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Flash Animation 7: Let's Move, Baby.

By Adrien-Luc Sanders, About.com

5 of 10

Animating Inside of Movie Clips II

Select the symbol for the lower arm and hand with the rotation tool; much as you did with the original arm, select the pivot point in the center and move it to the elbow area to create a more realistic rotational movement. Do this on the first frame, then move on to create another key frame a few frames later, as we're going to do quicker movements with the forearm. Continue this throughout your entire range of motion (in my case, 65 frames, to match my main scene).

Try to vary your motion speeds, and insert pauses occasionally, and don't forget that you may again need to nudge your shape a few pixels in any direction to adjust the smoothness of the way the pieces fit together after rotation. Some gestures can be larger or smaller than others, just slight twitches or adjustments. You don't want to throw a waving party while your character's just talking, but still be expressive. I just picked my key points at random; if you have a good sense of natural timing (not necessarily claiming that I do) that can at times work better than trying to explicitly plan out exactly where each key should go.

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