A flash dilemma

**Egg Bramhill** · 17 December 2009, 10:33 PM

Larry, the rotate command is a very useful command. Here's what the Help file states:

The Rotate command
To force the rotation to be around any other point you can use a special keyword "rotate" appended to the front of the object name. Or you can use "rotate +" to force the rotation to go clockwise or "rotate -" to make it go counter clockwise.

To take the simple two keyframes animation example shown on the previous page, where the hour hand needs to move from 12 o'clock to 8 o'clock. If you name the hand object "rotate + hand", you'll get an animation showing the clock's hand moving clockwise. If you name it "rotate - hand", then the hand will rotate counter clockwise.

If there is no rotate command, then the tween takes the shortest direct path between the object on one keyframe to the next, rotating around its center. With a "rotate" command on the object name, it calculates the actual rotation point, which in the above example is the "large end" of the hand.

Note: It's not possible to rotate an object by a full 360° between keyframes if the rotation point is not the center. For example, to do a full rotation of the clock hands in the above example, you would need to create an intermediate keyframe.

**wizard509** · 18 December 2009, 03:10 AM

Thanks Javier you fixed it! That's what I was trying to do.
Thanks also to Egg, I had looked at those help files but somehow it just didn't sink in. Thank you all for your help.