Smashed Text

Text effects are a popular use for Flash. Here's how to make text fly apart in shards in a 'smashed window' sort of way.

Start a new movie. Use Insert > Frame to put in about 20 frames.
Type in some text. Select the text and break the text apart (Modify > Break Apart). This converts the text to filled shapes.
Draw lines in a contrasting color to define the breaks. Try not to leave any tiny pieces, and keep the number of pieces relatively small, or you'll be making a lot of work for yourself later

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The next step is to make each piece into a separate symbol, and to place each of these symbols in a separate layer.

Select a piece and press F8 to create a Graphic symbol. Insert a new layer into the timeline and cut and paste the symbol to the empty layer. Repeat for all shapes. Make sure there in only 1 shape per layer.

This is the tedious part. Sorry.



Insert keyframes in all the layers at around frame 20.
The trick here is to highlight the whole column of cells at frame 20, and then press F6 to insert all the keyframes at once.

With the timeline at frame 20, move the symbols about. Try to arrange them so that each one appears to have moved 'outwards' from the centre.

Now select all your symbols. Scale them up (all together) to give the illusion of 'flying out'. Then rotate the shapes one at a time, some clockwise and some anticlockwise, by various amounts.

Double-click on each shape to bring up its properties, and use the Color Effect to set the Alpha to 0%. The shapes should now be virtually invisible.

Finally, select the first frame of each level (highlight the whole column of Frame 1), and turn on Motion Tweening (right-click the frame and select 'Create Motion Tween'.

This should create a smooth transition of size, position, rotation and opacity (all at once!)

The End.

Here's the finished result...



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