Howdy everyone! Ever tried doing a shape tween in flash which just doesn’t seem to come out right. Well, if you have faced this problem before, today I’ll show you a possible way to troubleshoot your shape tweening, using shape hints.

Do shape tween without shape hints

1. click frame#1

2. create rectangle in frame#1, using rectangle tool

3. click frame#40

4. press F6, to insert keyframe

5. select sub-selection tool

6. click to select the upper left corner of rectangle, and click and drag this corner to up and to the right, till it is centered above what was once the center of the rectangle

7. click to select the upper right corner of the object, and press Delete, to delete that corner, so the end result is a triangle

8. click frame#1

9. in properties panel, select Shape from the Tween dropdown box, to do a shape tween from rectangle (keyframe in frame#1) to triangle (keyframe in frame#40)

note: press Ctrl + Enter, and you should see the in between frames, don’t look quite right, so we will now use shape hints, to help Flash to control how the in-between frames will look like

Add shape hints

1. select frame#1 (i.e. start keyframe)

2. select View > Show Shape Hints

3. select Modify > Shape > Add Shape Hint, to add shape hint a

note: initially shape hint is red in color, because shape hint has not been set in position in start AND end keyframes yet

4. click and drag shape hint a to upper left corner of rectangle, to set shape hint a’s start keyframe position

5. select frame#40 (i.e. end keyframe)

6. click and drag shape hint a to middle of triangle, on the left side, to set shape hint a’s end keyframe position

note: once shape hint has been set in position in both start AND end keyframes, the shape hint in end keyframe will be green in color, and the corresponding shape hint in start keyframe will be yellow in color

7. select frame#1

8. select Modify > Shape > Add Shape Hint, to add shape hint b

9. click and drag shape hint b to upper right corner of rectangle, to set shape hint b’s start keyframe position

10. select frame#40 (i.e. end keyframe)

11. click and drag shape hint b to middle of triangle, on the right side, to set shape hint b’s end keyframe position

note: shape hints are used to indicate where a certain point on a shape in start keyframe should correspond to a point on a shape in the end keyframe for a shape tween