animated lines

							Author: Mark Monciardini. From the website: www.designsbymark.com
© Copyright 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001. Mark Monciardini All Rights Reserved.




                                           Animating Lines
                                           Animating lines can be done through Masking. You may
                                           find other alternatives down the road when using Flash.
                                           This was a big request so I’m going to show you how to
                                           do it. It can get as complex as you want, just depends
                                           how much masking work and time you want to put into
                                           it. I’ll show ya how to make a square look like it’s being
                                           drawn.


                                                 Select the Rectangle Tool. Make a rectangle or
                                           square on layer 1, frame 1. Black for Line color and no
                                           Fill color.


                                                Right-click on frame 20 and choose Insert Frame,
                                           then make a new layer.
                                           On this new layer, draw a Filled rectangle over the lines.
                                           Make sure it covers up the lines on layer 1 so you can’t
                                           see them.


                                                Click on the Filled object and go to
                                           Modify>Transform>Rotate. Hold down the Shift key and
                                           rotate the object to the left 40 degrees. Keep it selected.




                                                  Go to Modify>Transform>Scale. Now scale the
                                           filled rectangle so it covers the lines completely. Feel
                                           free to move the object around if you have to. Go ahead
                                           and Group the object when you are done –
                                           Modify>Group.
     Right-click on Frame 20 and choose Insert
Keyframe. Click on frame 1 and drag the object to the
upper left, just passed the top corner of the stroked
square.


    Double-click on frame 1 and go to
Tweening>Motion, then click OK.



    Right-click on layer 2 and select Mask.

Press Enter to play the movie. The Filled object that is
now a Mask moves over the stroked square revealing
the lines little by little until it reached frame 20.
Wherever the Mask is, that is where the object shows
through on the layer below it.


From here it is only your creative imagination.