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How to use frames and keyframes in Animate

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  1. Adobe Animate User Guide
  2. Introduction to Animate
    1. What's New in Animate
    2. Visual Glossary
    3. Animate system requirements
    4. Animate keyboard shortcuts
    5. Work with Multiple File Types in Animate
  3. Animation
    1. Animation basics in Animate
    2. How to use frames and keyframes in Animate
    3. Frame-by-frame animation in Animate
    4. How to work with classic tween animation in Animate
    5. Brush Tool
    6. Motion Guide
    7. Motion tween and ActionScript 3.0
    8. About Motion Tween Animation
    9. Motion tween animations
    10. Creating a Motion tween animation
    11. Using property keyframes
    12. Animate position with a tween
    13. How to edit motion tweens using Motion Editor
    14. Editing the motion path of a tween animation
    15. Manipulating motion tweens
    16. Adding custom eases
    17. Creating and applying Motion presets
    18. Setting up animation tween spans
    19. Working with Motion tweens saved as XML files
    20. Motion tweens vs Classic tweens
    21. Shape tweening
    22. Using Bone tool animation in Animate
    23. Work with character rigging in Animate
    24. How to use mask layers in Adobe Animate
    25. How to work with scenes in Animate
  4. Interactivity
    1. How to create buttons with Animate
    2. Convert Animate projects to other document type formats
    3. Create and publish HTML5 Canvas documents in Animate
    4. Add interactivity with code snippets in Animate
    5. Creating custom HTML5 Components
    6. Using Components in HTML5 Canvas
    7. Creating custom Components: Examples
    8. Code Snippets for custom Components
    9. Best practices - Advertising with Animate
    10. Virtual Reality authoring and publishing
  5. Workspace and workflow
    1. Creating and managing Paint brushes
    2. Using Google fonts in HTML5 Canvas documents
    3. Using Creative Cloud Libraries and Adobe Animate
    4. Use the Stage and Tools panel for Animate
    5. Animate workflow and workspace
    6. Using web fonts in HTML5 Canvas documents
    7. Timelines and ActionScript
    8. Working with multiple timelines
    9. Set preferences
    10. Using Animate authoring panels
    11. Create timeline layers with Animate
    12. Export animations for mobile apps and game engines
    13. Moving and copying objects
    14. Templates
    15. Find and Replace in Animate
    16. Undo, redo, and the History panel
    17. Keyboard shortcuts
    18. How to use the timeline in Animate
    19. Creating HTML extensions
    20. Optimization options for Images and Animated GIFs
    21. Export settings for Images and GIFs
    22. Assets Panel in Animate
  6. Multimedia and Video
    1. Transforming and combining graphic objects in Animate
    2. Creating and working with symbol instances in Animate
    3. Image Trace
    4. How to use sound in Adobe Animate
    5. Exporting SVG files
    6. Create video files for use in Animate
    7. How to add a video in Animate
    8. Draw and create objects with Animate
    9. Reshape lines and shapes
    10. Strokes, fills, and gradients with Animate CC
    11. Working with Adobe Premiere Pro and After Effects
    12. Color Panels in Animate CC
    13. Opening Flash CS6 files with Animate
    14. Work with classic text in Animate
    15. Placing artwork into Animate
    16. Imported bitmaps in Animate
    17. 3D graphics
    18. Working with symbols in Animate
    19. Draw lines & shapes with Adobe Animate
    20. Work with the libraries in Animate
    21. Exporting Sounds
    22. Selecting objects in Animate CC
    23. Working with Illustrator AI files in Animate
    24. Applying blend modes
    25. Arranging objects
    26. Automating tasks with the Commands menu
    27. Multilanguage text
    28. Using camera in Animate
    29. Graphic filters
    30. Sound and ActionScript
    31. Drawing preferences
    32. Drawing with the Pen tool
  7. Platforms
    1. Convert Animate projects to other document type formats
    2. Custom Platform Support
    3. Create and publish HTML5 Canvas documents in Animate
    4. Creating and publishing a WebGL document
    5. How to package applications for AIR for iOS
    6. Publishing AIR for Android applications
    7. Publishing for Adobe AIR for desktop
    8. ActionScript publish settings
    9. Best practices - Organizing ActionScript in an application
    10. How to use ActionScript with Animate
    11. Accessibility in the Animate workspace
    12. Writing and managing scripts
    13. Enabling Support for Custom Platforms
    14. Custom Platform Support Overview
    15. Working with Custom Platform Support Plug-in
    16. Debugging ActionScript 3.0
    17. Enabling Support for Custom Platforms
  8. Exporting and Publishing
    1. How to export files from Animate CC
    2. OAM publishing
    3. Exporting SVG files
    4. Export graphics and videos with Animate
    5. Publishing AS3 documents
    6. Export animations for mobile apps and game engines
    7. Exporting Sounds
    8. Best practices - Tips for creating content for mobile devices
    9. Best practices - Video conventions
    10. Best practices - SWF application authoring guidelines
    11. Best practices - Structuring FLA files
    12. Best Practices to optimize FLA files for Animate
    13. ActionScript publish settings
    14. Specify publish settings for Animate
    15. Exporting projector files
    16. Export Images and Animated GIFs
    17. HTML publishing templates
    18. Working with Adobe Premiere Pro and After Effects
    19. Quick share and publish your animations
  9. Troubleshooting
    1. Fixed issues
    2. Known issues

 

Overview

Adobe Animate documents divide lengths of time into frames similar to films. Frames are at the core of any animation, dictating each segment of time and movement. The total number of frames in your movie, and the speed at which they are played back, together determine your movie's overall length. A brief description of some of the concepts on frames is explained below for your reference.

Frames

In the timeline, you work with the frames to organize and control the content of your document. You place frames in the timeline in the order you want the objects in the frames to appear in your finished content.

Keyframe

A keyframe is a frame where a new symbol instance appears in the timeline. A keyframe can also be a frame that includes ActionScript® code to control some aspect of your document. You can also add a blank keyframe to the timeline as a placeholder for symbols you plan to add later or to explicitly leave the frame blank.

Using keyframe you can set a position, add anchor points, actions, comments and so on. 

Span

Span-based frame selection allows you to select a range of frames between two keyframes with a single click.

Static frame span

In static frame span, same content is available for entire duration of span. You can use this type of span whenever you need to display graphics for fixed amount of time. 

Tweened frame span

In tweened frame span, the content changes within the span for each frame. You can use this type of span for animations. 

Add or insert frames in the timeline

  • To insert a new frame, select Insert > Timeline > Frame (F5).

  • To create a keyframe, select Insert > Timeline > Keyframe (F6), or right-click (Windows) or Control‑click (Macintosh) the frame where you want to place a keyframe, and select Insert Keyframe from the context menu.

  • To create a blank keyframe, select Insert > Timeline > Blank Keyframe, or right-click (Windows) or Control‑click (Macintosh) the frame where you want to place the keyframe, and select Insert Blank Keyframe from the context menu.

Effects on frames

The filters and color effects used to be applicable only to movie clips and graphic symbols. With the advanced layers, filters and color effects can now be applied to a selective frame(s), which in turn applies to all its content including shapes, drawing objects, graphic symbols, and so on. Layer effects can also be tweened using classic, shape, and IK tweens across frames.

For more information, see Applying layer effects. 

Select and label frames in the timeline

You can select frames by using two methods provided in Animate. You can also label frames to organize its contents. 

Animate offers two different methods for selecting frames in the timeline. In frame-based selection (the default), you select individual frames in the timeline. In span-based selection, the entire frame sequence, from one keyframe to the next, is selected when you click any frame in the sequence. 

Select frames in the timeline

Single or multiple frames selection

  • To select one frame, click the frame. 

  • To select multiple contiguous frames, drag the cursor over the frames, or Shift-click additional frames.

  • To select multiple non-contiguous frames, Control‑click (Windows) or Command-click (Macintosh) additional frames.

  • To select all frames in the timeline, select Edit > Timeline > Select All Frames.

Span based frames selection

As a prerequisite for span based selection, you can specify span-based selection in Animate timeline by clicking the hamburger icon at the upper-right corner and selecting Span Based Selection menu item. 

  • To select a whole span of frames (motion tween or inverse kinematics) click on frame. 
  • To select multiple spans, click on each of them while holding the Shift key.

Label frames in the timeline

You can label frames in the timeline as a way of helping organize its contents. You can also label a frame in order to be able to refer to that frame in ActionScript by its label. That way, if you rearrange the timeline and move the label to a different frame number, the ActionScript will still refer to the frame label and will not have to be updated.

Frame labels can only be applied to keyframes. A best practice is to create a separate layer in the timeline to contain your frame labels. Using separate layer for labels enables you to organize content and keyframes better. 

To add a frame label:

  1. Select the frame you wish to label in the timeline.

  2. With the frame selected, enter the label name in the Label section of the Property inspector. Press Enter or Return.

  3. As a best practice, create a separate layer for all labels in the frame. 

Enable span-based frame selection

Span-based frame selection allows you to select a range of frames between two keyframes with a single click.

  1. Click the hamburger icon at the upper-right corner of the timeline section. 

    A pop-up menu appears. 

  2. Select the Span Based Selection from the pop-up menu. 

Distribute to keyframes

Distribute to keyframes option allows you to distribute multiple objects (Symbols and Bitmaps) on the stage to individual kyframes each.

  1. Select multiple objects of any layer on the stage.

  2. Right-click anywhere on stage, and select Distribute to KeyFrames.

Copy, paste, delete, or move a frame or frame sequence

A keyframe and the span of regular frames that follow it are known as a keyframe sequence. The timeline can contain any number of keyframe sequences.

To copy or paste a frame or frame sequence, do one of the following:

Copy or paste a frame or frame sequence

  • Select the frame or sequence and select Edit > Timeline > Copy Frames. Select the frame or sequence that you want to replace, and select Edit > Timeline > Paste Frames.

  • Alt‑drag (Windows) or Option-drag (Macintosh) a keyframe to the location where you want to copy it.

Delete a frame or frame sequence

Delete a frame, frame sequence or a keyframe

Select the frame or sequence and select Edit > Timeline > Remove Frame, or right-click (Windows) or Control‑click (Macintosh) the frame or sequence and select Remove Frame from the context menu.

Surrounding frames remain unchanged.

Delete keyframe

Select the keyframe and select Edit > Timeline > Clear Keyframe, or right-click (Windows) or Control‑click (Macintosh) the keyframe and select Clear Keyframe from the context menu.

Move a keyframe or frame sequence

Select a keyframe or frame sequence and then drag the keyframe or sequence to the desired location.

Change the length of a static framesequence

Control-drag (Windows) or Command-drag (Macintosh) the beginning or ending frame of the span to the left or right.

To change the length of a frame-by-frame animation sequence, see Create frame-by-frame animations.

Preview frame content in the timeline

Choose Preview from the timeline panel options menu at the upper-right corner of the timeline panel.

In each keyframe of the timeline, you can view a thumbnail preview of the items in the keyframe.

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