In the last tutorial, we began building our marketing video for the Children's Storybook Template Series iBooks Author^R project. We used the Motion Path Behavior to move the text on to the screen. Now we will use the keyframe animation to drop and bounce our purple spider character in to the scene and animate the shooting stars.

At this point, we have the spider and all the shooting star graphics locked on the Image layer in the Layers panel. Let's unlock the layer, turn on the visibility and set the spider in its start position of the animation. There are several ways to make an object bounce in Motion. We will create a simple bounce using keyframes.

As this animation will occur as the text moves on to the screen, it will start at frame one.

1. To position the spider in its start position, move the spider graphic above, centered and outside of the top of the screen.
   
   
2. With the spider still selected on Frame 1, add a keyframe to the Position parameter in the Inspector - Properties - Transform.
   
   We want the spider to bounce just after the text arrives at the center of the screen at 1:00 sec.
   
   
3. Move the Playhead to 1:05 and drag the spider down to just above the text. In the Inspector, add a new Keyframe to the Position parameter.
   
   
4. For the bounce upward, lets move the playhead to 1:10 sec and move the spider upward just a little. Add a keyframe to the Position parameter.
   
   
5. Let's complete the bounce. At the 1:15 sec, move the spider to just above the text and add a Keyframe to the Position parameter.
   
   

Now we can start animating the shooting stars. We will start the animation with the center star, just after the spider's bounce. So that we can see the stars, let's turn off the visibility of the spider.

To create the illusion of the star rising or shooting on to the screen, we will change the Scale parameter. Our first step is to move the Anchor Point for the star graphic from the center to the bottom of the star ray. Now we can reduce the Scale of the ray to zero. When we animate the ray to enlarge to 100%, it will appear to be rising and expanding. We will also reduce the opacity of the graphic to zero at the beginning of the animation and quickly increase it to 100%.

1. Move the Playhead to 1:15 sec and select the center star layer.
   
   
2. We don't want the star to be on the screen until this frame, so drag the left edge of the star's object bar to the 1:15 second frame.
   
   
3. Drag the green and red arrows on the Anchor Point tool (next under the Transform tool in the menu) downward and sideways to move the Anchor Point to the bottom of the ray.
   
   
4. Drag the slider control for the Scale parameter to 0% and click the Keyframe icon on the right to add a Keyframe.
   
   
5. Move the Playhead to the 1:25 sec and increase the Scale to 100%.
   
   Now we can work on the Opacity parameter.
   
   
6. Move the Playhead back to 1:15 sec and set the Opacity slider (Inspector - Properties - Blending) to zero. Add a Keyframe.
   
   
7. Move the Playhead to 1:17 sec and set the Opacity back to 100%. Add a Keyframe.
   
   

Test the animation and save your work. Repeat the previous steps for the other 10 shooting stars, staggering the start of each animation along the Timeline. For another effect, do not stagger the start of each animation but start all star animations on 1:15 sec frame.

Back | Continue

Finished Project