Sams Teach Yourself Adobe Flash CS4 Professional in 24 Hours, Fourth Edition

Chapter 10. Advanced Animation with Inverse Kinematics

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WHAT YOU’LL LEARN IN THIS HOUR:

• Placing bones in your Flash drawings

• Animating your bone-connected graphics

• Adding control points for better results

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In this version of Flash, Adobe has introduced the Bone tool to give animators a way to automatically calculate Inverse Kinematics. Don’t be put off by that phrase. Inverse Kinematics (IK) simply means the calculations involved in figuring out how jointed objects move. Flash handles the IK for you, so all you have to do is use the Bones tool to create the joints and let Flash do the hard part. The Bone tool enables you to easily link several objects together to create a connected chain-like effect.

In this hour, ...