How to Use Frames and Keyframes in Flash?

Flash is one of the best animating tools which has been used in various projects including movies and games. It has a lot of features that make the animation process faster and easier. There are a number of versions of flash available in the market but the current version is known as Adobe Animate which was launched in 2021 and has cloud support. One can use flash for personal as well as for commercial production after purchasing it from Adobe's official site. Animation can be done in flash using traditional as well as modern animation styles. Including code for various purposes or tasks is also possible in flash as it allows code insertion. It uses vector-based style for its objects which means objects pertain to their quality when zoomed so these are zoom independent.

Frames

The frame can be defined as a blank paper on which one needs to create a figure having a position. Similarly, on the second frame, another figure will be created, and following this principle, a lot of figures will be drawn on different frames. These frames are then run one by one and each figure will be visible which will give an effect of motion, that's how animations are made. To make animations 24 frames per second are run to get smooth animations. 30 frames per second can also be used for more smooth animations.

Frames are represented as rectangular boxes on the timeline. Frame pointer points to the current frame one is working on.

Frames are considered as the soul of any animation as these frames are used to organize and control the complete animation. The numbering of frames has been given already for guidance. 24.00 fps has been written below the timeline which means by default 24 frames are running in a second to give animation effect. 

Inserting a frame on the timeline

To insert a new frame click on any rectangular box on the timeline and right-click, a list will appear with different options just click on insert frame.

After clicking on the insert frame below change will be seen in the timeline it means frames have been inserted till this frame.

The shortcut key to insert a frame is F5. 

Moving a Frame

The frame can be moved to the left or right by inserting or deleting a frame. For example, to move a frame to right, add new frames which are exact copies of the same frame, this can be done by pressing the F5 key which will insert the new frame exactly to the old one and hence move the frame to the right. To move a frame to left just delete the frames in the middle. 

Deleting a frame

A frame can be deleted by selecting the frame and right-clicking on the selected frame, a list will be appeared to choose the delete frame.

A frame can also be deleted by pressing the Shift + F5 key.

Keyframes

Keyframes are the frames that contain figure or symbol which is different from the previous ones. This is the part that makes the animation like making a walk cycle by giving some specific keyframes while other frames are helping in making animation smoother. Keyframes have a significant difference from one another while frames do not have much difference in them. Keyframes are represented by a black-filled or solid black circle on a frame.

Inserting a keyframe on the timeline

To insert a new keyframe on the timeline click on any rectangular box on the timeline and right-click, a list will appear with different options just click on Insert Keyframe.

After clicking on Insert Keyframe below change will be seen in the timeline it means the keyframe has been inserted.

But this is a blank keyframe because it does not have any drawing on it once something will be drawn on the blank keyframe it will be represented by a circle filled with black color.

So let's draw a line on the drawing screen and see the keyframe changing from white to black.

The shortcut key to insert a Keyframe is F6. 

Deleting a keyframe

A keyframe can be deleted by selecting the keyframe and right-clicking on it, a list with different options will appear, click on a clear keyframe to delete that keyframe.

The shortcut key to delete a keyframe is Shift + F6.

Blank Keyframes

Keyframes also have blank keyframes which is being represented by an empty circle on a frame. These blank frames can be added to make some figure or drawing, once a drawing or figure has been created then these blank frames become keyframes.

Inserting a blank keyframe on the timeline

To insert a blank keyframe on the timeline click on any rectangular box on the timeline and right-click, a list will appear with different options just click on Insert Blank Keyframe.

After clicking on Insert Blank Keyframe below change will be seen in the timeline it means Blank Keyframe has been inserted.

The shortcut key to insert a Blank Keyframe is F7.