Motion Paths and Spatial Interpolation

When a position-animated element is selected in Animate mode, its motion path appears overlaid on the canvas — a dotted curve showing the trajectory the element travels.

Each keyframe appears as a dot on the path. The dots between keyframes show the interpolated positions at regular time intervals. Widely spaced dots indicate fast movement; closely spaced dots indicate slow movement.

Each keyframe position on the motion path has spatial bezier handles that control the curvature of the path at that point. These are distinct from the temporal easing handles in the graph editor:

• -Spatial handles — control the shape of the trajectory (the curve of the path)
• -Temporal handles — control how fast the element travels along the trajectory

Editing spatial handles:

• -Click a keyframe dot on the motion path
• -Drag the handles (small circles connected by lines) to change the curve into and out of that point

• -Auto-Bezier: FlashFX automatically sets handle directions and lengths to produce smooth, continuous curves through keyframe positions. Handles adjust automatically as keyframe positions are moved.
• -Continuous Bezier: Handles are aligned (colinear) but their lengths are set manually. The path remains smooth but the curve shapes are manually controlled.
• -Broken Bezier (Corner): The two handles at a keyframe point are independent. Allows sharp direction changes in the motion path.

By default, keyframes are "pinned" at specific time positions. The motion path may pass through them at varying speeds.

Converting keyframes to Roving type removes their time-pinning. The animation engine redistributes the timing automatically so the element travels at constant speed along the path.

This is particularly useful for path animation where the curve has varying tightness — without roving, tight curves are traversed quickly and loose curves slowly (because the path distance per frame differs between curve shapes).