In addition to animating the movement of an object from one point
to the other, you can specify the path it takes to get there. For
example, say you wanted to add a bee to the flower animation, and
have the bee circle before landing on the flower. You could do this
using a motion guide.
The easiest way to direct motion along a line is set up a guide
layer. A guide layer is a special type of layer that doesn't show
up in your final movie, but gives a graphical representation of
the path that objects linked to it will follow.
Step 1
Create a motion tween using the steps in the Motion Tween section.
Step 2
Create a guide layer by clicking on the new guide layer icon below
the layer list.
Step 3
Select the Guide layer to make it active. Use the Pen, Pencil,
Line, Circle, Rectangle, or Brush tool to draw the desired path.
Step 4
Snap the center of the graphic in the first keyframe to the beginning
of the line in the first frame, and to the end of the line in the
last frame.
Attaching the motion to the guide can be tricky. The onion skin
option is helpful because it will immediately indicate if you've
attached the motion to the path.
The group or symbol follows the motion path when you play the animation.
Note: To hide the motion guide layer and the line so that only the
object's movement is visible when you test the movie, click in the Eye
column on the motion guide layer.
