i had a talk to a friend of mine as to how this would be achieved. i can’t seem to achieve the answer.
basically what i want to do is this. the screen is basically empty initially in the animation, with only a dot. but as soon as the dot blinks, i want it to begin moving, and eventually outlining the shape of a human, and also outlining background details. afterwards, i would like the real photograph to fade in, behind the outlining, to create a photograph with the edges basically all outlined.
really appreciate it. i have a string of other things i’m looking at too. i have a client interested, and our flash team just left for further persuing their graphic design careers at york university.
i’ve done the same thing as what you are looking to do but i wanted a emulate a pen writing words.
the way you can do this is by first opening a new .fla.
1.in the first layer (call this layer image) import your image.
2.create a new layer.
3.call this layer outline.
4.draw your outlines.
5.open a new layer.
6.call this layer mask.
7.this is where the faux animating comes in.
8.depending on how long you think the video should be, go to frame 60 and select it in all the layers .
9.right click frame 60 and chose insert frame.
10.you should now have 60 frames in your timeline.
11.go to your mask layer and in frame 1 make a dot with the paint brush where you want the line to start.
12.create a new keyframe in frame 2 with “F6”.
13.in frame 2 draw a line with the paint brush from the dot on the outline to approx 10 pixels over in the direction you want the emulated drawing to go.
14.create new keyframe.
again use the brush to continue the line to the next point 10 pixels along your outline.
15.repeat these steps until you have completely covered the outline in frame 60 with an brush outline of your own.
16.right click mask layer and select mask. this will automatically make the outline layer a masked layer if it is directly below the the layer called mask.
17.play the movie and see how each frame shows a little more of your ouline at a time until the whole outline is shown.
18.WHAT!!! flash is drawing your outline before your very eyes!!!
19.to finish it off add an extra 10 or 15 frames to your layers.
20.move frame 1 of image layer to frame 61.
21.select frame 62 right click and select add motion tween.
22.select frame 70 and add a keyframe.
23.select frame 61 again and then select the image in the workspace window.
24.in the images properties toolbar chose “alpha” from the color drop down menu and set the alpha to 0.
25.now when you play the movie the image will fade in after the outline is finished.