Flash allows you to animate any 2D shape.
Animation in Adobe Flash can be as simple or complex depending on your needs. From generating simple 2D shapes and text that move to full-featured animation sequences of cartoons with 3D elements, Flash's ability to animate is truly universal. Once you have the basic animation features down, which entails animating through motion and shape-tweening, you can advance to the most advanced aspects of animation through ActionScripting and the importing of external files.
Instructions
Prepare Your Characters
1. Draw your characters using the tools in Flash or in an external program such as Photoshop for importing into Flash. What is important is to draw your characters in separate segments: biceps, forearms, hands, fingers (if they will animate), eyes, legs, feet, torso. Any part that will have to move in your animation should be its own artwork.
2. Import your character parts into Flash using "File" > "Import" > "Import to Stage" if you have drawn them in another program.
3. Open the library in Flash by pressing Ctrl+L on your keyboard. Drag out all of the primary components of your character to the stage. Arrange them on the stage in the appropriate positions.
Animate Your Characters
4. Place your cursor at the top left or right corner of the stage, then click and drag a square around everything on the stage in order to select it. Right click on one of the parts and choose "Distribute to Layers." Flash will automatically put each part of your character on its own individual layer which is necessary to animate it using motion tweens.
5. Right-click on one of the moving pieces of your character and choose "Convert to Symbol" from the menu. Name the symbol anything that is specific to what the piece is and click "OK." Click the "free transform" tool on the toolbar and select your piece. You will see a white registration dot in the center of the piece. This represents where this piece will "hinge" or move when animated, so if the piece is an eye or a torso, you can leave the registration dot where it is. If it is a bicep, you will want to drag this dot to the top of the bicep where it would connect to the torso. If the piece is a forearm, you will drag the registration dot to the top where it would connect to the bicep.
6. Continue selecting all of the moving components of your character that would have a "hinging" connection in their movement and move their registration points to the proper place. When you are finished, you can choose the Selection Tool from the toolbar and move all of your pieces exactly to where you want them to be at the start of your animation.
7. Right-click on the timeline and choose "Insert keyframe" for a layer of one of your movable pieces. Move the part to where you want it to be at that moment in time in that keyframe. Right-click on the timeline between the keyframes that you've created and choose "Create Motion Tween" or "Create classic Tween" if you are using a newer version of Flash.
8. Continue adding keyframes as necessary and moving the individual pieces of your animation and adding motion tweens until your animation is complete.
