Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
Culture Documents
This article examines how to apply spring to various IK armature examples to quickly create
animations that would be difficult and time-consuming to create manually.
1. After downloading and unzipping the sample files for this tutorial, open spring_basic_1.fla in Flash
Professional CS5.
2. Lengthen the IK span by inserting about 100 frames. Click on Frame 100 in the armature layer and press the
F5 key to insert the frames.
3. Position the frame indicator on Frame 10 (see Figure 2).
Figure 2. The frame indicator on Frame 10 after lengthening the IK span
4. Using the Selection tool (V), grab the last bone in the armature and drag it straight down so that the armature
is now angled approximately 90 degrees from its original position (see Figure 3).
So what does strength actually mean when it is applied to a bone or to an entire armature? Simply put, strength
is the amount of rigidity the bone can have. The more strength applied to a bone, the more rigid the bone will
be. The less strength applied to a bone, the more flexible that bone will be.
Play the animation to see the difference between spring strengths (see Figure 6). For reference:
1. As you did in the previous spring example, position the frame indicator on Frame 10 (you can choose a
different frame if you'd like but I prefer to start with Frame 10 and then adjust later if necessary).
2. Using the Selection tool, position the armature into a compressed position (see Figure 9). The easiest way to
do this is to move the second bone from the bottom first, then work your way up the chain until you reach the
last bone.
For a different effect, you can adjust the amount of spring for each bone individually. Remember, lower Spring
strength values give more flexibility to the bone; higher numerical values yield less flexibility.
1. Open spring_shape_1.fla.
2. Start with a simple shape drawn with the Rectangle (R) tool (see Figure 11).
Figure 13. In Frame 5, the last bone in the armature is dragged downward into a vertical position
7. Double-click one of the bones to select the entire armature.
8. In the Properties panel expand the Spring section and adjust the Strength to 100. Flash Professional CS5 will
apply the new Spring strength to the armature.
9. Play the animation to see the effect (see Figure 14).
This content requires Flash To view this content, JavaScript must be enabled, and you need the
latest version of the Adobe Flash Player. To view this content, JavaScript must be enabled, and you
need the latest version of the Adobe Flash Player.
Figure 14. Example of an armature with springiness applied uniformly (mouse over the button to play)
Applying an IK armature to shapes with Spring provides almost limitless animation possibilities. In the previous
example the entire armature was given a Spring strength value of 100. Of course, you don't have to use the
Spring strength throughout the entire armature. If you select each bone individually, you can vary the strength
based on how much flexibility you want per bone. Simply select each bone and adjust the amount of Spring
individually. I prefer to limit the amount of spring at the root bone (the first bone in the armature) while
increasing the amount of spring towards the last child bone in the armature. For example, I assigned a strength
of 100 to the first bone, 80 to the second, 50 to the third, 40 to the fourth, 30 to the fifth, and 10 to the sixth (see
Figure 15).
Figure 15. Root bone (left) with the least amount of flexibility (highest numerical value) and last child
bone (right) with the most flexibility (lowest numerical value)
Play the animation to see the effect (see Figure 16).
This content requires Flash To view this content, JavaScript must be enabled, and you need the
latest version of the Adobe Flash Player. To view this content, JavaScript must be enabled, and you
need the latest version of the Adobe Flash Player.
Figure 16. Example of an armature with springiness applied separately to each bone (mouse over the button to
play)
The elephant example (elephant.fla) shows how converting the trunk armature to a symbol allows you to easily
position it relative to the character facial features and apply a subtle color tint to help separate it from the body
color (see Figure 18).
This content requires Flash To view this content, JavaScript must be enabled, and you need the
latest version of the Adobe Flash Player. To view this content, JavaScript must be enabled, and you
need the latest version of the Adobe Flash Player.
Figure 19. Example of an armature converted to a symbol to help with positioning for an animation (mouse
over the button to play)
Where to go from here
At this point you know enough about the Spring feature to start creating your own examples.
I created a few examples to show you some basic ways to use the Spring tool and control its behavior along
with other timeline animations. I hope these help provide a springboard (pardon the pun) for your Flash
Professional CS5 animation experiments. These examples include some Jell-O like movement (see Figure 20), a
swinging arm (see Figure 21), and a set of four animated armatures moving at once (see Figure 22).
This content requires Flash To view this content, JavaScript must be enabled, and you need the
latest version of the Adobe Flash Player. To view this content, JavaScript must be enabled, and you
need the latest version of the Adobe Flash Player.
Figure 20. The spring_jello.fla example (mouse over the button to play)
This content requires Flash To view this content, JavaScript must be enabled, and you need the
latest version of the Adobe Flash Player. To view this content, JavaScript must be enabled, and you
need the latest version of the Adobe Flash Player.
Figure 21. The spring_arm.fla example (mouse over the button to play)
This content requires Flash To view this content, JavaScript must be enabled, and you need the
latest version of the Adobe Flash Player. To view this content, JavaScript must be enabled, and you
need the latest version of the Adobe Flash Player.
Figure 22. The spring_examples.fla example (mouse over the buttons to play)
To further hone your animation skills, read the Animation Learning Guide for Flash, which explains how to use
all of these animation types in Flash, including the improved way of creating and editing motion tweens using
the Timeline and Motion Editor.