Creating Page-based Animations

Creating Page-based Animations

You're not just limited to working with layers to create animations. You can use the document pages as the individual frames of an animation. The benefit of this method is that you can easily visualize the animation as you work.

To manually create a page animation:

Create your first frame's artwork on a page.

Duplicate the page and modify the artwork on that duplicate page.

Continue to duplicate pages and modify the artwork. Each page of the document becomes a frame of the animation . You can then export the file as an animation. (See page 250 for steps on how to export the file as an SWF movie.)

Figure 6. Individual pages can be used to layout a page animation.

To use master pages to create a page animation:

Create the master page or pages that contain the artwork.

Create as many child pages based on those master pages

Figure 7. The common elements for this page animation come from the master pages.

Add individual elements to each page.

or

Use the Release child page command in the Document inspector panel. This releases the objects on the page from the master page symbols (see Chapter 4 Working With Pages

Select and modify the individual elements on each page.

Page- and Layer-based Animations

Finally, you can create animations that use both pages and layers as the animation frames . The pages act like different scenes that you jump to, while the layers act like different frames.

Figure 8. An example of how using both pages and layers can create an animation.

To create page- and layer-based movies:

Apply the elements for the first scene on the first page.

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To view the elements throughout the scene, place them on a non-printing layer.

Apply the elements for each frame to individual layers. These are the elements that change during the scene.

Apply the elements for the next scene to the next page.

Apply the elements for each frame to the individual layers. These are the elements that change during the scene.

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Objects on each layer are seen only on the page that is displayed. So one layer can contain frames for different scenes.

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You must have at least one element on a printing layer in order for any nonprinting layers to be visible during the animation.