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Flash Animation 7: Let's Move, Baby.

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Moving the Main Limbs II

With that done, you can set a keyframe on the first frame, then move forward about five to twelve frames, depending on how much you're moving his arm, set another key frame, and then rotate the arm into the position that you want.

Then select the full range of frames, and place a motion tween on those frames. Continue to do this for the full length of your animation, until you have all of the base motions set for the full limbs. This should have you animating both arms stiffly, as well as the head movements, as portrayed above. As you can see, it looks just a little bit odd and puppettish. You'll also notice that I animated the overall limbs rather slowly; this is because we'll be doing the faster, more incisive gesturing with the forearms and hands. Also notice that I left some places still; while people communicate with gestures and body language, we aren't constantly jittering around while talking.

You should watch where your limbs join to your torso; you may have to nudge them a few pixels up or down, or to the left or right, to keep things smooth so they edges of your shapes don't show in the rotational motions.

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