Petals

Select Edit | Deselect All to make sure nothing is active on the stage.

It's generally a good idea to use folders for organizing related items in your movie. Because there are several petals and each will need its own layer, we'll use a folder to hold these layers. We'll also use a few shortcuts to speed up the process of creating and animating similar objects.

In the timeline, click the New Folder icon to create a new folder. Double-click the folder and change its name to petals. Click the New Layer icon to create a new layer. Drag this layer into the petals folder. Double-click the layer and change its name to 1.

Referring to the timeline, the petals of the flower should appear at frame 20 of the movie.

Select the 1 layer and highlight frame 20. Select Insert | Keyframe from the menu. You should see a blank keyframe appear in frame 20.

Drag a copy of the petal graphic from the library to the stage. The keyframe dot in frame 20 should now be filled, indicating that the frame contains a graphic.

You can use the Free Transform tool or the Property Inspector to decrease the size of the petal graphic. You'll also need to move and/or rotate it to align it with the center of the flower.

Highlight frame 30 of the center layer's timeline. Select Insert | Keyframe from the menu. The petal from frame 20 is now copied to frame 30.

With frame 30 highlighted, resize the petal so it's larger. Once you've resized it, you may need to reposition it near the center, or rotate it to align it. You can may want to distort or skew the petal's shape to make the animation more interesting.

In the Property Inspector select Tint from the Color drop-down menu. Choose gold from the color palette, and set the slider to 50%. The petal should now be a darker yellow.

To make the petal appear to grow and change color, we can add a motion tween between frame 20 and frame 30.

In the 1 layer, highlight frame 20. In the Property Inspector, select Motion from the Tween drop-down menu.

Press the Enter key or select Control | Test Movie to play the tween.

We want to replicate this tween for each of the petals on the flower, but also modify each to be slightly different to a more natural effect of growing individually. Rather than create each of these tweens separately, we'll copy all the frames of the 1 layer, paste them to a new layer, and then modify them.

To copy the 1 layer, click beside the layer name. All the frames should be highlighted, indicated by a black fill.

Select Edit | Copy Frames from the menu.

Click the New Layer icon to create a new layer. By default, it will appear directly above the 1 layer. Click on the new layer to highlight all its frames.

Select Edit | Paste Frames from the menu. Note that the timeline of the new layer now matches the 1 layer, and the name has changed to 1.

Double-click the new layer name and change it from 1 to 2.

Select frame 20 in layer 2. Drag the petal graphic to another location on the flower center. You'll need to use the Free Transform tool to rotate the petal to align with the flower center in its new location.

Select frame 30 in layer 2. Select Insert | Clear Keyframe. Select Insert | Keyframe. This replaces the "full-grown" petal copied from layer 1 with the petal you've just edited on layer 2. Resize the petal to its full-grown shape, and change its tint.

Finally, drag the keyframe in frame 30 back to frame 25. This will cause the petal on layer 2 to 'grow" faster than the one on layer 1.

Repeat these steps for as many petals as you want to add.

The result should look like this:

and play like this: