Fireworks CS4 Resources

Animation basics

In Adobe® Fireworks®, you can create animated graphics with banner ads, logos, and cartoons that move. You create animation by assigning properties to objects called animation symbols. The animation of a symbol is broken down into states, which contain the images and objects in the animation. You can have more than one symbol in an animation, and each symbol can have a different action. Different symbols can contain differing numbers of states. The animation ends when all the action of all the symbols is complete.

You can apply settings to the symbol to gradually change the content of successive states. You can make a symbol appear to move across the canvas, fade in or out, get bigger or smaller, or rotate. Because you can have multiple symbols in a single file, you can create a complex animation in which different types of action occur all at once.

You change optimization and export settings in the Optimize panel to control how your file is created. Fireworks can export animations as animated GIF or Adobe Flash® SWF files. You can also import Fireworks animations directly into Flash for further editing.