Too much SEPY…….
May 3rd, 2007 by 
Jaap Kooiker
The last couple of years my work with flash is more or less occupied by programming actionscript. I’ve learned to do everything with actionscript, from working on and with the Custom MVC framework we have at TFE, to tweening, using the drawing API and so on. Today a colleague of mine reminded me of the power (and flaws) of old school timeline tweening and masking. Since I totally shut my mind of this “old school” stuff I needed some convincing, so I tried it out.
Turns out very nice results can be achieved in a simple way.
Since I build more like applications, I always had much respect for the websites with trees or flowers growing from scratch. Now I have made a simple but (as I might say) nice example of what can be done with simple timeline tweening and masking.
Check it out : Old school tweening and let me know what you think of it.
So there you have it… when used right, timeline tweening can also be cool.
Jaap Kooiker
Posted in Did you know?, Experiments, Flash 8, Interaction Design, Open source | 
May 3rd, 2007 at 8:01 pm
Hey- I’ve been thinking along those same lines recently. I’d taken to doing just about everything in AS including the drawing of assets and all the rest. With CS3 out I’m beginning to discover the benefits of the tools that do exist there.
I have to keep telling myself “There’s nothing wrong with using the tools… There’s nothing wrong with using the tools…”
BTW: Do you know the proper term to describe the sort of embellishments you are tweening in your example? Is there a term to describe those design elements?
May 3rd, 2007 at 8:22 pm
Hey Joseph,
As you said, “there’s nothing wrong with using those tools”. We just shouldn’t overuse them and try to find a balance between actionscript tweening and drawing on stage.
The thing I used for the tweening is actually a font I got from a friend, the font is called Flower Ornaments.
May 4th, 2007 at 6:59 am
That’s really cool, I need to introduce this into Flex!! Keep up the good work!!
May 4th, 2007 at 8:17 am
[…] This is the result I ended up with for now and it inspired Jaap to do something alike. Date: May 4th, 2007 · Comments RSS · Tags: Flash · Flex · General · animation […]
May 4th, 2007 at 1:00 pm
I actually wrote about this this past weekend too… http://visualrinse.com/2007/04/29/an-ode-to-the-timeline/
Just reflecting on the use of Timeline vs. Code based tweening.
May 4th, 2007 at 5:42 pm
I’m glad you rediscovered timeline tweening to Chad!