YOU WATCH animated shows on television then I’m sure you’ve seen the motion blur technique, where the characters remain relatively still while the background is being blurred. This provides the illusion that the character is flying through air at incredible speed. Visually it’s a very dramatic effect and can be used in myriad ways during an action sequence.

The illusion here is that the background is actually moving through the shot – but in fact it doesn’t have to be and in most cases never really moves at all. In this example the shapes that represent the motion simply wiggle slightly in a very short loop. What makes this ...