Inverse Kinematics or IK is an animation technique that is new to Flash. Instead of animating the individual parts of an object as isolated elements, IK creates relationships or links between elements so that the movement of one element affects the movement of other related elements. This tutorial will introduce the Bone Tool with a very simple sample.

Note: The IK tools are only available if your project file is targeting Flash Player 10 and using ActionScript 3.0. 

Step 1: Create a new Flash movie with the ActionScript version set to 3.0 and frame rate set to 24. The background color and  the stage size do not matter for this tutorial.

Step 2: Pick the Oval Tool (O), set the Stroke Color to black and the Fill Color to something light. Draw a circle on the stage.

Step 3: Use the Select Tool (V) and select the circle. Now Press F8 on your keyword to convert it to a symbol.  The symbol Type should be: Movie Clip. Place a series of this symbol instances on the Stage. You can use multiple instances of the same shape or a variety of different symbol instances. Here we are using multiple instances of the same shape.

Step 4: Select the Bone tool (X) and click on the symbol instance that you want to start your bone chain.

Note: Think of the first symbol instance as the anchor point of your animation. The initial symbol instance in the chain will have a fixed x, y position by default, while the connected instances can be moved on the Stage with the Selection tool.

Step 5: Hold down the mouse and drag to see a preview of the bone that will connect the first symbol instance to the next one in your chain. Release the mouse when the end of the bone is connected to the next symbol in the chain. Click the second symbol in the chain and drag a new bone to connect to the third symbol in the chain. Continue clicking and adding sequential ones to create a series of joined symbol instances.

Note: You can change the position of your IK chain in a series of property keyframes to create poses that are animated on the pose layer.

Step 6: Extend the frame span by inserting additional frames on the pose layer. Scrub the Timeline to a frame where you would like to add a new pose. Use the Selection tool (V) or the Properties panel to make changes to the position (or shape) of your armature.

That’s it! Bone Tool is new to flash, so we need more tutorials to learn all the features. In the next tutorial I’ll try to have more professional look to this tool and show other features of this tool with a better sample.

Downloads:

Flash CS4: Bone Tool

3 Responses to “CS4: Bone Tool (1)”

1. rhinoplasty says:

   September 24, 2009 at 3:36 am

   Nice site!
2. InjextStexy says:

   November 3, 2009 at 6:58 am

   Other variant is possible also
3. admin says:

   November 3, 2009 at 10:53 am

   Yes, you are right, this was just a simple one.