This exercise that we practiced in class uses a
movieclip symbol to make text look like its jumping around like
in Kyle Cooper's opening credit sequence for the film Seven. SEE
THE FINAL RESULT
1. Type your text on the stage
2. Select the text and convert it to a graphic symbol,
Insert-->Convert to Symbol and choose Graphic. Name this
symbol with the extension _still
3. Make the text fade in: put another keyframe further
down the timeline in frame 25 (Insert-->Keyframe)
And then, with frame 25 selected go to Modify-->Instance
Click the Effect tab, pull down Alpha and set the
value to 99 or 100
Then click in the first frame and set this alpha
value to 0
Right-Click in between the two keyframes and choose
Create Motion Tween
4. Now create another layer for the jumping around
text, and get in the habit of naming your layers, the bottom layer
here is the "fade in layer" the top layer is the "mc
layer"
5. Create a keyframe in frame 21 of the new
mc layer. Click in frame 21 of the mc layer and go to Insert-->Keyframe.
6. The keyframe you created is a blank keyframe,
because there is no content in it yet. With the blank keyframe
selected, drag another copy (an instance) of the freeman_still
graphic symbol from the library onto the stage.
7. The keyframe should now have a solid dot, because
there is now content in this frame. Remember, you can't introduce
any changes to the timeline without making a keyframe, so if you
forgot to make a blank keyframe first, then the content will automatically
appear in the first frame (which is always already a keyframe)
instead of the 21st frame. If this happens, drag the keyframe
from frame 1 to frame 21.
8. Make this new copy that you dragged from the
library into a movieclip symbol. Select the keyframe on frame
21 and go to Insert-->Convert to Symbol and choose Movie
Clip. What you are doing is "nesting symbols". The movieclip
symbol is made up of the graphic symbol. Name this symbol with
the extension _moving
9. Think of a movieclip symbol as a movie with its
own timeline. Drag the movieclip on frame 21 so that it is very
close to the position of the text that fades in. Then lock
the fade in layer so that you don't accidentally select it.
Now right-click on the symbol and choose Edit in Place
10. Notice that you are now looking at another timeline
(not the "main" timeline with text that fades in). At
the top of the screen you should see the "breadcrumb"
path that shows you where you are: inside the timeline of the
movieclip symbol freeman_moving.
11. We want this movieclip to jump around randomly
so it looks like the text flickers and jumps unevenly. Start by
creating a bunch of keyframes. Click F6 (the shortcut for Insert-->Keyframe)
repeatedly so that you have a keyframe in every frame from 1 to
25.
12. Now select random frames and move the text,
make it bigger, remove it, or change its color. Do something different
for most of the frames. Leave some frames unchanged. Try and make
it look sporadic.
In frame 2, I moved the text down a little
In frame 4, I made the text bigger (Modify-->Transform-->Scale)
I deleted the text from frame 5 so it is
blank and looks like the text flickers.
In frame 7 I made the text small (Modify-->Transform-->Scale)
and moved it up a little.
In frame 9 I made the text a different
color. (Modify-->Instance and then select Effect,
choose tint and then select the color you would like
to tint the text.)
I deleted a few more random frames and
made the text in frame 18 appear backwards. (Modify-->Transform-->Flip
Horizontal).
Test what the effect looks like. Go to Control-->Loop
Playback and then click enter. The timeline should play
continuously. Make any adjustments to your frames so that
it looks the way you want it to.
13. When you are done tweaking each of those keyframes,
go back to the main timeline. Click Scene 1 at the top of the
screen and you will come back to the Main Timeline.
14. Let's extend that fade on the bottom layer so
that the text takes longer to fade in. Click in frame 60 of the
fade in layer and go to Insert-->Frame, then click the
keyframe in frame 25 and drag it to frame 60.
The Goal: We want
the text on the bottom layer to fade in slowly, and then fade
out slowly. When it starts to fade in, we want to see the jumping
around text effect, but as the still text fades out, we want the
jumping around text to fade out also.
15. So let's make the movie clip symbol fade also.
Click further down the timeline of the mc layer (frame 50 for
now) and insert a keyframe. Then click on the first keyframe (frame
21 here) and set the alpha to 100. (Modify-->Instance, choose
Effect and then Alpha.) Then click on the keyframe in frame
50 and set the Alpha of that instance to 0
Then make a tween between these two frames. Click
on the layer in between the two keyframes, right-click and choose
Create Motion Tween.
16. Now we want that text on the bottom "fade
in layer" to fade out. Click inside frame100 and then Insert-->Frame
17. Insert a keyframe in frame 100, and then change
the Alpha to 0. (So that now we have 3 keyframes in this layer
that change the text from alpha 0 to alpha 100, and then from
alpha 100 back to 0.)
Make a tween between frames 60 and 100 so the text
fades out.
18. Make the mc layer tween last as long as the
fade in layer. Click inside frame 100 of the mc layer and go to
Insert-->Frame.
Then click the keyframe in frame 50 and drag it
to frame 100.
19. Finally, we can extend the timeline a little
longer so that it doesn't end abruptly.
