Using Onion Skins to Create Animation

• 1). Start a new Flash 8 movie or open an existing movie in which you want to create a frame-by-frame animation.
  
  
• 2). Create a new layer in the Timeline panel for your animation like this: Click the "Insert Layer" button, the first button in the lower-left corner of the panel.
  
  
• 3). Right-click the first frame in the new layer where you want your animation to begin, and then choose "Insert Keyframe" from the pop-up menu.
  
  
• 4). Draw the object you want to animate on the Stage. This is the first phase, or frame, of the animation.
  
  
• 5). Go to the Timeline panel and click the "Onion Skin" button. This is the second button directly below the frames in the panel.
  
  
• 6). Right-click the next frame in your animation layer (the frame directly to the right of the frame where you started the animation) and choose "Insert Blank Keyframe."
  
  
• 7). Flash displays a grayed out version of the first frame on the Stage. This is what Onion Skin does---shows you previews of the previous frames to help you draw the current frame.
  
  
• 8). Draw the next phase of your animation.
  
  
• 9). Repeat the process of inserting blank keyframes and drawing the next phases of your animation until you have completed it.