Sometimes morphing one shape into another shape might not give the result you were hoping for, especially when one or both shapes have many corners. Shape hints allow us to control and to limit some improbable shape changes. Shape hints identify points that should correspond in starting and ending shapes.

Let's create an animation that will morph

1. Create a new FLA

2. Select the first frame on the main timeline and in the properties panel assign a shape tweening to that frame (Fig1)

Fig1
3. With the first frame selected select the text tool and create an upper case A choose the font Arial and set the size to 200. Select the text field and press CTRL+B, this will break the shape to make it available to shape tweening. (Fig2)

Fig2

4. Insert a blank key frame at frame 30, your timeline should now look like the one below (Fig4)



5. With keyframe 30 selected select the text tool and create an upper case Y choose the font Arial and set the size to 200. Select the text field and press CTRL+B, this will break the shape to make it available to shape tweening. (Fig5)




We now have a A on frame 1 and a Y on frame 30 that are both linked with a shape tweening (Fig6)

Fig6

If you test your movie you should end up with an animation like the one shown below, you will notice that the morphing seems very chaotic, there is no symmetry in the change of shape. This is where we are going to use the handy shape hints to help us to control the morphing.




Continue to next page...