Layers and Independent Motion of a Compound Object

(adapted from Flash 5 by Bill Sanders and used with his permission)

Objectives:

Basics:

Exercise:

a) Layers

b) The Body Layer

c) The Components of the Legs

  • drag the instance of each component of the leg to its appropriate layer
  • the centers of each of these instances must be changed so that each center will act as a pivot point for each component
  • to move the center point
    • increase the magnification of the stage to between 200 and 400 percent by using the pop-up menu located near the upper right hand corner of the stage
    • select each instance in turn and then select the Free Transform Tool from the Tool Box
    • click on the the center point and without releasing the mouse drag the center to the locations as indicated below
      • for the thigh and calf the pivot point should be moved to the top of the object where the leg joints would go
      • the foot pivot point should be moved to the point where where the ankle joins the lower leg
    • using the pop-up menu select Show frame

d) Positioning of the Components

  • place the body instance in the middle of the vertical guide with the bottom of the body just touching the horizontal guide
  • the initial position of each leg is shown in figure 1 in the diagrams below and the information provided in the table below can be used as a guide to help position each leg. Remember that these are a guide and you may have to adjust the rotation to get the desired result.
  • to get the right component angles use the Scale and Rotate Command found in the Transform Panel in the Modify menu.

Positioning of the legs (Component Angles)

Keyframe
Right Thigh
Left Thigh
Right calf
Left Calf
Right Foot
Left Foot
1
20
-20
20
-20
20
-20
5
0
15
0
-80
0
-80
9
-20
20
-20
20
-20
20
13
15
0
-80
0
-80
0
17
20
-20
20
-20
20
-20
    • drag the components of the right leg together
    • click on the Black arrow in the Tool Box and while holding down the Shift Key select the components of the right leg
    • rotate the components using the Scale and Rotate Command by inputting the value 20 and then clicking on OK
    • use the arrow keys to move the objects into the correct position. Remember to use the pivot points.
  • insert keyframes in all but the background layer in frames 5, 9, 13 and 17.
  • hold down the shift key and select frame 1 in all of the layers except the background layer
  • insert a motion tween
  • repeat the same process for frames 5, 9 and 13 remembering to exclude the background layer and the result should look like the diagram at the right.

 

Walking Movie